Oolite Bulletins

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phkb wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 12:56 am

So I've been playing around with a replacement concept, that I'd appreciate any feedback on. (Cue dramatic orchestral fanfare) I give you, the Thargoid Inter-franken-ceptor:
Spoiler
Image
Why do you think? Will it work as a replacement for the Interceptor?

Very nicely done texture, I really like it! The surface looks almost organic. Reminds me of the living spaceship of the Vorlon Kosh from the TV series Babylon 5. Kosh's ship also had an organic structure and was practically "alive."

btw: Would you be interested in helping to bring a brand new ship into the Ooniverse? I have a finished model for the fast Coluber Queensnake-class courier freighter in my files. Unfortunately, wings3D on my imac always crashes whenever I try to create the UV map and also the python-script that transfers obj to dat does no longer work on my mac. So I've since given up. But if someone transfers the model and takes over the texturing, maybe the ship can actually make ist the Ooniverse after all. Let me know if you're interested, and I'll gladly send you a link from box.com to the Wings3D file with the model via PM.

The basic idea behind the Queensnake is a ship whose main characteristic is speed and a particularly economical and effective fuel injector and an average cargo capacity of 30 ct.

Here are three pictures of the model compared to a cargo container and a Cobra Mk III:







When we get the ship up and running together, I'll try to add an interesting background story and a custom HUD, but that for sure will take some time because I'm a bit busy with work at the moment.

Captain Beatnik wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 7:33 pm

Very nicely done texture, I really like it! The surface looks almost organic

All credit goes to Griff for the texture and model. Straight from his Organic Thargoids pack. I just stuck the models together.

Captain Beatnik wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 7:33 pm

btw: Would you be interested in helping to bring a brand new ship into the Ooniverse?

I'd love to, but I'd be lying if I said I knew anything about UV mapping. My skill set lies more in re-skinning an already skinned model.

But who knows? Maybe it's easier than I thought. Send me the link, and I'll have a go, but no promises I'd be any quicker turning it around than yourself!

**starts looking up Youtube videos on UV mapping in Wings3D**

Captain Beatnik wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 7:33 pm

...I have a finished model for the fast Coluber Queensnake-class courier freighter in my files. Unfortunately, wings3D on my imac always crashes whenever I try to create the UV map and also the python-script that transfers obj to dat does no longer work on my mac. So I've since given up.

It looks good to me!

I tried to get the python script going on my mac, but did not understand what I was doing. See here for the tips I was too ignorant to understand.

Captain Beatnik wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 7:33 pm

The basic idea behind the Queensnake is a ship whose main characteristic is speed and a particularly economical and effective fuel injector and an average cargo capacity of 30 ct.

Finally a Pitviper with Cargo

phkb wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 6:08 am

So I ran into a problem. One of the goals I set for myself with these 2.0 upgrades is to get any unique ship models looking like they can co-exist alongside the Griff models. I can't model to save my life, but I can reskin stuff with a fair degree of success. If I can put together a new skin, with normal and specular maps, I can at least move the ships a little closer to Griffs spec.

That works wonderfully when there are no normal maps or specular maps. But things start to look ugly when those extras are applied, because the same rules apply - that is, the normal map gets flipped for half the ship. So what is mapped as a groove on one half becomes a bump on the other and so on.

This one ? Ship viewed in gallery with rainbow specular map...

phkb wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 12:56 am

OK, another try:

As the textures used to be a low(er) resolution the windows tend to be large(r), so another option would be to make the window smaller

phkb wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 6:08 am

One of the goals I set for myself with these 2.0 upgrades is to get any unique ship models looking like they can co-exist alongside the Griff models. I can't model to save my life, but I can reskin stuff with a fair degree of success. If I can put together a new skin, with normal and specular maps, I can at least move the ships a little closer to Griffs spec.

Looking forward to your texture adventure for the mantis

cbr wrote: ↑Mon Mar 31, 2025 10:20 pm

Looking forward to your texture adventure for the mantis

Well, it's different, anyway!

BTW, what settings are you using to get that screenshot of the Raptor?

1] Fullbody wrap with spaceship texture
2] Grayscale specular map from 1]
3] Gloss map from 1] almost complete white (lightened) hence the gloss
4] Normal map from 1]
5] Diffuse map from 1] but darkened (darkgrays)

OK, I think I've got the Raptors to a point where I like the result:

(Front left to right: Groove Raptor, Blue Circuit Raptor, Standard Raptor)

I have seen those blue raptors somewhere, grin...

Lovely shine on the standard raptor!

cbr wrote: ↑Mon Mar 31, 2025 10:20 pm

Looking forward to your texture adventure for the mantis

After much fiddling and redoing, here's what I've got so far:

Spoiler

Going for an organic type of look.

Not sure if I can do much more with it. It's a massive beast of a ship. I suppose I could try and get some of the original red tinge on the tips of the various arms. A job for tomorrow, though.

Some more rework:

Spoiler

From left to right: Thargoid Guard Outpost; Thargoid Sneak Courier; Thargint Robot Interceptor; Thargoid Spy Station; Thargoid Jumpgate

phkb wrote: ↑Sat Apr 12, 2025 5:23 am

cbr wrote: ↑Mon Mar 31, 2025 10:20 pm

Looking forward to your texture adventure for the mantis

After much fiddling and redoing, here's what I've got so far:

It is a large ship which would benefit from a normal map >= 4k with some added noise on the flat surfaces
(resize diffusemap/likewise and add noise/details on the resized map before normal mapping)

The red in the screenshots show up as brown/rust, perhaps coloring these areas red in the specular map would help 'alienate' them or red areas in the emmission/illumination map...

cbr wrote: ↑Sat Apr 12, 2025 10:32 am

It is a large ship which would benefit from a normal map >= 4k with some added noise on the flat surfaces
(resize diffusemap/likewise and add noise/details on the resized map before normal mapping)

The red in the screenshots show up as brown/rust, perhaps coloring these areas red in the specular map would help 'alienate' them or red areas in the emmission/illumination map...

You know what you're doing better than I do! So here's a challenge for you: TCAT_mantis.zip are all the resources I've used so far in my retexturing. I've borrowed bits out of Griff's Organic Thargoids to get them to this stage. Go nuts, and if you can improve on what I've got (and you no doubt will!) I'll add it to the final release.