RFC: Fancy classics

[Lestradae]

Simon & Griff - you are the new Dream Team

[Captain Hesperus]

Simon & Griff - you are the new Dream Team

I don't think that's very fair on Selezen and Ramon. Griff's been a member of the 'Dream Team' since forever, and now Simon has joined the ranks.

Captain Hesperus

[Lestradae]

Perhaps the Dream Team could be resurrected, then? All of them together?

The new models are just awesome.

[ZygoUgo]

As I promised Simon today heres some more of the tweaked skins, I think Simon's going to use them anyhow but you can right click them if you want them.
@Simon, I've started fiddling with the FDL, will we have the right shaders for chrome?

Great stuff with the Gecko, so might as well put it first, can I have the normal map so I can include it in the wear?

EDIT Gecko now at the bottom, forgot to mess up the grills

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... a-body.png

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... -skiff.png

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... a2_auv.png

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... da-tex.png

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... k1_auv.png

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... lt_auv.png

[Simon B]

Neat - things worked out much as expected - I can tone down the size of the effect needs to be about half? (There is a "scale" thing which seems to do this.) The dent around the engines seems nice.

I'm not happy with how the squares seem to migrate over the surface, and what's with the metallic sheen? I'm hoping that's an artifact of the render.

Linux and GLSL:
There are glsl developer programs for gnu/linux, it's just that I have not been able to import obj files into them and dunno why not.

I have head a smidgen to suggest that some of this can actually be handled by blender - which I have - but have not managed to import obj files to it. This is weird because the format is well known.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... dt-660264/
... people talk about doing 3D modelling in Eclipse - but that's a general IDE with 3D modelling tools... so it seems to be a "from scratch" thing.


Googling, say, "Rendermonkey+Linux" and I see a lot of no-hits from Warez sites and discussions on how it works in Wine. Which is to say not at all!

There is a blog-post from 2006 announcing the start of a cross-platform shader ide ... which seems to have gone nowhere, but has enough details to put me off writing one myself.

A great deal of GLSL work goes on in gnu/linux, professionally, but these folks are all using in-house tools and they ain't sharing!

Basically - just getting obj files into the typhoon labs tool or Blender will help a great deal. I'm taking this problem to the local gLUG to see what those pros have to say.

[Simon B]

(double post - oops)

[MKG]

Strange - I have Blender 2.47 and it quite happily imports obj files - look under Wavefront.

Mike

[ZygoUgo]

Same here.

Those squares on the Gecko's hull will probably look better if they go in rather than out..?

EDIT dirtied up the grills a bit

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... rt_auv.png

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... m3_auv.png

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff35 ... _auv-1.png

[Simon B]

As I promised Simon today heres some more of the tweaked skins, I think Simon's going to use them anyhow but you can right click them if you want them.
@Simon, I've started fiddling with the FDL, will we have the right shaders for chrome?

Great stuff with the Gecko, so might as well put it first, can I have the normal map so I can include it in the wear? :D

The normal map is already posted - look backwards through the thread.

I've been watching carefully - the squares (these are the edges of hatches) are supposed to go in, not out, but the lighting is consistent with the effects on the trailing edge. Probably an artifact of the view angle + the bump is not sharp enough. Easy fix.

[edit] didn't look carefully enough - the entire map seems inverted ... all the big effects should be hollows, the trailing edge parts too. Need to invert y.

The thing to watch is the grill over the engine - I used flipped panels in the uv map there so the lighting should not work so well. But it seems OK.

I'm interested in seeing how much to scale the effect to get the depths right. If this turns out OK, I can create all the normal maps blind along the same lines.

I'm having a look for the default meshes the GIMP uses for previews - they are the same as the Shader designer ones. If I'm lucky, then adding another mesh, same type, in to the same directory, will add it to the preview window options.

If that works - then the GIMP will have become the gnu/linux shader IDE.

[Simon B]

Strange - I have Blender 2.47 and it quite happily imports obj files - look under Wavefront.

