Replacement of the basic ship set - building a dream team.

[Commander McLane]

I had the same problem when I wanted to smoothe the Imperial Courier, player and NPC. Suddenly it was all dark, so I deleted the smooth-command from the shipdata again. Inserted it again after some time, and now it seems to work without darkening the ship. Weird! (And the pylons look SO much better when smooth.)

[DaddyHoggy]

@Griff - I looked at the new CMk3 on my home monitor and I can now see its shape and with Sungs textures it really looks the biz but it is definitely too dark - perhaps what Commander McLane and Ahruman has to say on it earlier in this thread may help with the texture lighting?

Don't give up - it still looks like a Cobra Mk3 which is what everybody wanted but its definitely a nicer looking ship which is also what everybody wanted.

I love the pulsing/glowing nose antenna (just how do you do that?) and the rest of the lighting is spot on with one teeny-tiny exception (the red/green lights on the wing tips) - for navigational purposes - red lights are on the port of a vessel (left hand side as you look out of the front of the ship) and green lights are on the starboard (right hand side as you look out of the front of the ship).

Please, please, please keep up the good work!

[Charlie]

@DaddyHoggy:
Thanks for your kind comments

Hmm... the 'navigation' lights in the wrong place? - Bugger - that means I got them in the wrong place for my Contitution class ship too...

You like the animated lights? Thanks, I've taken to using them quite a bit to add 'substance'.

I've not visited this thread in a bit ( a touch of throwing my dummy out of the cot as a result of some comments, I'm afraid )

I now have a problem:
I would be happy to do an updated basic set ( for which this CobraIII is a v rough example ) but had intended it to be based off Sung's texture pack. I think it's safe to say this is now not going to happen.

The thing that bugs me is I would be happiest with a texture look more in common with Ramon's DWCobraIII. I even did an updated texture pack for the basic ships ages ago that I felt was an improvement over the originals but never released because they weren't that good.

Guess what?
Yes, in my exitement @ Sung's textures I over-wrote them!

So now I have a plan for an updated ships.oxp ( if this is the way people are happy for it to be done ) but no updated textures to go with the potential models!
I like to think I can do half-decent textures but I'm not a graphic artist and so producing something myself that was up to the job would take me probably too much time & effort...

( Oh, and I currently don't have a functioning 'pute to develop on... )

Sigh!

[Dr. Nil]

@ Charlie: I would have loved to see your textures.

There are two things in a replacement set that I'd like to see different from what Sung did.

I don't think that trying to make too 'deep' 3D effects using texture alone works very well. It just makes the details look like something printed on folded cardboard. To a certain degree it works really good (as with the DW-Cobra) but when overdone the effects just turn flat.

And I honestly don't really like the highly visible and randomly looking weld lines. Weld lines should be fewer, less visible (if at all) and more regularly placed - in my opinion.

That cargo pods should have to be made from what looks like a patchwork of recycled beer cans (judging by the size of the patches) 1500 years from today (today being a time when we can easily produce metal sheets a whole lot larger than that) really doesn't do it for me. It could have been interesting to see what some of those textures looked like with the weld line layers turned off (weld lines not grime and scorch marks) - my guess is better.

[Charlie]

It occurs to me that my 'textures pack' if it could be dignified by such a name was very much a 'painting by numbers' job:

From memory, something like:
-Take original texture. ( or similar version of my own )
-Overlay ( burn 40% ?) metal plates texture.
-Overlay ( dodge 20% ?) 'patina' texture.
-Add 'improved' details layer.
-Add specific 'wear 'n tear' layer.
-Re-colour to suit.
-save out as a .png.
( Sung's set looks to me like a similar approach, though very well executed )

Now this may have a few benifits:
-I may well still have these textures hanging about.
-A new texture pack could be done by a number of people while maintaining a consistent look & feel.
-It may be useful for new ships wanting to have the 'Oolite look'.
-An improvement over the 'standard' set. ( No offence ment Giles. It's a wonderful game )
-This would become in effect a 'community project'.

Downsides:
-This approach would not be a 'top job'.
-I would find applying my own textures to such an important project a very uncomfortable experience when I know there are people who could do a far better job.

So:
-If my approach to updated models meets with approval I'll get on with it. ( in time! )
-How does the above idea for updated textures grab people?

-Would any of the 'proper artists' on the BB be interested in supplying their own take on the idea of a DIY texture kit?

Hmmm, it seems the lack of a development 'pute has left me with far too much time to write loooong posts - sorry.

[Dr. Nil]

Another thing that might make the details a bit sharper is to work with the textures at 200% and only scale down at the very end after flattening (I'm really guessing here).

[Griff]

I say go for it Charlie!
I'll be glad to help out any way i can especially with the boring stuff like laying out UV maps etc, oddly enough i find it quite relaxing trying to fit all the pieces together!
Your plan for a texture construction kit sounds great, i may not be able to help out too much there though, i tend to blunder my way though painting texture maps with no real plan so i may be more of a hinderance than a help, but this does sound like a great project to contribute to and i'd like to give it a go if your up for it.

