Oolite Bulletins

From the Wings3D captures I'd say that you probably should look into centering your model (if you haven't in the meantime). A non-centered model may look odd when pitching and rolling in-game.

The model is centered on the cockpit's "eye" slot. It's the external view that I need to tweak a little bit.

A "Scar" variant?

That would be interesting... a heavier armed model lurking in asteroid fields. It would have to appear as "derelict" until the player is close enough and faces away from it. I'm sure something similar could be implemented with some scipting.

In general that opens up a discussion about a BSG OXP, including some missions (securing miners against cylon attacks, escorting ships, taking over combat support missions, etc.) and a storyline. That however is pretty far in the future, I so far don't have plans to implement something that elaborate. For now, I only wanted to gather some expirience with modeling in oolite. But I'll keep the idea on ice for future consideration

One thing that might be worth thinking about – even though it's departing from the BSG canon – os a bit of colour. It's a shame to have a really great model and not giving people the chance to admire it. Even some coloured/glowmapped highlights could pick out the edges, and make it much snazzier in-game. Have a look at the [wiki]Vector OXP[/wiki]: it uses glowing surface details to really good effect. A Cylon red eyepiece, with a dash of circuits/veins running across the skin, could really add something, I think.

Sterling work crypto - that's a beautifully menacing design

Disembodied wrote:

One thing that might be worth thinking about – even though it's departing from the BSG canon – os a bit of colour. It's a shame to have a really great model and not giving people the chance to admire it.

However, due to its tiny size people won't see it anyway as an NPC. More colour won't change that.

Crypto - I just wondered how you were getting on with the raider that you posted images of ?

It looks great !

Seems I never got around to answering this:

crypto wrote:

From the Wings3D captures I'd say that you probably should look into centering your model (if you haven't in the meantime). A non-centered model may look odd when pitching and rolling in-game.

The model is centered on the cockpit's "eye" slot. It's the external view that I need to tweak a little bit.

It doesn't look that way. Each model is centered around the origin of your Wing3D workspace. That's the point where the red, green, and blue lines of the three axes meet. The screen captures look as if this point lies behind the ship, not where the cockpit is. What you have to do in order to center the ship is to move the cockpit to that (0,0,0) spot.

Hello All,

Sorry I have not answered in quite a while, but my studies are getting most of my attention.

@Shipbuilder
The Design is pretty much stuck were it was. It hasn't changed much. I have added a specular map that still needs a lot of work, the model grew about 300% to be even remotely hittable with lasers in oolite during a dogfight and I tried experimenting around with some red/blue lights lining the wings. But I am not really satisfied with any of it.

Anyway, it has been several months since I last touched oolite anyway... there just isn't any time But I'll get back to it if I ever get something akin to vacations again.

@Commander McLane

Commander McLane wrote:

The model is centered on the cockpit's "eye" slot. It's the external view that I need to tweak a little bit.

It doesn't look that way. Each model is centered around the origin of your Wing3D workspace. That's the point where the red, green, and blue lines of the three axes meet. The screen captures look as if this point lies behind the ship, not where the cockpit is. What you have to do in order to center the ship is to move the cockpit to that (0,0,0) spot.

You are of course right. The model was centered of its bow when I made the screenshots. But when I first played with it I ended up looking at the main engine ^^ The in-flight screenshots (though terrible dark I admit) are showing the front of the wingtips so the viewport is somewhere in front of the eye slot now.

Hi and welcome, Crypto. I don't know about tech parts also, but I liked your ship! I'll be waiting for the oxp when it is ready!

crypto wrote:

@Commander McLane

Commander McLane wrote:

The model is centered on the cockpit's "eye" slot. It's the external view that I need to tweak a little bit.

It doesn't look that way. Each model is centered around the origin of your Wing3D workspace. That's the point where the red, green, and blue lines of the three axes meet. The screen captures look as if this point lies behind the ship, not where the cockpit is. What you have to do in order to center the ship is to move the cockpit to that (0,0,0) spot.

You are of course right. The model was centered of its bow when I made the screenshots. But when I first played with it I ended up looking at the main engine ^^ The in-flight screenshots (though terrible dark I admit) are showing the front of the wingtips so the viewport is somewhere in front of the eye slot now.

There may still be a misunderstanding.

Centering your ship has nothing to do with viewpoints. You can set your viewpoints wherever you want, regardless of your ship's geometry. That's what shipdata.plist is for.

Centering you ship has everything to do with putting it correctly in the game in the first place. A non-centered ship looks bad when it pitches, rolls, or yaws. Also, a non-centered ship will cause the game to draw a much-too-big bounding box around it, which makes it look odd for players.

Crypto - The best way to achieve a well centred model in Wings 3D is to ensure the model is located so that the centreline of the model is located on the Z axis i.e. the x co-ordinate =0.

You can then move the model along the Z axis and up and down on the y axis and rotate the model in Wings until it looks right (Basically so that when you rotate the model it rotates about a point located in the centre of the model).

If you have it centred somewhere towards the edge of the model it will rotate oddly.