[Nu11u5]

Once I have the blend file able to bake out textures I'll make sure you get a copy.

[majorvader111]

Once I have the blend file able to bake out textures I'll make sure you get a copy.

cheers

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Hey man hows it going with this?

How about a cherry red Incursus?



I've started from scratch using the Cycles renderer since it behaved better at processing the textures.  It can now load the original texture files directly so importing a model will be as simple as 1) open mesh, 2) load texture slots, 3) apply material, 4) pick colors.  I need to tidy up the node graphs next and then set up the baking routines to get the diffuse, specular, glow, environment, transparency, normal, etc maps that FSO can use.

Unfortunately, the models in FSO won't look quite that nice as it is using a simpler shading algorithm, but I'll do my best to represent it.  On the other hand, it's very close to what it looks like in Eve.  C'est la vie.

Oh man, that Incursus...early in, when the new rendering engine was first put on the test server, all of the Roden Shipyards hulls (including the Enyo) actually were bright metallic red, and Duvolle ships were gold (although not Amarr gold). It looked absolutely fantastic, and words cannot describe how disappointed I was when I saw that CCP changed both colors back to that disgusting muted brown-red that looks like it should be floating in a toilet.

Fire-engine red Incursus is sexy, though!

Anyway, I'm actually posting to let you know about something you might find interesting, if you haven't seen it yet: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5456007#post5456007

I don't know if it would be helpful to you, but it seems that CCP would like to make it easier for players to export models into Blender/Maya. This is for the purpose of player-made videos, but there might be something of interest to you in there as well.

[Nu11u5]

So I'm back to working on this a little bit again after a not-so-short break.  Currently I'm working on a set of Blender scripts that will read in the ship data files and add all of the sub-objects such as lights, decals, engine glows, and turret hardpoints, as well as the specific material information.  This should take a lot of time out of converting ships in the long run, and be useful to other mod makers as well *cough* Homeworld guys *cough*

When I'm "done" it should have a structure compatible with PCS2 and a minimum number of steps to perform manually.  I'm still learning as I go along so it will take a little time.



Also, since my last post I learned a lot more things about working with materials and had to rebuild my material node graphs.. twice.. but it's looking good now.

[Nu11u5]

I'm getting close to having the textures created fully automatically by pulling parameters out of the game database and then baking standard diffuse/spec/glow maps.  As hinted at before, I'm also pulling out information about turret hardpoint locations, lights, and decals.  When I'm done porting the Eve assets into a PCS2-ready format should be nice and easy.



Yep - those turrets are properly articulated (I think).  I just didn't have them created in PCS2 when I took the screencap.  Aren't they supposed to import automatically?

I need to figure out how to get objects with different UV textures into PCS2.  The turrets aren't rendering otherwise.


Something else I noticed is that the environment reflections aren't being tinted by the specular color.  I may look into getting the shader modified to do that as it would look a lot more realistic.

[majorvader111]

Well it looks like your going to be the life saver for eve mods 

[Nu11u5]

Well it looks like your going to be the life saver for eve mods 

If you can send me information about how ship models work in Homeworld I can start building my scripts and materials around that as well.  Stuff like the sub-object hierarchy and texture file usage.

[Nu11u5]

I shifted gears and started converting a few turrets.  I still need to bake the textures (I want to get that part automated very soon) so they can't be pulled into PCS2 just yet.  Am I even doing these right?

Dual Beam Laser


200mm Rail


Dual 650mm Autocannon


Light Missile Launcher


I don't remember if missile launchers can be articulated.  Also, I would like to get actual missile points on these if that is possible (why I didn't make firepoints yet)

[Nu11u5]

In case anyone is wondering, the reason I can get to properly pull out the materials is because CCP published the (normally binary) global data file in JSON format for use with their open source WebGL renderer.  I've got a buddy of mine over at Failheap-Challenge who is making a really cool visualizer with it.

http://failheap-challenge.com/showthread.php?18955-All-hail-Fillipp-Lord-and-Saviour-of-CCPWEBGL

So now I can parse through that in Blender with Python and change between official color schemes in an instant (as well as import all kinds of extra model data).  Adding automated texture baking will mean getting FSO-ready texture maps would take just seconds.

