Oolite Bulletins

I don't know if I want to skin that tie-interceptor ... it's actually quite fiddly. However, it's influence should appear in other models. The model used actual schematics to get the details right ... though those official drawing usually contain flaws that you don't notice until you try to build one and this was no exception.

Since the original Lucasarts tie fighters were all physical models, it is interesting comparing the techniques ... things that are easy to do with plastic, bits of wire, and glue, are quite hard to do on a computer. OTOH: there's stuff that's the other way around ... like duplicating shapes and adding subtle detail. Some things are the same - like deciding which details should go on the final texture effects (paint vs digital mapping) and which should actually get built-in. Also, neither of us gets transparent viewports. The hardest part in wings3D was the top hatch ... but only because wings has no way to cut an arbitrary shape out of another surface. I understand blender can do it and the method would be needed for a Death Star (that big dish cut in the side - easy to do on a model, hard to do with a computer).

I know there's star-wars fans out there... I just don't like seeing external-genera ships in the game. Someone else want to scale and skin it for me? I can put the stray models in a zip?

Anyhoo ... this next one is for the Weta/Waka-ships fans ... meet the new Weta

(as always... click fort the big version)

I'm preparing this and the namu with FeA versions to go in the wakapiko-redux oxp ... nope- not there yet. The weta should have smooth round pipes and torus drive, with everything else chunky... animated torus as in the original but I don't know how the torus texture will render so there's fiddling yet.

The preliminary Namu-FeA sports 4 cannon (2 per wing) probably 2xbeam and 2xpulse ... so run away. Weta FeA will go for speed + endurance like the last one. I think these are the only fighters in the wakapiko set that actually add to the game.

B4 you comment: yes I know it looks like the other armoured-ish ships I've done - it's actually the other way around: the original weta influenced their designs.

Commander McLane wrote:

Simon B wrote:

I think I remembered to put this thing in one of those updates...

... someone want to script a special action for shooting it? Initally I thought perhaps shooting it spawns two more though fractals can really chew through the poly count... it could spawn little ones which spawn really little ones which can be scooped for alien items?

Sweet idea!

Or they could be scooped for machinery, and would somehow be alive, and multiply in your hold, and from time to time eject one of the bigger objects?

heh - or if you've scooped more than one, they reassemble in your hold and you cannot get them out? (OR it's expensive to get them out?) But I'd want something to make it attractive ... the "multiplies in the hold" thing sounds good for a one-off object - it keeps filling your hold slowly so you like it 'cause you always have free cargo but you don't because it displaces valuable cargo. (Like I always thought trumbles need some reason besides cuteness that you may want one.) It could also be that one of them can be installed as equipment that makes your witchdrive more efficient in some way?

note - two iterations bigger and you can fly through one ... warp gate? Thing is - that exceeds wings3d ability to model it ... so - build from bits as subentities.



.... I've been working on a station that is basically a hollow sphere ... inside there are lots of panels orbiting a central bright glow ... fly into the glow and you are docked. Panels flying around a glow sounds like a warp gate to me. There is a gate oxp iirc.


@griff - how'd you like the way I did the flashy lights on the namu wingtips? They are much brighter than your viper lights and the effect is a simple cheat.

Simon B wrote:

note - two iterations bigger and you can fly through one ... warp gate? Thing is - that exceeds wings3d ability to model it ... so - build from bits as subentities.

.... I've been working on a station that is basically a hollow sphere ... inside there are lots of panels orbiting a central bright glow ... fly into the glow and you are docked. Panels flying around a glow sounds like a warp gate to me. There is a gate oxp iirc.

There is, yes. And there is the Superhub, which is basically the same idea, but with a tube instead of a sphere (although I have never tried to fly close to the walls of one), and of course the Fuel Station, which is also a tube with a glow.

And then there is this:

A Thargoid Hive from Cataclysm.oxp. It's big. And I mean BIIIIG! It's the same structure nested within itself five times. But it also shows the limitations of the fly-through-something idea. You have to stay very close to the centre of the passageways (which are still BIG) in order to not blow up. In principle there is more than enough space for even the biggest ships to fly between the outer and the second layer, but Oolite's collision detection just doesn't allow it. It would work for a station (any dockable entity) along its z-axis, where collision detection is much more precise, but not for flying inside a hollow object in general.


EDIT: resized picture and replaced it with thumb nail link

Yow - that's a big pic too. Have pity... even with my big pipe that pic was slow to load.
Could you post a thumb or something? People who like these ships tend to run low spec.
[edit: thanx man ]

Which reminds me ... I just checked these ships with shaders switched off and they are still very good - a bit darker but that just makes the glows brighter.

(yes: do what I say not what I do ... at least I scaled it down and flattened it...)
This is the weta model in the game on minimum shaders - still not updated the oxp - I want to do the FeA editions first. Soon my pet - soon.
Dig that bitching torus drive!

The weta redux definitely looks cool. It certainly looks as tough as the ship actually tends to be in a fight. LOL The signature exposed torus looks excellent.

Will there be a player usable version? Yeah, it'd have one laser instead of 4, of course, but the lines of the ship and the exposed torus drive could make for some very nifty screenshots with a bit of tinkering on external camera views.

I've updated the wakapiko oxp to include weta and namu ships, with player editions and FeA multi-laser editions.
Some tweaking will still be needed.

For these efforts I'm trying to keep an eye on Oolite 2.0 development so hopefully there won't be too much of a jolt when it becomes mainstream.

My rt arm has seized ... so cannot use mouse, barely type. Must rest.

Simon B wrote:

My rt arm has seized ... so cannot use mouse, barely type. Must rest.

Take it steady that man! Full recovery soon!

(I will be down to one arm in two weeks time - I'm having a long term impingement in my shoulder fixed) so you have my sympathies.

Possible Carriers

... inching through the navy ships, these are two carrier designs.
The small one is supposed to be older, a hurried construction. Basically a dock with a bit of hangar space with engines tacked on.
I also thought I'd reuse that dock for a military station - and maybe some sort of frontier-outpost station.

It's slow going - I only have one hand most of the time. The painkillers make me sloppy.

Looks fantastic!

Take care.

Great designs! I wish I was as good with hud design as you are with ship design.

Honestly I have no idea how you can unwrap the textures and get the ships to look so great, my textures are simple renderings made by blenders own texture creating script thingy that just cannot be compaired to yours.

Those are very nice indeed!

Very good!

Staer9 wrote:

Honestly I have no idea how you can unwrap the textures and get the ships to look so great, my textures are simple renderings made by blenders own texture creating script thingy that just cannot be compaired to yours.

I use Wings3D UV-map utilities to do the unwrapping. There's a good description in this howto. The example uses the neolite anaconda.

BTW: has nobody found the duck? hmmm... maybe I didn't include it, I'll check.