Oolite Bulletins

Hi, my questions:

what's the top on graphics in this game? there are some screenshots / videos ?

In the OXP List, what categories are about graphics? (ambiance, ships?, retexture? others?, any of them can be?)

I really love Oolite but I think graphics are the weak point, it would be nice to have better graphics, i've installed some oxp's like griffin ships (great!) and some others, but some things like missiles, explosions, etc, still look like a late 90's game... (like most open source games may I say...)

There are more oxp projects regarding graphics?

Which OXPs have you got installed?

I got into OOlite by way of Elite on the commodore 64 many moons ago That was back in wire frame graphics. Today's graphics are stunning. Utube has many many videos that you can watch for our enjoyment and many pf the OXPs have upgrades in their surfaces and shadings of ships, planets, cargo
and equipment. So I understand your wants and wishes but these very talented people have put something together that can fit all varieties of computers (old and new) and have not taken on the Japanes propensity of overloading a screen with unwanted "eye candy".

Let's see... I have: BGS, Bloomberg Markets.Cabal_Common,griff_alloys,Griff shipset Additions / Replace / Resources, Random Hits, Realistic Stars, Rock Hermit Locator, Snoopers, System Features Rings, UPS Courier.

I apologize if my previous post tone was too rough, english is not my native language and it seems that maybe I offended somebody.... it was not my intention at all

If machine power in no problem, then for basic non-game changing consistent eye-candy I recommend

* Griff: Alloys and wreckage, Shipset Replace and Station Bundle (no additions, only replace)
* Deep Horizon Nav Buoy
* ZygoCinematicSky & Nebulas (instead of Realistic Stars for nebulas)
* Povray Planets

And make sure your Random Hits is the latest version.

I am having a quiet chuckle as your unintended comment reminded me of Daniel in the lion's den with you being Daniel who has thrust himself into the oolite lion's den when you commented about open source... here, everything is open source and they take their work quite seriously. So I am not surprised that you were not met with what you expected. Please remember, Oolite is a work in progress and is constantly changing and improving thanks to the work of the people who know how to script, design, and present their ideas to the community. Perhaps, if you see something that could improve the game, then mention it to the community as an idea proposal and see if someone takes the ball and runs with it but first check to see if it has already been presented by doing a search on the subject. There is an OXP for that that simplifies searching. I have done that several times and am glad to see that someone thinks along the same line and several oxps have come out since then. By the way, this really is a friendly board and welcome to Oolite.

So, firstly: there is no need to apologise for giving your honest opinion on the game. Oolite is not "finished" yet, and it's always useful to us to know where players think improvements should be made.

Some of the graphics in Oolite are OXPable, and others aren't, and some are more OXPable than others.
Ships: entirely OXPable, with shader support. (For these purposes, stations, nav buoys, missiles, etc. are also ships). There are several replacement ship OXPs for a range of hardware power.
Planets: texturable by OXPs. Shader support and other improvements are being worked on by submersible for future versions. There are several planet texture pack OXPs.
Stars/nebula backdrop: star and nebula textures can be changed by OXPs.
Suns: OXP control restricted to a few display parameters. Some improvements to the basic look will be in future versions. The sheer size of them makes conventional texturing impractical.
Explosions: OXP control is very limited. There are a few global texture files which could be replaced by an OXP, though I don't know if any OXPs do that.
Lasers: OXP control limited. OXPs can pick the colour, and could in theory replace the global laser texture.
HUDs: OXPs can redefine HUDs, though support is mostly limited to adding graphics and rearranging or duplicating existing elements. Lots of HUD OXPs are available.
Status screens: OXPs can define background and overlay images. Slightly more flexibility, including some animation, is possible on mission screens. A few OXPs are available for this.

The base game intentionally has very low system requirements. (I'm not sure how well it would actually run on that minimum system, though). I currently play Oolite on a 6-year old computer with on-motherboard graphics card: other members of the forum have even lower-spec systems. My aim when developing is a consistent 60 FPS on my system, which I hope ends up with acceptable performance on the older ones.

