Oolite Bulletins

Diziet Sma wrote:

However, as of 1.80, the target reticle changing to red (when enabled) will correctly indicate if your shot will hit, regardless of parallax, which should help compensate.

Well, within the (intentional) limitations of the targeting computer. Once you get beyond about 10km you might find that a practised eye does better than it can...

Well.. I was kind of taking those limitations as a 'given'.. but yes, for those unaware, at best, it does have limits to how accurate it is..

Keep doing what you're doing. that looks absolutely fantastic Spud...

dertien wrote:

Keep doing what you're doing. that looks absolutely fantastic Spud...

thanks but it pales to insignificance when compared to the work i have seen of yours.

I'm off to sydney next week so i am hoping that stuck in the motel i can spend a bit of time on this and improve it ..

i also tried to make a small simple ship, single seater fighter type will add a few screen shots see if anyone thinks its worth the bother of skinning it...











and keeping to the snake theme i was going to name it after an australian snake...



Mulga Mk I

I like the Mulga!

Go for it!

maik wrote:

Go for it!

Absolutely !

spud42 wrote:

thanks but it pales to insignificance when compared to the work i have seen of yours.

I tend to spend way too much time fiddling with wings3D, and have been doing so albeit a bit on and off, for the last 2 - 3 years. Everyone gets better overtime, without exceptions, and as the saying goes practice makes perfect. On another note my work pales to insignificance also compared to some of the stuff that inspires me from Deviantart... like for example this guy: http://dmitryep18.deviantart.com/gallery/

Keep it up !

dertien wrote:

maik wrote:

Go for it!

Absolutely !

spud42 wrote:

thanks but it pales to insignificance when compared to the work i have seen of yours.

I tend to spend way too much time fiddling with wings3D, and have been doing so albeit a bit on and off, for the last 2 - 3 years. Everyone gets better overtime, without exceptions, and as the saying goes practice makes perfect. On another note my work pales to insignificance also compared to some of the stuff that inspires me from Deviantart... like for example this guy: http://dmitryep18.deviantart.com/gallery/

Keep it up !

wow that is some good stuff , our challenge is to make an interesting ship that has a reasonably low polygon count but isnt "samey" . i found a beautiful detailed eagle modeled in wings but it had a poly count higher than the planet and station combined!! it would look spectacular BUT how many PC's could actually fly it without dropping framerate ?

I like the detailing on your ships, the vents etc. I tried to do it for the radiator at the front of the ship but it looked awful... more practice needed...Lots more... lmao

When exporting 3d objects for Oolite it is important to make sure that the edges are HARD, especially for ships that have flat surfaces like your Mulga:

you do this by selecting your model completely (either by mouse select or by clicking the cube icon in the geometry graph) then,

select the edge selection mode up top:

then,


by right clicking and selecting the hardness option



(you can also set this in the shipdata.plist file.)

The other thing you should remember is to make sure that single faces are flat. Select a face and right click; then choose flatten.

As for the detail on the radiator, I made you a little silent video:

http://youtu.be/wdIGOImcBFE

On a sidenote, I would like to add, that this is my method of doing this, there might be others doing it differently and better.

Later

As for your command module; I have made you a little video that might help to easily flatten surfaces, without having to remember which ones you actually flattened, and also make the process a little quicker by using different materials.

Since the module is 4 shapes of the same glued to one another, It is easier to work on 1 shape and then duplicate them and glue them back together; I used the extract command for that, and then rebuilt the pieces that were not of correct shape where it was cut off from the original by connecting the vertices back together, and joining the bottom part back into one piece:
A small thing I did also in the beginning is to flatten the nose a little bit, this makes it easier to keep shapes flat.
I have not recorded the complete process, but you will get the idea...

Part 1

http://youtu.be/_7IiUnR5Xic

Part 2

http://youtu.be/mRO-2fsPFEU

The model looks great, and you might want to try it out first and load it into Oolite, since steps above might be overkill. If the model looks crooked in Oolite though, you might want to try them.

I couldn't help but notice that your model was facing the wrong way, so here is a file that will show you what is front an rear, so you can rotate your whole craft when it's done.

https://app.box.com/s/4cnl1atoru8f2p3fec34

Last but not least, you might want to use the manifold labs version of wings3d since it has a few extra options, the boolean operations help to merge two seperate shapes (like your command module and your hull section) to each other seamlessly without having to use the bridge-weld command combination. Look for Boolean operations manifold labs in youtube if you want to go that path.


Download here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/561 ... onate.html

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3cwsi5kvm0jeiae/MI5-gFdPqM

Video here:

http://youtu.be/niQCuSq1gSs

https://app.box.com/s/iuxr8ou4n7s1ionuhhkg

that is the latest version of the ship. i was told early on i had it facing the wrong way but have since fixed it... yes i flattened the nose too. posted the latest version of the Oogle as not sure if you saw the latest.... thanks for the links will look asap. just got back from interstate trip last night and didnt get to do any work on the ship. too many Stella's ..... not much else to do at Rooty Hill... lmao

Will have a look at it later,

I also noticed that the Boolean functions in the latest version don't work as expected. So I'll share the version I use:

https://app.box.com/s/7di8jw5sl8b6299hppof

No worries, Stella is good at any time of day.

'Later

I regret to report that the Mulga has a rather significant design flaw. so its back to the drawing board.

It has been brought to our attention that the port engine is 2m smaller than the Starboard engine. This has produces an unstable flat spin in flight testing and the Mulga MkII will be developed from the ashes of the latest flight test crash.

The new model will keep the design for the main ship body,cockpit and primary laser. But the wings need a redesign.

40m from wingtip to wingtip. 44.2m nose tip to engine nacelle. 14.5m from tip of cockpit to the base.

Single front mounted pulse laser as std equipment and 2 missile ports. twin engines , 3 energy banks, upgradable shields and extra energy unit a possibility.
All the usual avionics as std equipment. Compass and targeting systems also upgradable. Cargo capacity is estimated around 10T but this will have to wait till final fitout to determine exact capacity.

Due to the redesign the release of the ship to retail has been delayed. At this stage a release date is not forthcoming from management.

spud42 wrote:

At this stage a release date is not forthcoming from management.

At least that's better than rushing an unfinished product to market, like a certain company that shall remain nameless..

what do you think? too much? might work if the pattern was smaller? or just a really bad idea?