Oolite Bulletins

ooh. that looks lovely! i like the effects you are getting with the coloured specular light, have you tried a version of the shader that reads in the suns ambient light colour and uses that for the specular colour? i'm sure Kaks mentioned that he had done some work on the code so that the ambient colour of the light now gets used properly ( i think the ambient colour was was just white before oolite v1.73).

I have just discovered that I have actually been failing to load the specular rgb and the normalmap correctly in this oxp :)


... this has specular exponent set to 20 (instead of 2) and loads the maps properly. I chose a light-side shot so you can see the texture better.

I think this comes out better - though it misses the glow that Griff likes. I have not tried adding the start light to the specular though. That may be interesting. There is also a discontinuity in the rear which needs work.

The bit missing from the plist is:
... it goes in the shader section, just before <key>uTime</key> and right after </dict> at the end of <key>uFXMap</key>.

Fantastic, Much better now. Looks like a ship where an 'alien' could be hiding onboard

Definetely much better .

-Oz

:D

Note that the texture and normal map are unchanged. It was all in the lighting. I have to review all the other textures - see if they get too metallic. If so, I'll have to make the textures transparent and make the alpha-channel carry the specular exponent. (may be a good idea anyway).

... the neolite-concepts oxp now includes the cobra clippers, asp mk2 explorer, and asp mk1 madels.

Meantime, I had this wee thing doodled up, and wondered where I could fit it ... rattlecutter anyone?

I like the potential-rattlecutter - very Battlestar Galactica like (in a good way!)

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I like the potential-rattlecutter - very Battlestar Galactica like (in a good way!)

Also it's white, so we might actually stand a chance of seeing it before it cuts us to ribbons.

That's a releif - I didn't actually do this one with a particular ship in mind. When the result emerged I figured I had to get it into the game, and if I could come up with a popular oxp ship I could slip it into the neolite group.

Still - it would have got it's own oxp if it was not acceptable.

The screenshots don't do the color justice. I've been experimenting with chalky-white colors since those white-and-blue viper skins a-ways back. The new viper liveries benifited from the experiment then I hit on another method:

The white is made of four layers - bottom is the standard oolite light-metal texture. Next is a worn-steel, very dark, which is grain-merged over it. That puts a pattern of squares and some dark splotches onto the grey.

A white layer was created using a very light grey overlaid the light-metal then merged down. Two of them are placed above the worn-steel layer. The bottom one is overlayed and the top one is grain-merged.

Then, I take the large galaxy brush as an eraser on 30% to the lower white layer. That grunges up the white.

If I put the decals on another layer - mode=burn - I can use a smaller galaxy brush eraser on the lower white layer to selectively bring out the detail.

It has come to my attention that the navy viper is a different model from the galcop ones. I have received some skins for it and am stealing remixing ideas from them. Of course, I'm doing an all-white edition - and playing with cam.

Like them. Especially the cutter

Simon B wrote:

- Nobody has stumped up with a navy-viper skin (early days though.) ... I've reskinned the asp to a navy-asp (galcop markings) and used the viper-pursuit for the navy one.

I have thought about having a go at this. I need to finish reading your excellent tutorial, but I think I have it in me to have a stab at it (just don't use my previous work as an example, lol that was done in MS Paint...)

EDIT: Actually, that said I really like the camo paint job you did. Maybe I should just do a Taxi skin...

Thinking of useing active camo for navy ships ...
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p= ... ed5b#51757

... so if the cutter is after you, you won't see it coming!

BTW: which oxp is the cutter in?

Also question - the megaships are basically three ships with many like-ship entries. It would be nice to make small changes to the livery for each one.

Suggestions on how to do this ... eg, if I want red stripes on Loki or fancy metallic highlights on Griffin .... I have to redo the whole entries for the subents in the ship entry, as well as redo shaders for each subent altered.

... nav bouy - unskinned.
Won't really work if it has to tumble. The big squares would be energy collectors or heat dumps or something like that, and can be painted up for ads. Of course - there's nothing wrong with just having satellites for high tech planets.


... cute thought for the witchpoint bouy. I suspect that getting the system name and icons will involve a tad much scripting... or too many skins.

An actual shaded version would animate the signs. The usual flashers would go at the ends of the spikes.

Script mod to Interstallar help ... I'm looking to add a line to interstellar help scripts to:

if a player ship is stuck in interstellar space, there is a chance each few minutes for a rescue ship to turn up ... small chance this could be one of the megaships.

I see I can test if the ship is interstellar (due to misjump right) I just figure just to use the time elapsed since the jump was made. That way, if the player is still in combat with thargoids, help shows up ... and if the player runs out of fuel fighting, then some sort of rescue shows up.

The behemoth showing up would look very impressive - player can dock with it to refuel. For other craft, it needs to jump to the neerest sarsystem if there are no combatants.

However - I figured a gratuity for the assistance would be a good idea... next dock at galcop station, mission screen asks if you want to reward the captain - and something tracks if you do ... which modifies rescue chance later.

Ideas?