[TGHC]

Now that is the Oolite spirit, you guys are rock solid, we should all bow in supplication to the example you set. I just wish I could contribute, well done.

[DaddyHoggy]

@Charlie - love your ideas - a "texture construction kit" - fab!

@Griff - nice one for offering to help out - I have no idea what a UV map is but it still sounds cool.

@Doc - I'm kinda coming round to what you're saying about S's textures - perhaps I was just a bit overawed/emperor's-new-clothes-syndrome when they first appeared. Funny thing is I loaded up S's asp texture to try and see how he did it because my "theOO" asp looked very "flat" - and then I realised that on his texture I could still see the original red star/white circle and "alien writing" from the original redux version - so he wasn't that careful - my asp is still rubbish by comparision but I'm less worried about it now...

[Griff]

@DaddyHoggy - the uv map is the model all 'unfolded' and layed out flat for you to paint the texture on, - i read a great definition of how they relate to the model - "think of them like how a bearskin rug relates to a bear" (!) or to keep it more Oolite-ish "how a yellow furry feline rug relates to a yellow furry feline"

[TGHC]

I don't know if this is any help (but great fun anyway).

[Dr. Nil]

@ TGHC Great page

Mmmm

Gingerbread Cobra



Edit: I suppose it's only to be found in witchspace

[Charlie]

Thanks for the postive reaction guys:

My new BIOS chip should arrive... Monday?
If that's all it is, I should be up & running pretty quickly.
( I must say the guy selling the new chip has been very helpful & I'd be happy to recommend if anyone on the BB with similar difficulties )

'pute stiil dead? Time to go trawilng in flea-bay.

On-topic:
-With the aid of a 'texture-pack' I would hope anyone interested could contribute.
( Thanks for offers of help )

What I'll hopefully do first is tidy-up the example ship I've done & do a rough DWCobra-esque texture to see if model still works like that...

Then what I'll probably do is start making models ( without texture map ) to make sure opinion is with me.

Then onto a texture-contruction kit. ( Yes Griff you're MUCH better @ this than me so any advice - or even your taking-over would be most wellcome )
I guess this would be the point where the majority may want to get directly involved.

On the subject of UVMaps:
That allways seems to be a very individual business.
I'm very much a fan of mirroring + overlaying bits as much as I can as that both reduces real-estate on the texture map & helps my texturing to remain consistent. ( The added benefit is the models can be quite detailed without using a huge texture )
Trouble is - this can make textuiring by 3rd parties tricky & it's very easy to end up with mirrored decals.

Opinions?

*Edit*
'Mmmmm - Moon-waffles!'

That's not far from the kind of textures I'm thinking of. Though I'd make'm more metallic 'n shiny for the game.

PPS
If anyone has my pallas.oxp it uses much the standard metal-plate texture I had used for my ( now mourned ) texture pack.
A DIY pack would be something like:
UVMap to 'colour-in'.
The above metal plate texture to overlay. ( in various resolutions )
A selection of 'patina textures' to go on top. ( where appropriate )
A selection of exhaust + window textures.

If any contibutions based on the above were released as .psp files ( for instance ) it wold then be dead-easy to alter colours & decals for varients without having to re-do the whole texture.

PPPS
Only joking!

[JensAyton]

Another thing that might make the details a bit sharper is to work with the textures at 200% and only scale down at the very end after flattening (I'm really guessing here).

This is pretty much standard practice – although 200% is a bit small. (It really applies to any image editing, except possibly very-low-resolution icons.)

[JensAyton]

Oh, and:

That cargo pods should have to be made from what looks like a patchwork of recycled beer cans (judging by the size of the patches) 1500 years from today (today being a time when we can easily produce metal sheets a whole lot larger than that) really doesn't do it for me. It could have been interesting to see what some of those textures looked like with the weld line layers turned off (weld lines not grime and scorch marks) - my guess is better.

I agree with the line of reasoning here. However, the conclusion shouldn’t be that there must be no weld lines/plate boundaries, only that thought should be given to where they’re placed.

Also, I hope that one of us (or someone else) eventually works up the energy to implement fully usable shader support. You might want to keep this in mind when designing new textures. This means:

• Keep your original file, with layers, around.
• Keep stuff with different specularity (“shininess”), such as rust and charring, and possibly different types of paint, in its own layer.
• Keep pseudo-bump mapping highlights and shadows in their own layers. If you use an embossed bump map to generate highlights and shadows, keep the bump map around.
• Keep glowing elements in their own layers.
• Also, use layers for stuff. ;-)

I’m not going to go anywhere near promising that this will ever happen, but if it does happen we don’t want a situation where someone says “gah, if I’d known that I’d have taken it into account when I redid all the textures in the game!” On the other hand, if doing this stuff would significantly complicate your texture-making, it’s realistically speaking probably not worth bothering.