Oolite Bulletins

Those are Griff's Pythons from his shadered shipset - not the core set (I don't think the engine layout varies in the core set, but I could be wrong).

You're wrong! I never had an older version of Oolite installed, so I can be quite sure about this. It normally doesn't matter of course, and I probably wouldn't have noticed, but you'll stumble over it if you're making new texture variants or "like_ships".

<nods> Having just checked, there are indeed two Python models in the current .dat list.

Smivs wrote:

[snip] These were originally made as an OXP for those wanting Griff's ships but who didn't have Shaders. So the default ships do not use Shaders.

This is not entirely correct. The default core shipset, although designed for low end machines which may not have shader capability, does use shaders if you set the detail level to Shaders Enabled or higher. The shader used in this case is the default oolite-default-shader.fragment, which adds very subtle lighting fx to whatever it gets applied to. You can see the effects much clearer if you edit oolite-default-shader.fragment and intensify the specular lighting for example, by multiplying the calculated specular intensity at line 163 by something like 3 or 4.

I sit corrected (I'm too lazy to stand!).

A little mystery...

The Anaconda model has a "Guns" sub-section. The texture for the guns is included in the main texture file, oolite_anaconda_diffuse.png, but in shipdata.plist the diffuse_map for the guns refers to oolite_anaconda_subents.png, the file that contains the engine parts. This seems like a simple typing error, but the strange thing is that it works fine, even if I change the textures (I can change the colour of the guns by changing oolite_anaconda_diffuse.png, so this file is definitely being used).

Why does this work? Is it intentional?

Prior to Oolite 1.79 many of Griff's ships were rendered using more than one .dat file. The Anaconda had three: One for the main hull of the ship, one for the laser cannon, and one for the engines. This was done purely to expand the shader capabilities. It's really quite amazing. He created one model and often one texture after UV unwrapping it, then went back to the model and snipped parts away, thus creating the models for the gun and engine subentities. One texture file would often serve two models, which is the case with the Anaconda. At least this is my grasp of his technique. I could be wrong.

Hm, that would mean that the "Guns" entry in shipdata.plist is obsolete meanwhile. I removed it, but then I found that one little part - the central "Gun" - actually uses the subents texture. I had wondered already what this part of the texture is for, but I didn't notice because the colouring looked right even after my changes.

Half of the work involved in making new paint jobs is finding out which part of the texture belongs to which part of the ship!

Is there any good reason why ship.commsMessage() does string expansion and player.commsMessage() doesn't? If you have eventually found out what the problem is, it's easy to fix using expandDescription(), but it seems kind of inconsistent...

I'm wondering if anyone is around to help an old dog. In my absence a few graphic moves made some complicated leaps, and we don't all use the same equipment. While searching for the answers I need, I see so much seems rooted in Gimp and Windows-based techniques, and maybe the answers are in there but with the enormous pile of text to search through it adds to my blindness in seeing the text I'm hoping to suddenly appear.

I haven't given up, but in case a samaritan takes pity on an oldtimer with failing eyes who has lost pace with the pack, this is what I am trying primarily to figure out, –while being locked to only using a Mac, photoshop and graphic converter– ..how do I get from my oldfashioned regular texture.png to resemble a modern diffuse.png, and to extract and manipulate workable textures for "illumination" and "normal"? It goes without saying that I'm not proficient enough with my PS to separate an alpha channel, and I've found no way so far to produce an ".xcf" from my image.

Is there someone who can easily see where I'm stuck and has a kind word or link that leads to spoon-feeding epiphany?

Old Murgh wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:02 am

Is there someone who can easily see where I'm stuck and has a kind word or link that leads to spoon-feeding epiphany?

I used Photoshop in the past, but now I am using mainly https://krita.org/en/, while not perfect you can make decent diffuse, emission and normal maps with it.

montana05 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:38 am

I used Photoshop in the past, but now I am using mainly https://krita.org/en/, while not perfect you can make decent diffuse, emission and normal maps with it.

Thank you. Krita seems pleasant and useful. I guess I'll find out how intuitive it is. Is the road to making diffuse, emission and normal maps a short one?

Old Murgh wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:13 am

montana05 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:38 am

I used Photoshop in the past, but now I am using mainly https://krita.org/en/, while not perfect you can make decent diffuse, emission and normal maps with it.

Thank you. Krita seems pleasant and useful. I guess I'll find out how intuitive it is. Is the road to making diffuse, emission and normal maps a short one?

You probably will need some days for the basics, the details will mainly depend on your working style. Personally, I use textures available on internet (Google image for example) and use them as over-layers for some parts of the ship. Normal maps are covered in a separate feature, once again you probably will need to overlay parts of the map.

montana05 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 3:01 am

You probably will need some days for the basics, the details will mainly depend on your working style. Personally, I use textures available on internet (Google image for example) and use them as over-layers for some parts of the ship. Normal maps are covered in a separate feature, once again you probably will need to overlay parts of the map.

Yes I have some old texturing routines, but the new multiple image techniques was holding me back. Some youtube videos later and I feel confident I can easily get the hang of normal maps and am optimistic about emission maps.

Now if I could only figure out the benefits and methods behind the way Griff does his diffuse maps in a semitransparent style..

Old Murgh wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 3:10 am

montana05 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 3:01 am

You probably will need some days for the basics, the details will mainly depend on your working style. Personally, I use textures available on internet (Google image for example) and use them as over-layers for some parts of the ship. Normal maps are covered in a separate feature, once again you probably will need to overlay parts of the map.

Yes I have some old texturing routines, but the new multiple image techniques was holding me back. Some youtube videos later and I feel confident I can easily get the hang of normal maps and am optimistic about emission maps.

Now if I could only figure out the benefits and methods behind the way Griff does his diffuse maps in a semitransparent style..

Griff's work is ways above my pay grade, while Krita offers the feature to include another map to the Alpha channel, I still don't know what the improvement is.