Oolite Bulletins

ramon wrote:

aceshigh wrote:

I mean, this coverart clearly shows the ships are supposed to be SEXY AND CURVY... and that obviously, the pointy low poly designs was because of cpu limitation.

This is probably a better picture of the old DWCobra I did:



But you're right it doesn't have the curves the Dark Wheel cover suggests the ships have. I did actually start work on a 'curvy' version, but since Elite has been around for a few years now, the 'blocky' Cobra has kind of become iconic. (I still might come back to the curvy cobra, but at the moment I'm (still) working on my Anaconda and Asp)

well, that already looks good enough. Is it a rendered ship model or is it the ship running on the 1.73 version with bump map, specular, etc, shaders?

ramon wrote:

but at the moment I'm (still) working on my Anaconda and Asp)

So how's that coming?

Captain Hesperus

yep...well. the Anaconda model is built and I have all my maps now (including the new normal one). So I've just got to put it all together. In fact, sod work, I might just try and get it done today.

aceshigh wrote:

well, that already looks good enough. Is it a rendered ship model or is it the ship running on the 1.73 version with bump map, specular, etc, shaders?

No, that one was done quite a while ago now before these new fangled extra maps existed - in the whole universe.
I did do two versions though, one with 512x512 textures and a higher resolution one with 1024x1024 textures, which looks a little nicer up close.

ramon wrote:

yep...well. the Anaconda model is built and I have all my maps now (including the new normal one). So I've just got to put it all together. In fact, sod work, I might just try and get it done today.

aceshigh wrote:

well, that already looks good enough. Is it a rendered ship model or is it the ship running on the 1.73 version with bump map, specular, etc, shaders?

No, that one was done quite a while ago now before these new fangled extra maps existed - in the whole universe.
I did do two versions though, one with 512x512 textures and a higher resolution one with 1024x1024 textures, which looks a little nicer up close.

but at least in the image above, it seems there are some metal reflections (top left of the ship), etc. And the reflection doesnt affect the same way the little details, crevices, etc of the ship, like if there was a specular or bump map on it...



I wish there was a pack including only the original Elite ships in high quality models and textures like the one above...

aceshigh wrote:

I wonder why nobody tried recreating the models and textures following the boxart of the Elite Dark Wheel...

Well, you've seen that someone did do this.

In addition, there are some very smooth ships - including cobras - in the oxps.

If you read back through this thread, you'll see that there have been some objections when I tried to introduce smoother designs, but people liked the mixed angular and smooth sections for some ships. This evolved into the default neolite style.

Still, some supersmooth designs are included - the fdl is very smooth (though I cannot seem to switch the smooth attribute on, so there is some crumpling evident in some angles.)

I've also posted a super-smooth cobra mk4 and a smoothed namu patrolcraft, slated for an add-on oxp later.

FWIW: the fully smoothed cobra is funny-looking except from the rear.

aceshigh wrote:

I wish there was a pack including only the original Elite ships in high quality models and textures like the one above...

Well - that's what neolite.oxp is for.

Presumably you mean one which stays much closer to the original?

You can keep the original models and add your own high-res textures, and effects maps. That's just donkeywork.

Python Class Cruiser


... OK - here you go. The Python Concept now has a skin.

The shark-mouth comes from a plastic kit set decals for a tornado. The eyes come from the same kit.

There are a range of possibilities - this was the most military one. I could have used the jack-o-lantern mouth from the gecko too.

I made too mistakes in the uv map - if you cannot spot them, I'll leave it.

I'd apprecate a bit of a hand -

somebody please volunteer to go through the neolite and companion oxp ships and correct the locations of things, like the view positions, exhaust, eject, etc. Getting the exhausts to fit snug will be a little harder, but doable - especially if you have dat2obj.py (from the source).

That will help a lot.

I've noticed that some of the view positions in the neolite.oxp need tweaking - but the other bits should be fine. The companion needs much more work - none of the positions have been changed.


As previously stated, the normal maps and effects maps are very boring to do. If anyone wants to do one - be my guest. Just tell us which one you are doing so we do not duplicate our efforts too much.

If you'd like to help but don't know how, ask.

For the sake of helping people help me - I've updated the neolite.oxp on my site ... the shaders are complete, but not all the ships have effects maps or normal maps. A quick look at the textures folder will show you which.

The one you do not want to do is the fer de lance. This model has an update not included yet.

In the effects map - the green channel is an inverse specular intensity (the brighter the green, the less shiny), the red channel is keyed to engine heat, and the blue channel is a constant glow related to the color of the diffuse map.

The green is the hardest - look at the ships with complete effects to see what I mean.

Normal maps are sort of easy - I've been making a height map and putting it through the gimp normalmap plugin. nvidia has one for photoshop.

Thoughts:
There seems to be a kind of unspoken rule that one does not mess with another's oxp. If you have been aching to add to this project but you've been holding back - I have good news for you:

I'd be happy to see people making their own neolite-style conversions - and new ships. Should that start happening - I'd consider the project a success. Indeed, I submit that unless this happens, there is no point using these models in the default build.

So - those who want to see the fancy-classics as a default - vote with your modeling and painting skills.

