Oolite Bulletins

I'm fine, busy with other projects, and very, very proud of what has become of Oolite.

I guess I subscribed to this thread back in the day, and when I got notified of a new reply I just happened to be in a position to answer.

Good hunting commanders!

Other projects? RealLife™ or computer stuff?

By the way: JewelToy could use a re-visit. There are some small problems, at least in the German version. (Broken high-score list, non-working buttons, wrong characters in the messages, as far as I recall now.)

Commander McLane wrote:

@Hesperus: What's up with you, dude? No attempt to sell him a trumble?

WHAAAATTTTT!!! Sell God a Trumble? Blasphemous Heretic (not to be confused with Axerackian one)!

Mind you, not such a bad option. I'm sure that Chopped Cobra has plenty of space aboard for some lovely, cuddly, cute and fluffy companions......

Captain Hesperus

aegidian wrote:

zimmemic25 wrote:

are there any EASY to use modelling progs for Linux? i run debian with KDE and oolite170

Wings3D is as easy as you are going to get short of the not-very-useful SketchUp.

I'd like to start adding different panel textures to the standard craft.

Is it possible to import the models into Google Sketchup?

I'm using the free software at the moment...

Thanks.

You can use the utilites in here to convert the .dat files complete with textures. Dat2ObjTex is the one I'd use. At the command line, type Dat2ObjTex shipname.dat. That will give you the corresponding .obj file, which you can import onto wings3D.
The .png file used for the texture needs to be on the same directory as the .obj file, otherwise you won't be able to import the textures..

Once you've done that, you can then export the model to .3ds, which sketchup free version should be able to import.

I personally like using wings3D: as well as being a very good program, it's completely free & open source! edit: it looks like that sketchup free cannot export 3D objects, and the pro version has a buggy export function. Give wings3D a try, the learning curve isn't that steep!

Thanks, I'll give it a go!

I particularly like the way Sketchup pastes textures on to the faces of polyhedrons...

(Looks nice and easy!)

I almost forgot: if you just want to change the texture, you don't even need a 3D program. Look inside the .dat file, and you'll see the name of its texture .png

If you edit the png file, the ship will have your new texture. That's what pagroove did here with the texture for Griff's coriolis station....

Kaks wrote:

I almost forgot: if you just want to change the texture, you don't even need a 3D program. Look inside the .dat file, and you'll see the name of its texture .png

In 1.69 and later, you can also use the materials dictionary in shipdata.plist: There’s no big advantage to this right now, except to avoid data duplication on disk. In future, it may also avoid data duplication in memory, which would be a Good Thing. (You can also use the material dictionary to set material properties other than the diffuse map, which can’t be set in the DAT file; see the aforelinked Wiki article.)

Kaks wrote:

You can use the utilites to convert the .dat files complete with textures. Dat2ObjTex is the one I'd use. At the command line, type Dat2ObjTex shipname.dat. That will give you the corresponding .obj file, which you can import onto wings3D.
The .png file used for the texture needs to be on the same directory as the .obj file, otherwise you won't be able to import the textures..

Once you've done that, you can then export the model to .3ds, which sketchup free version should be able to import.

I personally like using wings3D: as well as being a very good program, it's completely free & open source! edit: it looks like that sketchup free cannot export 3D objects, and the pro version has a buggy export function. Give wings3D a try, the learning curve isn't that steep!

Hi, I have been trying to use "Dat2ObjTex" using the method you said, But I just get a error...




EDIT: Its ok iv sorted it, by command line, as in START\RUN\python.exe *.ay *.dat

DOH!

Hi, I have managed to export a model (Adder) and get it back into Oolite with a new skin @ 512*512.

Any tips on using a higher res? 1024*1024?

I would post a screen shot but I dont think it will let me....(Guess it will!)





This is not complete yet, there is still some fine tweeking to do.

I plan retexturing all the ships and models over the next few weeks.

Nice work, IdolKnight! I like the blocks of colour and the addition of a pilot's sillouette.

Captain Hesperus

Cheers Cpt. H! I have tried to keep the metal plates on the ship as close to the reference picture from the BBC Elite manual. Tho, there is abit of creative licence there in places. The mega block paint job is pretty much inspired from the default skins that come with the Oolite download, Just sweetened up abit and the powder blue changed for slick red.

I will post an update once the skin is finished. I hope to texture all the models and make them available for download on the Wiki in 512*512 & 1024*1024 resolutions.

@idolknight - nice one - excellent ship texture.

Can I ask what image package you're using to generate the bevelled plate effect? Hope it's GIMP coz that's all I've got being an Ubuntu user.

If it is GIMP do you mind explaining how you got it to look so good - all my attempts have been fairly rubbish so far.

PS - Welcome to the Forums!

Im using a old copy of photoshop elements 4 that I picked up off ebay awhile ago for £30.

But its the same method in any package I guess. (I really should try and play with Gimp at some point.)

I will try and explain this and see if you get it.

You want to use the "select tool" say the rectangle one for now, select a box on the texture you want to use.

Then you want to add another selction inside the current selction, so you end up with a picture fram effect....wait there i will post a quick pic...



Ok, In step "a" Use the rectangle tool to make your selection, Then depending on what package you are using you want to "-minus" select the centre of the first selection in "a". You should have something that then looks like "b"

With the selections you have made in "a" and "b" select the dodge tool.

In the right hand side of the selection and the bottom part of the selection use the dodge tool intill you get to the corners.

Do the same with the burn tool to the top part of the selection and the left part of the selection.

When your happy with that, deselect and then reselect the middle of your box shape, just the centre, not the light and dark bits you have just drawn.

Once selected you can adjust the brightness up and down on your base texture to difine a inverted or raised bevel.

You should then have something like the image at the top of the example.

There are loads of way of doing this, this is just one way. There is a great tutorial at psionic3d for doing spaceship hull textures, that also goes through dodge and burn.

PHEW! Hope some of that makes sence!

PS - Thanks for the welcome

@Idolknight - Ah-ha! I think I may have it now and thanks for the link to the psionic3d website - excellent!

I think I can see how to do it in GIMP.