Oolite Bulletins

Rese249er - I'm not sure exactly what you are asking here, (It may be me being a little dense), however if you are looking to produce a ship oxp you will need a minimum of the following: -

1) A folder such as addyourshipnamehere.oxp
2) In the addyourshipnamehere.oxp folder you need 3 subfolders as noted in items 3 to 5 below.
3) A Config File containing a demoships.plist, a shipdata.plist and a shipyard.plist (The shipyard.plist is only needed if the ship is to be available to players).
4) A Models file containing the .dat model file,
5) A Textures file containing you guessed it the texture – This needs to be in PNG format.

You can add further items such as scripts and specific AI to alter the behaviour but these are not needed for a basic ship oxp (I would suggested producing a oxp without additional scripts and AI until you get up to speed with putting together a basic oxp or two).

Hope that this is what you were looking for.

I am also thinking of uploading a template ship oxp that can be downloaded which will have all the basics in place. The idea being that new ship oxp designers can download this and then simply tweak what is provided, (and create the .dat file and texture file), rather than searching around to put all the components together. That way I think that it will give a good helping hand to those just getting started.

I was planning on barebones approach, but making a few different ones. Main difference is high cargo cap, multiple turrets with high power and slow rate of fire on said turrets.

Shipbuilder wrote:

I am also thinking of uploading a template ship oxp that can be downloaded which will have all the basics in place.

The best 'template' to use are the files in the Oolite 'Resources' folder...the ones for the actual core game. For example the core game's shipdata already contains all the data for all the core ships, from the humble shuttle right up to the Cobra 3 and Boa Class Cruiser.
There is almost certainly something in there very close to what you are planning to produce, so editing will be minimal. Likewise for the shipyard.plist.
These are also correctly laid out using Openstep (the preferred 'language' for these files) and are bug-free.
Also the 'Resources' folder contains every other plist, and the AIs and scripts for the game which are a valuable resource for anyone starting to learn this stuff.

Thanks. I was already planning on cannibalizing... er, repurposing plenty of script.

Rese249er wrote:

Thanks. I was already planning on cannibalizing... er, repurposing plenty of script.

like_ship is your friend. It will copy all the stats of the clone ship and then you just change properties to your liking.

Will definitely be making use of that when I can get a .dat and texture files out of the wings file.

Rese249er wrote:

Will definitely be making use of that when I can get a .dat and texture files out of the wings file.

Are you following the instructions from [wiki]OXP_howto_model[/wiki]. Should work fine. Double check with version of Python you've installed - the scripts are for Python 2.x not for 3.x. You have to have the conversion script in the same folder as the Wings3D .obj.

Rese249er wrote:

Will definitely be making use of that when I can get a .dat and texture files out of the wings file.

Rese249er – A .obj to .dat file converter is available for download here

https://www.box.com/s/0fb1e622b354f472cc80

To produce the .dat file for you model: -

1) Unzip the folder.
2) Put a copy of your .obj and .mlt files that Wings 3D produces in to the folder.
3) Open the Convert batch file up with your text editor and replace the addyourshipnamehere text with the exact name of your ship.
4) For example if your .obj file is called scoutship.obj see the example below.
5) Now double click the Convert file and it will produce the .dat file for your model.

Example as noted in item 4 above:-
Obj2Dattex.py addyourshipnamehere.ob is changed to Obj2Dattex.py scoutship.ob

Will do.

Using Ubuntu 12.04, checking Python status.

Rese249er wrote:

Code: Select all

dudeman@dudeman-AOA150:~$ cd /Home/.Oolite/Addons/zz/.obj to .dat converter
bash: cd: /Home/.Oolite/Addons/zz/.obj: No such file or directory
dudeman@dudeman-AOA150:~$ cd /Home/.Oolite/Addons/zz/.obj_to_.dat_converter
bash: cd: /Home/.Oolite/Addons/zz/.obj_to_.dat_converter: No such file or directory
dudeman@dudeman-AOA150:~$ cd /home/dudeman/.Oolite/AddOns/zz
dudeman@dudeman-AOA150:~/.Oolite/AddOns/zz$ Obj2DatTex.py 249rdg.obj
Obj2DatTex.py: command not found

Using Ubuntu 12.04, checking Python status.

Paths.

Try...

./Obj2DatTex.py 249rdg.obj

I just thought that it was worth me mentioning that following some discussions with Svengali I was pointed towards some software called OptiPNG which can be used to greatly reduce the size of texture files without any noticeable reduction in the quality of the appearance.

I understand that this software is listed in the List of Software on the Wiki but thought that as I had missed it so may have others.

It is a great piece of free to download software. Simply download from the site, open the OptPNG folder and drop your .png file in to the application. A few few seconds later your .png file is ‘spat’ out greatly reduced size.

Thanks for that Svengali

Shipbuilder wrote:

without any noticeable reduction in the quality of the appearance.

Correction: without any change in appearance at all.

I found oolite about a week and a half ago, and now that I hit the "Dangerous" mark, I thought it was time to start customizing... It's taken 3 days to get to this point, but I thought I would show off my first project. This took a day and a half to model and slice/texture (I HATE slicing and texturing! }:]) and another day and a half to read through hundreds of messages and threads to find all the information I needed to actually get it into the game (we REALLY need an up to date, complete, beginning to end tutorial for this...). It still needs work to get exhaust in the right place etc.. you know how that goes, but it did show up in the game on my very first try! I must admit, it's quite a proud moment when you fire up the game and change to your hacked save game, and there it spins in all it's glory. }:] Anyways, here is the Megalodon Class Cargo/Fighter:

She's approx 24m wide x 20m high x 50m long, modeled with 4 missiles and front and rear lasers...
From Wings3d:


From in game:



Landing gear and "pilot" not included! }:] I did find that adding a human figure and scaling him to 1.85 (So he's close to 6 feet) meters, really helps with scaling the ship and getting an idea of ship size and proportions.

My computer doesn't handle all the fancy texturing stuff, so this will be diffuse texture only.

I would really like some input as to cargo capacity, speed, maneuverability etc, should be set to... I see a lot of diverse ships but some small fighter looking ships have large cargo capacities and then some large looking ship are the opposite... Is there some way to determine the "size" of the average "ton" to help us determine specs?

Oh ya, did I forget to mention... "It's a shark with a frickin' laser on it's head!" };]