Mike

Me too - just tried... canselect file > import > wavefront - browse to a file - select file - now what? Whatever I do seems to cancel the import.

OK - darn it - just when I go to show someone it works. Now to see if I can get the textures in there. (Hint: a quick step-by-step will speed things up...)

[edit]
MeshLab is also claimint to be able to handle shaders.

[Screet]

Cat/Cougar

I like those ships pretty much and as others said: the iguana finally looks the way it fights! Great! Before, it was looking laughable to me...but the two lasers can do annoying damage (hitting the aft shields while in front of me, and vice versa).

I also like the image of the cat/cougar. However, I was astonished when I hit the image: "Light Transport"?!?

Has that ship been so different during different Elite versions? On the C64 it was by far the most dangerous craft to encounter! It's lasers power was so awesome that it could shoot one down to energy low with one or two hits (don't remember exactly, but by no way more than two short hits).

The image, it looks entirely different to that C64 craft to me, but it looks dangerous! Therefore, I guess the cougar in here should be such a dangerous encounter, not a transport.

Funny: I always believed that the cougar was geometrically impossible. Two years ago I encountered an image of a remote controlled aircraft model which was built in a way that it looked pretty similar. It was the first time I started thinking that the C64s cougar might geometrically be possible as well and just made me fail to understand it's model properly from wire frame graphics.

Screet

[Simon B]

Cat/Cougar

I like those ships pretty much and as others said: the iguana finally looks the way it fights! Great! Before, it was looking laughable to me...but the two lasers can do annoying damage (hitting the aft shields while in front of me, and vice versa).

I don't know how the ai handles targeting for the lasers - basically they are two different ships locked some distance apart firing when they have a target. This means that when one beam can hit your front it is not inconceivable that the other can hit your aft.

If I'm right, then small ships should get to see the iguana fire only a single laser sometimes. If it's playing chicken - rotate 90degs and it may not be able to hit you.

Move the guns closer together - as will appear in the 2-gun FDL - you'll get both barrels on one shield.

I also like the image of the cat/cougar. However, I was astonished when I hit the image: "Light Transport"?!?

Advertising - if I put "gunboat" it would be illegal and military only ;)

So - I'm just an innocent transport - can't carry all that much so I must be "light".

Similarly, you'll see craft designated "cruiser" ... which normally evokes a large capital ship ... however, that's also what the dinky things that folk put-put around the bays in ... as in "cabin cruiser".

[Simon B]

As I promised Simon today heres some more of the tweaked skins, I think Simon's going to use them anyhow but you can right click them if you want them.

Thanks - these are good.

Note - the Anaconda seems too far gone - you want to replace the paintwork with high-detail metal then rust it up. Better yet - just rust up a 1024x1024 generic light-metal texture - rescale it to 256x512 to cover the main texture.

Still - not seen it on a ship yet. May work.

My idea is that some of the lighter rustwork will find itself in an oxp a-la pre-loved ships. Stuff which clearly enhances the core set will be kept and ZygoUgo gets contributor credit. (Feel free to add to the texture: "rust effects provided by...")

[edit]
The Iguana squat look is in the model after all - it's the panel join added from "shoulder" to "shoulder" there ... makes it look wider. You can see the old sleek look from the bottom view.

[edit 2]
I keep getting:

Code: Select all

Could not connect to smtp host : 110 : Connection timed out

DEBUG MODE

Line : 112
File : smtp.php
 

...when I post a reply.

[Simon B]

Mapping reality check: here I am talking to myself in public again ... feel free to interject when I start talking a load of dingo's wossnames.

Lets see - want to pass a constant specular color, diffuse, effects, and normal map to the shaders... not going to use laser-heat level, except on gun models whose shaders will be simpler (but then again...). Maybe - the green channel can be used for red-glow from exhaust-touching-metal? In which case, I can keep the code as is and replace instances of laser-heat with hull-heat.