I've got a todo list...

Would anyone be able to look at tabling ships while I work on the models?  I don't know at what point it makes sense to start working on that.

Also, does FSO support an AI that will evade like a fighter but attack like a larger turreted ship?  That is the type of behavior we would need for Frigates and Destroyers and some Cruisers to get it to feel right.

[Nu11u5]

Automated baking is 90% of the way there.  Each one of these were generated in about 10 seconds between each other (minus screen cap time) straight from the exported game files.

Decals for faction emblems and squadron logos will happen eventually.  The data is there, but needs a bit more work to call it "automatic".  Eve uses some kind of UV projection volumes, so converting those into triangulated surfaces requires a lot of under-the-hood handling.  Right now it's about half automatic, half hand-cleaning, and all mess.

The "env" map is just a placeholder for now.  It's the reflectance values that will go into the specular alpha channel.  Plus, it's a faked value (calculated from the PBR roughness (I just invert it and knock it up to a rather high power right now) and it will get some tweaking once I can fly around the models in engine and inspect them.







Technically, I can render a ship in any official faction colors, and of course custom ones as well.  Any requests?

[majorvader111]

heres a basic understanding of the texture system for homeworld 2 http://www.moddb.com/mods/draconian-empire-mod/tutorials/homeworld-2-advanced-texturing-tutorial

[majorvader111]

hows it going man?

[Nu11u5]

hows it going man?

Patience

I figured out how to import all of the materials for parameterized subobjects like spotlight rays, forcefields, and light halos.



However, the only not ridiculous way to handle them is for each subobject to have it's own material.  If you want to bake them into textures (and not have a hundred textures per model) you will have to manually combine the materials since 95% of them are identical aside from a few minor and dismissable differences.

Also, related scrolling animations that exist in Eve - like dust floating through lights or the moving scan lines in the forcefields - will have to be manually keyframed and baked out if those are desired.

The final result will look something like this (note that the pointlight sprites are missing since Blender does not support sprites, though they will be carried over into PCS2).



Now to clean up the code, add reporting, and give it a UI.

[majorvader111]

oh shiny

[Nu11u5]

oh shiny

Just realize that the image is from Blender using the photo-realistic raytracer 'Cycles'.  That image took an hour to render at 4k resolution before I filtered and gamma corrected it.  It's just so I could show off the (Duvolle) Thany's assets

The models will look different in any game engine.  Though, I am pleased to say that modifying the unified shader to more accurately tint environment reflections  was an easy one-line change.  They are much less harsh now and I may actually bump up the reflection map values in the end.

Now what everyone here could use is a PBR shader, but that is something I am planning on not even remotely touching.

[BirdofPrey]

Carrier should be CreoDron.

Just sayin'


Sweet looking Thanny though

[Nu11u5]

Still working on turning my crappy script into a stable plugin.  I'll try to get an update post out as soon as I can, but I'm going to be away for the next several days.

In the mean time, enjoy this new trailer for Eve Valkyrie.  Seems like they will be incorporating some single player missions after all.

[Nu11u5]

Oh ****!  CCP announced just now at fanfest that hi-res textures are coming!

 

Pictures will be forthcoming.

[Nu11u5]

Being able to use these in the near future... 

[BirdofPrey]

Still working on turning my crappy script into a stable plugin.  I'll try to get an update post out as soon as I can, but I'm going to be away for the next several days.

In the mean time, enjoy this new trailer for Eve Valkyrie.  Seems like they will be incorporating some single player missions after all.

GAH.  I had tickets to fanfest this year too, then my work went out of business and vacation funds became find new job funds.  :(

Rather like that nice nod to EvE culture with the Fly Safe at the end of the startup sequence.

Oh ****!  CCP announced just now at fanfest that hi-res textures are coming!

 :)

Pictures will be forthcoming.

'bout goddamn time