Oolite Bulletins

Smivs wrote:

although technically non-shader, they do require simple shaders for the normal and specular mapping.

Just a quick note here: there's nothing wrong with core objects requiring shaders for best appearance provided there's a suitable non-shader fallback. The planets have an optional normal map, and the space dust is displayed completely differently with shaders on and shaders off, for example.

The Escort variant of the Mamba...

(Click for full-size)




The original pink/purple colouring was always going to be a challenge to get looking right. I hope I succeeded.

Next up is the Moray, but as mentioned above I might have a quick look at a couple of the Lite set textures first, just to see how they turn out, and how they compare to these HD ones for the Gold version. It will be an interesting exercise, I think.

speaking of the Moray i have a question about them... in the F4 screen to buy ships there is a star boat variant and a medical boat. but its the medical boat that has a "star" decal on it, not the star boat ??? just wondering why?

The Moray is a strange beast. It is called the Star Boat as it is actually a space-capable submarine! It is built by an aquatic race as explained here on the wiki.
Strictly the Moray Medical should be called the Moray Medical Starboat. The star therefore is a 'space' symbol as much as a medical symbol. In-game the standard Moray is most likely to be used by pirates, hence the skull-and-crossbones decal.

thanks for that.....

spud42 wrote:

thanks for that.....

You're welcome

I've been having a tinker with the Lite set in mind, as mentioned above. The Lite set is aimed at low-end computers and will be as simple as possible with small texture (and therefore file) sizes and no requirement for shaders or any clever stuff. It will have an emission_map burned into the image's alpha channel and will effectively be a direct and comparable alternative to the current default Oolite shipset. The Gold set, of course, is the high resolution, all singing all dancing version.
The default player ship the Cobby 3 seemed a sensible place to go, so I produced a provisional Lite texture for it for comparison. I then took (near identical) screenshots using the player-ship external views of the original Oolite version, the ClassicShips-Lite version, and the ClassicShips-Gold version.
Keeping in mind cim's comments above regarding non-shader fallbacks for graphics I also took a screeny of the Gold version with all shaders disabled, although due to it's large textures and file sizes the Gold set will not be recommended for use on non-shader computers.
The image below is a composite of these four images (click on it for the full-size version) and shows from top to bottom the original, the ClassicShips-Lite, the ClassicShips-Gold and at the bottom the Gold version with shaders off.



As you might expect the Gold version with shaders off does still look a bit sharper than the Lite version, due to the HD texture. However the Lite version is probably still the best choice for users of more modest computers to avoid system overload.
It's been an interesting exercise though, and does show nicely how far the old ships can be taken with a bit of thought and effort.

Smivs wrote:

It's been an interesting exercise...

<24+ hours later and with no replies...>

Well, I thought it was interesting!

Anyway, back to the main project, and back for more thoughts and input please. The Moray is next and I find before I even start that I am undecided on one aspect of these. As mentioned above the Moray is rather different in being a submarine and spaceship combined, and (uniquely) is built by an aquatic race.
Previously (in Smivs'Shipset) this difference was reflected in the hull being 'scaly' instead of metalplate and I am wondering if this element should carry over into the Classic Ships, or whether to use a metalplate finish as per all the other ships. For those unfamiliar with Smivs'Shipset, the scaly finish can be seen here.
Giles' original Moray textures have basically the same type of finish as the other ships, so a move away from this would be a move away from the originality at the heart of this project, but then a scaly finish would add variety and help to distinguish the Morays from the more conventional ships. None of the other Smivs'Shipset detailing would be carried over, just the hull finish, which would be developed further to update it in line with the other textures. Everything else will be based entirely on Giles' original texture.
So, scales or metalplate? All thoughts and opinions gratefully received.

Smivs wrote:

Smivs wrote:

It's been an interesting exercise...

<24+ hours later and with no replies...>

Well, I thought it was interesting!

Maybe there's a 700 page thread on another forum everyone was reading today.

Ha, yes I'll bet that's far more interesting

Smivs wrote:

Ha, yes I'll bet that's far more interesting

Believe me, it ain't - it's actually just sad!

really great work on this Smivs, the textures and the extra moddled bits look awesome. I'm voting 'scaly' for the moray texture

+1 for scaly

Moray is an unique kind of ship, it should look that way.

Really like what you've done with the Mambas, bravo sir.

Not so sure about the Cobra though. That's such a big patch of grey metalplate (and on one of the larger models) that I can't help thinking it looks a bit like noise. Sorry, that might sound rude but perhaps you can see what I'm getting at? It's not quite up to the standard of your others IMO.

As for the Moray... I think I'd like to see scaly but subtle; more the way the metalplate is 'organised' rather than an attempt to look like the ship itself has scales. Subtlety might seem like a bad idea when most of the time the other ships are at some distance but it's nice when getting closer looks even better. Should you buy one or see it in the shipyard then close up is 'where it's at'.

Despite my criticism, great shipset so far

Redspear wrote:

Not so sure about the Cobra..That's such a big patch of grey metalplate (and on one of the larger models) that I can't help thinking it looks a bit like noise.

I know what you mean. I've always had a bit of a problem with the Cobby anyway...from further up the thread:-

Smivs wrote:

As I've been working through these ships I have come to appreciate Giles' original designs a lot more than I ever did before. So why was the Cobra III such a daunting prospect for me? Well, TBH it was always one of my least favourite designs - sorry Giles - the colours never appealed to me personally, and I always thought that the big slabs of lilac were just too 'in-your-face'.

'Trimming' the lilac areas has made them less dominant which I think is a good thing, but obviously one side effect of this is that it has left more of the ship unpainted. And the underside never had any paint anyway to make things worse. If there was ever a lose/lose situation......!
TBH I'm not unhappy with the way it turned out, but there will be no harm in re-visiting it sometime before release to see if I can do anything to soften it that doesn't go too much further away from the original design. I am, after all, using Giles' designs as inspiration and guidance rather than faithfuly reproducing them, so I am allowing myself a bit of 'wriggle room'.

In other news, the Moray is underway and is proving a right PITA, especially the Medical. Getting that red and white striped body looking scaly is quite a challenge. Still, I like a challenge.

Well, here it is (so far at least), the Moray Medical. I had a good reason to do this before the Starboat, but I can't remember what it was now.

The original



And the re-imagined version. For this I set 'smooth = yes' in shipdata, just to see really as with the normal setting it looks so angular. I think it looks much better for it.



...awaits comments