In the shaders section of the plist:

Code: Select all

shaders =
{
	"shipname-neolite-diffusemap.png" =
	{
		"vertex_shader" = "neolite-std.vs";
		"fragment_shader" = "neolite-std.fs";
		textures = 
                (
		"shipname-neolite-diffusemap.png",
		"shipname-neolite-effectsmap.png",
		"shipname-neolite-normalmap.png"
		);
		uniforms =
		{
                SpecularRGB = { type = vector; value = "0.5 0.7 1.0";}
		uTime = "universalTime"; 

		uEngineLevel = "speedFactor";
		uHullHeatLevel= "hullHeatLevel";
		};
	};
};

Tha's the easy part. Hard parts in the fragment shader... so I'll leave that to last. Notice that earlier speculations that perhaps I should leave the effects-affected bits to a seperate diffuse map may be mute if I'm applying full shading to everything anyway.

@Ahruman - following prev. suggestions - this involves generating four maps. a high-res/detail RGB for the non-shaded texture, a low res (poss low detail) RGBA for the shaded texture, a low-res-low-detail RGB effects map and a high-res/detail RGB(A?) normal map.

But why not use the non-shaded texture with an alpha channel as the shaded texture as well? There may be conflicts with the pseudo-bumps but that doesn't seem too bad in that gecko? Anyway...

My normal vertex shader looks like this:

Code: Select all

varying vec3			v_normal;		// Surface normal
varying vec3			v_pos;		// Vertex/fragment position in eye space

void main()
{
	v_normal = normalize(gl_NormalMatrix * gl_Normal);
	v_pos = vec3(gl_ModelViewMatrix * gl_Vertex);
	
	gl_TexCoord[0] = gl_TextureMatrix[0] * gl_MultiTexCoord0;
	gl_Position = ftransform();
}

which is pretty minimal ... I notice that the griff-boa vertex shader is much more complicated. Mostly around tangent space needed for the normal maps ... so I guessi t must be important.

Code: Select all

#ifdef OO_TANGENT_ATTR
attribute vec3      tangent;
#else
const vec3         tangent = vec3(1.0, 0.0, 0.0);
#endif

varying vec2         vTexCoord;
varying vec3         vEyeVector;   // These are all in tangent space
varying vec3         vLight0Vector;
varying vec3         vLight1Vector;


void main()
{
   // Build tangent basis
   vec3 n = normalize(gl_NormalMatrix * gl_Normal);
   vec3 t = normalize(gl_NormalMatrix *tangent);
   vec3 b = cross(n, t);
   mat3 TBN = mat3(t, b, n);
   
     if (gl_Vertex.x > 0.0)
     TBN = mat3(-t, b, n);   
   
   vec3 eyeVector = -vec3(gl_ModelViewMatrix * gl_Vertex);
   vEyeVector = eyeVector * TBN;
   
#ifdef OO_LIGHT_0_FIX
   vec3 light0Vector = gl_LightSource[0].position.xyz + eyeVector;
   vLight0Vector = light0Vector * TBN;
#endif
   vec3 light1Vector = gl_LightSource[1].position.xyz + eyeVector;
   vLight1Vector = light1Vector * TBN;
   
   vTexCoord = gl_MultiTexCoord0.st;
   gl_Position = ftransform();
}

Given all that, I should be able to modify the fragment shader to use the above setup. What have I missed?

[MKG]

Me too - just tried... canselect file > import > wavefront - browse to a file - select file - now what? Whatever I do seems to cancel the import.

File > Import > Wavefront > (browse to file) > (select file) ...

... at which point the filename appears in frame below the Directory Selection frame. This is where Blender gets a lot of criticism for having non-standard interface aspects. At the right extreme of the Directory Selection frame is a button (Import Wavefront, I think) which you almost automatically think is the thing you pressed to get to where you are. Wrong! It's the one you press NOW to perform the import.

And all should be well.

Mike