RFC: Fancy classics

Ark · Post by **Ark** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:33 am

Griff wrote:
the first green cobra is the original texture.

Green?

Oh and
Griff more more !!!!!!!!!

Captain Tylor · Post by **Captain Tylor** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:01 am

Simon B - The sidewinder is my favourite of your ships so far

Griff - The Cobras look beautiful - I want one!!

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:14 pm

@Simon and Griff - I love you guys!

Griff - the new Cobby 3 is fantastic!!!

Scarecrow · Post by **Scarecrow** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:29 pm

Bloody hell, Griff. That's gorgeous.
It's one hell of a benchmark, too. I'm going to have to pull out all the stops just to even match that.

Crow

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:16 pm

thanks guys, but scaling down the screen shot & the moody shaders have helped make it look a lot better than it is. Actually, have any of you guys got any tips for the early stages of planning out a texture map? - i waste a lot of time on the very early stages, working too much on small areas that then get painted out because they look too busy or don't work when the whole ship gets painted with the same level of detail.

Captain Hesperus · Post by **Captain Hesperus** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:32 pm

Muh......

Sod Elite IV.
It just won't be in the same league as Oolite when (if!!) it's released. Good work to all the ship builders, skinners, shaders and, of course, core developers!

Captain Hesperus

Simon B · Post by **Simon B** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:41 pm

Disembodied wrote:
How about zebra stripes?

There are zebra stripes on the python-trader :) Many of the RangiWaka ships sport them too.

Preferred predator stuff for fighters this time - it's not just a matter of getting animal prints in there.

It's all looking good, though! I really like the shuttle. Maybe shuttles inbound to the station should be wingless (i.e. they've been retracted), and those heading down to the planet should have their wings extended?

Interesting idea - maybe I could have a model with folded wings?

ovvldc · Post by **ovvldc** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:11 pm

Griff wrote:

the first green cobra is the original texture, the pink one is being recoloured by the shader. if you've flattened everything into one layer, it's no problem, we can just paint out rough single channel 'masks' into another image for the shader to use to control the effect,

Griff, this ship makes me drool. You are the God of Texturing. I am going to buy a new MacBook so that I can enjoy this Cobra properly (well, for that and other reasons).

Very wishes,
Oscar

Simon B · Post by **Simon B** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:14 pm

Griff... good greif... that Cobra is what I'm looking for. How much of that is in the model and how much is the effects?

For me the Cobras are the scariest ships to redo since a. they've been done so many times before and b. they are iconic - the ship of the game.

I've been playing with a Mk1 - trying the same trick as the sidewinder. I have something that sort of works as a hooded cobra effect. Looking at your example, I've had another idea.

Models awaiting skins are

* escape capsule (I want a wee man model so I can have ejector seats on those fighters! But I'm worthless at people ... maybe aliens.) Anyway, it's a ball with three nozzels - so if you liked the tetrahedron, tough.

* Worm - now this is the family car to the Adder's lambourghini. It's a box with a nozzle.

* Transporter - I have made this as a central narrow ship with detachable cargo containers. Worked to keep the B5 influence at bay here. May yet be redesigned.

Fer de Lance is trouble - the models keep turning out like speed-boats. Oh greif! I know! - - -

Note: I am keeping the layers for all the ship textures - the final save is to xcf (GIMP) format (after undoing the "flatten image" first...) I'm not distributing them routinely, but anyone who wants a layer just ask - I'll post you the png.

So far the only ones not kept have been for the Python - since that was a mock-up - and that last Sidewinder - same reason. Annoying thing is that both textures work particularly well considering the lack of attention it got.

(BTW: thanks for all those shock-and-awe reactions ... I dreamed that sidewinder, and figured the mode would be easy ... argh no: it took 7 hours .... seven!!!!1!)

How about - pick a ship and work it up. Send me the changes, and I'll fiddle the code.

On my todo list for soon is a script to spawn a test ship by role so I can fly around it. I've seen one someplace... So far I've only tested the models by making a player ship and using the external views.

Simon B · Post by **Simon B** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:33 pm

Griff wrote:
thanks guys, but scaling down the screen shot & the moody shaders have helped make it look a lot better than it is.

Looking again - I think I can see how I'd go about much of that.

It looks like the large panel areas have been given the "insert + move-normal" treatment while the internal detail is done in the texture by applying a bumpmap.

At the wrong lighting angle, the dents become ridges - but used sparingly, the 3D effect of a bumpmapped image can be quite persistent. Some of the neolite models use bumpmapping for the cargo-bay doors, some have the join modelled in. Can you tell which is which?

Actually, have any of you guys got any tips for the early stages of planning out a texture map? - i waste a lot of time on the very early stages, working too much on small areas that then get painted out because they look too busy or don't work when the whole ship gets painted with the same level of detail.

That can happen - I do the broad strokes first, then gradually go smaller and smaller ... knowing where to stop is actually the hardest part. I also work out how much detail to go in each bit and scale the uv map accordingly.

But I have an easier job - these ships are designed to be played... so the practicalities of game-experience is the major limitation. Still, I'm gathering bits to create the occasional display model.

I'm an old model-aircraft - miniatures wargaming - geek. In both coses you paint to your purpose. If a model is intended for tabletop gaming or a diorama determines how you paint it.

ZygoUgo · Post by **ZygoUgo** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:18 pm

Sorry Simon, couldn't resist;

The Bored Transit Worm... Oh well, that wasted ten minutes

Seeing the standard just go up and up in this thread is great, MORE!
Now I'm wondering where Ramon's got to?

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:19 pm

@ ZygoUgo

here's the geometry of the cobra in the above shot

There are some bevelled polygons but a lot of the detailing is coming from the normal map. to make the normal map i ended up painting a greyscale 'heightmap' over the colour texture, then ran that through nvidia's photoshop plugin (there's a version for gimp available too) to generate a normal map, then put that into rendermonkey which is running Ahrumans normal map example shader to get the screenshot.
I've downloaded your oxp simon, i can't wait to have a look at all the cool ships, i'll pick one and make a normal map and run it through the cobra shader, it's going to look awesome!

ZygoUgo · Post by **ZygoUgo** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:34 pm

Can't wait to see that!
You are the master of normals indeed! It's cool to see your original before and after, it's suprising how clean it is next to the mapped version.

wackyman465 · Post by **wackyman465** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:41 pm

These are amazing. Griff, the cobra is incredible.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:43 pm

Simon B wrote:
The Neolite OXP alpha-2 is out. It contains all the models showcased above, and I've included the wavefront files as well, so modellers can see what I've done and otherwise play.

Technical niggles:

Do not put the Read Me file inside the OXP. This makes it invisible to Mac users, and likely to be missed by everyone else. It’s hard enough to get people to read documentation anyway. ;-)
Do use a longish unique prefix for all resources in a global namespace – preferably your name, the OXP’s name or even preferablyer both. This includes model file names, texture file names, script names, AI names, shipdata.plist keys and custom roles. For example, adder-classic should be something like simonb-neolite-adder-classic, and neoadder.dat should be something like simonb-neolite-adder.dat.