[RELEASE] Upd:ZZBBS - New ships and updates 27-06-2014

[Tichy]

This shipset is beautyful! I was just thinking that we miss a more simple/abstract looking shipset alsonside Griff's ArchElite.
Do you plan to also do a complete replacement of the core ships?

That nice oxp would benefit from such a facelift.

I like when i read this from you

[dertien]

@Duggan and @Tichy

Thank you, glad you enjoy it

Yes, I am planning on redoing all ships from Oolite, but I will be updating this oxp one ship at the time, so you won't have to wait for the whole pack and you can all enjoy or playtest the newbies as soon as they are finished.

@Spara

Thanks. If you would like to use the ships in other oxp's, feel free to do so.

When they are all done, I might need some help with a little scripting. I like a lot what smivs has done with the navigational flashers in his shipset (red and green). Furthermore Griff has done great work with the cockpit lighting on and off script when his ships are in dock and in space. I would like to combine both scripts into one if that can be done and get ships to blink their nav flashers when near the system station and have the flashers off when they are transiting from the witchpoint towards the station. But that is, like I said planned as icing on the cake when the shipset is done.

Also adding rotating engines for the imperial courier, trader and explorer will be done at the end.

Since my exams have all gone well and I am a certified aircraft technician now, I can dedicate my upcoming week(s) to Oolite, while I am looking for a job.

I have changed the look of the Puma Clipper a little since it deviated a bit from the original FE2 ship, it is now flatter, different engines and not so "thunderbirds are go" like and nose is less pointy.

Screens included:




Do not mind the paint scheme on this one, it will have 3 colors and grey/black/white. This scheme is just for UV mapping reasons.

[Duggan]

The Puma clipper is looking good dertien

[dertien]

What's big, fat, slow and colourful ? Right, it's the Puma Clipper:

Screenshots:






Download on the first post

If you're having difficulty finding it as an NPC, please play with the "roles" value in the shipdata.plist file for the Puma Clipper NPC. I will look into this when all ships are done. Ship is available at shipyards for nothing less than 1 million credits.

And as always, have fun

[dertien]

Coming up next, the biggest and slowest of them all; the flying brick, aka the Panther Clipper

Screens:




Laterz

13

[Redspear]

Those engine grills look (...I'm so sorry ...) 'grate' ...

Back to serious mode: I really like them and the ones on your Krait model too

The recessed engines on the Puma look very impressive in those screenshots

[dertien]

All we need now is some thargoids to start the BBQ. And maybe a small plasma accelerator...

[Redspear]

The first EvilJuice is on me

Wolf Cutlet anyone?

[spara]

I have a small (?) request for you Dertien.

Since Wings simply refuses to work for me, could you please make a puma clipper texture with outlines so that I can try to retexture it?

[dertien]

@ Spara

But of course, I will need to remap-UV the Puma (probably using Projection Normal method), so it is easier to make textures (flat panels and such) since I just broke it up in several parts to color it. I will then send you this file with outlines and an untesselated version of the Puma in Wings 3D format so you can load it up and have a look at your work there.

Do you know your way around the Outliner a bit in Wings ? (window-> outliner ) it contains the materials little squares with an M in them, and the bitmaps (if you import them) you can then "pick up the image" (right click bitmap in outliner) and then - right click the material (in this case bbs_pumaclipper_auv) and then drop picked object as a diffuse map.

It will then show the imported bitmap on the 3d object in the window.

Let me dig those up and I will send them to you when they are ready.

[spara]

@ Spara

But of course, I will need to remap-UV the Puma (probably using Projection Normal method), so it is easier to make textures (flat panels and such) since I just broke it up in several parts to color it. I will then send you this file with outlines and an untesselated version of the Puma in Wings 3D format so you can load it up and have a look at your work there.

Do you know your way around the Outliner a bit in Wings ? (window-> outliner ) it contains the materials little squares with an M in them, and the bitmaps (if you import them) you can then "pick up the image" (right click bitmap in outliner) and then - right click the material (in this case bbs_pumaclipper_auv) and then drop picked object as a diffuse map.

It will then show the imported bitmap on the 3d object in the window.

Let me dig those up and I will send them to you when they are ready.

Sounds cool. Last time I messed around with Wings3d, it kept on spitting error when I wanted to save the UV map. Did not find a solution that time and sort of ditched the whole modelling thing, before I even got started with it. Got to retry it sometime. Stuff like that needs time though...

[dertien]

That usually amounts to an isolated vertex or a screwed up face that messes with the UV mapping process. What I usually do then is select the faces I know are correct (either manually, or by same material) and extract them. That extraction gets saved as a seperate mesh. All seperate meshes together get combined in a new Wings file and I delete the source file with the error in it. Simple and effective. That produces a new mesh I then UV-map without errors.

Spara, you've got a PM !

[dertien]

Panther Clipper done (Player ship only)

New ingame screenshots:

Too bad the animations cannot be made to stop, so the engines could turn down when the speed decreases like in the old school one.







Download from first page.

[cim]

Too bad the animations cannot be made to stop, so the engines could turn down when the speed decreases like in the old school one.

If the engines are sub-entities, then this could be done with a frame callback to reorientate them as needed. It might need to wait for 1.79, though, so you can reposition the exhaust plumes to track the ends as well.

[dertien]

That's good news; they are not subentities at the moment, but that is something that can be arranged quickly, thanks for the reply cim.

What would also be cool is that the engines on the imperials would spin faster if speed were increased, could this be done as well ?