Meantime - the next tutorial I do had better be on generating the standard set of maps.

Meantime - it will be a cool exercize to work out a list of current oxps which work well alongside the neolite.

There are two styles of play for this - there is the "classic ships" style and the "full-neo" style.

Classic Ships: counts the original ships as "classic" designs and the neolite as the "latest models". This works well with the pre-loved rustys oxp... however, I have had trouble rebranding the original ships as "classic".

It should just involve copying the shipyard.plist and shipdata.plist to an oxp - and relabeling hem. I'd also encourage dropping some stats slightly (turning rates, equipment availability etc) and halving their probabilities.

This style has the advantage of making all other oxps compatible too.

Full Neo: uses the neolite oxp as a full replacement - the classic models never existed. In this one, only oxps with a similarly detailed style will fit.

Random Hits is an interesting set of contrasts - the neolite ships will automatically be used, but it also includes in-house models from other oxps, including some based on the classic designs. It is interesting to see which fit and which do not.

Noteably, if you also have neolite-companion installed, you'll get jarring contrasts when the RH in-house craft shows up. This could be corrected in the oxp by putting like_ship entries in the plist (which would probably require creating an add-on oxp or risk RH being too dependent on too many other oxps.) That way, whenever someone has the oxp installed, the RH ship will follow the other party's style without loss of generality.

It has bee observed that any machie which uses models to facilitate thought will come up with some sort of dualism - which quickly produces an "other" criterion. (There are two types of people in the world - A, and B - er, and those which don't fit either.) This case is no exception - so, you can either merge the neolites into the existing game, use them to create a new game, or ... just ignore the issue of compatibility completely:

The Third Option:
Realistic Shipyards (current incarnation) typifies this option, it is supposed to be a jarring hodge-podge of styles. So no worries here. If you want internal consistency there, you'll have to go through the plists with the delete key.

Bottom line - do as thou will.

like_shipping is done for the next version of R_H. If a neo-oolite version of a ship exists, R_H uses it in preference to the normal version. Had to update it really, as I'm particularly fond of the neo-oolite versions of the monitor and iguana. To avoid interdependancy the models and textures for all OXP ships used in the selection pool for Character's ships are included in R_H, so for 1.4 of Random Hits the Monitor, Chameleon etc used by Characters are set to the neo-oolite versions

Simon, I really like the way you are thinking about your oxp's development, creative & open, imo the way a de facto freeware project with hundreds of contributers should be!

L

LittleBear wrote:

like_shipping is done for the next version of R_H. If a neo-oolite version of a ship exists, R_H uses it in preference to the normal version. Had to update it really, as I'm particularly fond of the neo-oolite versions of the monitor and iguana. To avoid interdependancy the models and textures for all OXP ships used in the selection pool for Character's ships are included in R_H, so for 1.4 of Random Hits the Monitor, Chameleon etc used by Characters are set to the neo-oolite versions

Yeah - I had noticed that you were working on it but didn't know what you had in mind.

Hopefully being open about the methods will help others.

Lestrade wrote:

the way a de facto freeware project with hundreds of contributers should be!

Thanks for the support and enthusiasm - though you need to revise the difference between "free software" and "freeware".

Freeware is gratis software, otherwise fully restricted, which has been a popular way to distribute malware. Free Software is libre - which adots a licence whose focus is on community building. I think it is a good idea to at least distinguish ourselves from the first one ;)

On another note - my foray into politics has thrown up this missive - relevant to the community here but not exactly on topic.

The author provide a roadmap for open source projects - which it seems I have followed :)

LittleBear wrote:

like_shipping is done for the next version of R_H. If a neo-oolite version of a ship exists, R_H uses it in preference to the normal version. Had to update it really, as I'm particularly fond of the neo-oolite versions of the monitor and iguana. To avoid interdependancy the models and textures for all OXP ships used in the selection pool for Character's ships are included in R_H, so for 1.4 of Random Hits the Monitor, Chameleon etc used by Characters are set to the neo-oolite versions

Not sure that that's a good idea. I see the neolite models as too different and therefore not suitable as replacements…

_ds_ wrote:

LittleBear wrote:

like_shipping is done for the next version of R_H. If a neo-oolite version of a ship exists, R_H uses it in preference to the normal version. Had to update it really, as I'm particularly fond of the neo-oolite versions of the monitor and iguana. To avoid interdependancy the models and textures for all OXP ships used in the selection pool for Character's ships are included in R_H, so for 1.4 of Random Hits the Monitor, Chameleon etc used by Characters are set to the neo-oolite versions

Not sure that that's a good idea. I see the neolite models as too different and therefore not suitable as replacements…

Then you won't install the neolite oxp. Going back over this thread it would appear that this is the point - Simon as a the single designer with a consistent style could well be the man who puts oolite in a position where the core ships no longer look like the original elite ships. No reason of course why, if this happens, that all the original ships couldn't be put in an oxp that replaced the replacements!

What I'm curious about is what happens if this is done to Strict Mode - do you magically get all the old ship designs back?

And as somebody who has just skinned his first three ships of Magma Racing I of course now have a vested interest in the old ships staying part of the game!