Eye Candy vs. Imagination

[Lestradae]

Perhaps:

1. Difficulty ("Competent+")

2. Galaxy(-ies) where OXP is active

3. Flavour (Elite pure, Star Wars, bla ...)

4. Quality (From Broad Consensus that it`s really good & rather bug-free like Random Hits to really buggy and questionable like *insert personal antithesis OXP here*)

By the way, just to clarify my little rant further up the thread: I also think that the "standard Oolite" without OXPs already is the "community version" and the smallest common denominator - the OXP`s are imo for personal choice what one want`s in and what not.

What disturbed me was extending the "keep it simple content- and texturewise" view into the OXP realm.

Just my 2cents ...

L

[Wolfwood]

This thread seems to "thread" a lot, but I also have to comment on something that was said above about simplicity (retro) vs. complexity (modern).

Basically, I think that the retro idealism is a bit too prevalent in the Oolite development at the moment. Just because Elite was great when it first came out doesn't mean that we cannot improve upon it now that we are making Oolite with today's technology.

Perhaps part of the reason to keep it simple is to make it easier for people to make .OXPs. If the Oolite started supporting more multifaceted models (and the engine ran more quickly with them installed), it would be harder for new modders to compete with more talented 3D modellers (as far as it comes to ship designs).

However, this is not a reason to hold the progress at bay. In my opinion, the perfect Oolite would have beautifully coloured planets and even full solar systems and complex and beautiful ship models (that would still look like the originals, please), while still retaining the same gameplay qualities that we have today.

Keep the principles simple, but let the world develop.

[Captain Hesperus]

Keep the principles simple, but let the world develop.

Indeed. I mean, Elite *was* ahead of it's time, at it's time and it's simplicity of design, yet totally immersive and addicting gameplay have ensure that it has kept on going through the past, what, 20-odd years. Even today, with the modern space flight/combat/trading games, there is still a strong following of a game that when it was released fitted on a single floppy disk.

With Oolite, great textures and models are just the creamy topping on what is already a pretty tasty pudding.

Captain Hesperus
Hmmmmm, creamy topping......

[Kaks]

Well, speaking as a 'keep it simple' person, I've got nothing against people making really amazing things with Oolite, whether it's graphics or number of planets or anything else.

I've been slighly paranoid about simplicity of late, it's true. It's probably because I've spent the last 3 weeks figuring out what's going on inside a very complex lot of OXPs - the actual code inside Oolite is easier to figure out than some of Charlie's creations. But that's a separate issue...

[edit]I'm only against having two separate versions of Oolite, in this case 'plain Oolite' versus 'pretty Oolite'.[/edit]
Of course, Oolite is an open source project. Anyone can fork the project at any time and create something else, with whatever graphic enhancements included as standard. Pagroove's post made me think along those lines, and I had to say I don't particularly like the idea.

To go back to the original topic, if Sung is happy for his textures to be distributed as an oxp, I'd be more than happy to try them out!

Of the other ideas mentioned, I'd like to see both a voting system & a rating system on the wiki! Can we have them, can we?

just the creamy topping on what is already a pretty tasty pudding.

Hmm, pudding!

Could I have cream with that, please?

[Disembodied]

In my opinion, the perfect Oolite would have beautifully coloured planets and even full solar systems and complex and beautiful ship models (that would still look like the originals, please), while still retaining the same gameplay qualities that we have today.

Keep the principles simple, but let the world develop.

I agree, although personally I find myself perfectly happy with the built-in ships and textures. Fancier models would be nice -- and again, I agree, these should be like the originals: essentially geometric, with convex bodies, perhaps with some twiddly bits around the engines etc. as per the Dream Tean Anaconda... I think this provides a design "philosophy" and makes the ships look like the end-products of physical constraints (which, in a way, they are). Seagoing ships, for example, or aeroplanes, have to conform to certain basic design rules, and I think it's no bad thing that Oolite's ships should have to do the same. (OXPs excepted, of course -- people are free to make and install whatever stuff they like!)

But ultimately for me it's in elements of the gameplay where I'd like to see more complexity -- and here I'd be perfectly prepared to break with Elite tradition (or rather, if I'm honest, to have some other, smarter people break with Elite tradition for me). I think the more interesting developments will come in expanding player options, in making a more dynamic ooniverse (not, actually, that it's not pretty damn dynamic at the moment), in increasing the number of things to do and how to do them. Although that said, I do find myself enjoying the same old same old, for hours on end, on a regular basis.

[JensAyton]

Basically, I think that the retro idealism is a bit too prevalent in the Oolite development at the moment. Just because Elite was great when it first came out doesn't mean that we cannot improve upon it now that we are making Oolite with today's technology.

I assure you that “the development” has no objection in principle against providing the tools to make Oolite more complex, more graphically intensive etc. It’s mostly a matter of development resources.

Currently, the focus is to actually release a stable version (originally projected for the beginning of last summer, as you may recall) with a reasonably complete JavaScript scripting model (allowing for far greater flexibility in writing more far-reaching and complex scripts) and shader support (allowing for everything from subtle graphical improvements to complex weirdness only hinted at by Griff’s animated station and the Shady Billboards example¹). Along the way, the game has become more stable in most parts, performs better, and has better graphics out of the box (at around 1.67 or 1.68, additive blending improved various effects; since 1.70 everything is slightly shiny, and this can be easily adjusted per material; I wasn’t planning to point this out, but in 1.71 a few objects will have specular and glow maps when shaders are enabled). It also has higher polygon and vertex limits on ships, while using less memory for the smaller ones.

I have some quite far-reaching ideas about increasing the potential complexity of ships. They won’t be in the next stable release, because we have to finish it some time. They may never be done, because I can’t work on Oolite forever. But I assure you that it’s not conservatism holding me back.

However, I’m leery of changing the core game content too much. Oolite should be a lot like Elite out of the box, and that includes apparent simplicity. Even so, if there was a complete and consistent replacement ship set with the quality of ramon’s Dream Team Anaconda, I’d make it the default in a heartbeat and put the existing stuff in a “low-detail” OXP. :-) (See also.)

¹ We still haven’t seen a station with a flag waving incongruously in the “wind”, one of the standard silly things you can do with vertex shaders.

[RustiSwordz]

These are beautiful textures, on sungs main page theres a pic of the galaxy/planets all like his ships: high detail is ther a patch that can do that or is it just a pretty pic.

[Griff]

@RustiSwordz
they are mockups, you can't get planets like that in-game. If i remember correctly, i think Sung had done some work rendering out realistic planets for another space game, i'm a bit hazy on the details - i do remember that he was working on a new elite-like game called something like wolf365, but i can't seem to find any more info about it in google at the moment, maybe somebody else here will remember? I guess he must have used some of his renders as a backdrop for pasting screenshots of his oolite models onto.

Check out the "Deepspace - Life on the Frontier" remake https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t= ... =deepspace that is looking really fine as well!

[RustiSwordz]

Thanks mate

[Arexack_Heretic]

@James:

IIRC there is already an option to run Oolite in wireframe-only mode.



To throw in some of my currency into this conversation...
I like to make my models fairly simple and fit the oolite-standard, then again I just love the work Griff (and others) do.
I'd not like it too much if his work became the standard though...I'd not be able to compete!
Seriously the freedom to choose what to add and what not is what makes oolite so friendly to new modders and experienced modders alike.

[Commander McLane]

I'm sorry to put in another 0.2Cr of mine. The idea of simplicity seems to upset a lot of people; and the (more basic) idea that the essentials of gameplay happen in your head, not on the screen, seems straightforwardly un-understandable (didn't resonate at all in the following posts).

So it seems these days I find myself hopelessly in a minority position. So be it. I mentioned that I don't want to force my opinions onto other people. Although I do want to be free to express my opinions. And I would like to have them considered where they make sense.

*****

And there is a point I would like to raise. I admit that some of the new models with all their shaders and so on look pretty. It is eye-candy. What I would call for is more imagination about what to use the nice graphical effects for. Are there other uses for shader material, apart from ads? I have to admit that I do not really appreciate the RealWorld™ being stuffed with billboards and advertising everywhere. It's a form of pollution. When I'm playing my favourite game I am just not fond of being exposed to the same sort of pollution. So, when we design new types of stations or ships, or revise the old ones, can we do so without using the new graphical possibilities (almost) exclusively to fill every square inch of every structure with advertising? Even if all the single ads are very funny, in total all of it sums up to something which (to my eyes!) does not look very pleasing. Or don't we have any other vision of the future 1000 years ahead of us, than exaggerating our over-commercialized present?

[Arexack_Heretic]

heat-glow of alloys is a nice functional use of shaders... as an example of a shader linked to display outwardly an object property.

You are right it is eye-candy and most of the shader use is frivolous and excessive, but remember they are meant to show off the possibilities and above all, it's fun to make such garish stuff.

Thankfully OXPs are always optional.

[Roberto]

You're certainly not alone on the "gameplay happening inside your head" thing - and hopefully you'll appreciate what I'm doing with my Taranis OXP. Yes, I'm adding one or two little graphical touches (including, I'm afraid, a billboard - it is a corporation after all!), but most of my improvements are about making ships enter, exit and scurry around the system intelligently, so if you wish to, you can just sit and watch them and imagine what they're up to

As for ads... I don't think we're in a situation where they're being plastered all over everything yet. That would suck. However... I'd rather enjoy having a bustling-corporate-dystopia look (à la Blade Runner) in *some* systems. I think we should emulate Firefly in this respect: some planets could be backwater desert s***holes, some highly industrial, some futuristic in a classy way, some over-commercialised hellholes... It's a shame we can't have structures on the ground (yet? ), but there's certainly scope for adding other structures in a system besides regular stations and billboards - solar research stations, residential toruses...

I guess all this puts me outside the "simplicity" camp... but having all those different backdrops would hopefully fire the imagination!

[JensAyton]

The things I’m starting to use shaders for on the built-in models are: more realistic-looking materials (glossy paint, metallic sheen), glowing lights and windows, maybe a few self-illuminating spotlights. Oh, and glowing “Danger!” text on Q-mines. Not very imaginative, but not very garish, either. :-) I certainly don’t intend to plaster the Coriolis with billboards. (Side note: all of this can be done without affecting systems without shader support or with shaders turned off, so it’s not raising the bar for entry. Although I do intend to add support for glow maps in the non-shader path at some point.)

In between animated bar signs, Griff’s been working on more subtle material effects too. I’ve mentioned a few times that I really like Ramon’s Dream Team anaconda, because it’s a low-key, “boring” rust-bucket rendered very well. It’s the ability to have models like that in game, without reducing their materials to folded cardboard, that makes shaders worthwhile for me. (Yes, I did the shady billboard thing, but that was mostly to demonstrate the degree of additional detail shaders can give you, not the ultimate application of them.)

Note to self: get tangent space stuff working for 1.71 (for bump mapping and anisotripic reflection – ignore the maths, look at the pretty pictures); camera and lighting reforms don’t actually have to come first.

[JensAyton]

It's a shame we can't have structures on the ground (yet? )

Yeah… I don’t think so. The planets are too small as it is. Stick a few buildings on and they’ll look like a promotional pic for Spore.