Obviously there's still room for graphical improvement even within those constraints, and explosions definitely could be better. Does anyone want to do some concept art for explosions?

iperich wrote:

... Griff shipset Additions / Replace...

You should have either the Griff Additions or the Replace - not both. Other Griff OXPs worth having are: You can find them here. Also, add Cheyd's nav buoy.

iperich wrote:

Let's see... I have: BGS, Bloomberg Markets.Cabal_Common,griff_alloys,Griff shipset Additions / Replace / Resources, Random Hits, Realistic Stars, Rock Hermit Locator, Snoopers, System Features Rings, UPS Courier.

I apologize if my previous post tone was too rough, english is not my native language and it seems that maybe I offended somebody.... it was not my intention at all

Understood (that it wasn't your intent to offend or that English is not your native English) and it wasn't so much the issues over the graphics that irked me (after all, the nicer laser effects and "sparkly" engine plumes - is a very recent development - and long may others continue - including explosions) - it was more the big brush of tar used to paint all open source games with.

With any project like this all I would ask you to consider is this 1) How much did you pay for it 2) How much are you paying the developers?

There's a lot of love for Oolite - for personal reasons I effectively took a year off (I haven't played the game at all in that time) but I have returned to what is an amazing transformation - not just graphically, but NPC AI, inter-system relationships and a clutch of amazing new OXPs (and some massively tweaked old favourites) - I feel a new set of short stories coming on and will finally get another set of news flashes to Svengali for Snoopers!

I too apologise for coming across as somewhat irked in my response to you, I normally assume language barriers and on this occasion I did not - and for that I am sorry (I'm only just back on the board - which is simply a reason - and not an excuse).

Yah-Ta-Hey wrote:

I am having a quiet chuckle as your unintended comment reminded me of Daniel in the lion's den with you being Daniel who has thrust himself into the oolite lion's den when you commented about open source...

I'm into open source since always... and I have had this kind of "flames" before... I fully understand what DaddyHoggy says, that people fall in love with their projects, but I always have the need to point out what I feel is wrong or incomplete, not for trolling, just for pointing it out for everybody to be aware and let's make a better stuff in the future (that's what open source is about, i think). And being honest, with some notable exceptions, graphics are not the strong point in most open source projects, since we are primarily programmers. At this time I'm checking out the OXP's tutorials and I will take my first steps to develop my first "Hello World" OXP, but I'm not designer and I'm not into graphics stuff neither... So I understand that Oolite is open source, that is a work in progress, etc. And I want to tell everybody that I'm loving Oolite too...

Anyway, I will try the OXP's that cody, cim and spara suggest, and I will keep playing, for sure...

"and I have had this kind of "flames" before"

You lost me, nobody flamed you here... if they had done so, believe me the moderators would have come down on the flamer pretty darn hard.... Seven T in an introduction discussion made that mistake and he is no longer allowed on the board. Maybe someday when he has learned to moderate his viewpoints, he might be able to come back... in the mlar.eantime, what is the theme of your oxp? as I am not a programmer or develooper I just kick back and enjoy the show while muttering in Dineh to no one in particular.

Yah-Ta-Hey wrote:

I just kick back and enjoy the show while muttering in Dineh to no one in particular.

<chortles>

Yah-Ta-Hey wrote:

"and I have had this kind of "flames" before"

You lost me, nobody flamed you here... if they had done so, believe me the moderators would have come down on the flamer pretty darn hard.... Seven T in an introduction discussion made that mistake and he is no longer allowed on the board. Maybe someday when he has learned to moderate his viewpoints, he might be able to come back... in the mlar.eantime, what is the theme of your oxp? as I am not a programmer or develooper I just kick back and enjoy the show while muttering in Dineh to no one in particular.

Ok... I put "flame" between quotation marks, I dont feel actually "flamed"...

the theme of my "potential" oxp... i'm not sure, I would like to learn how to do some basic things first and then I will see... I would like it to be about some underground mob involving traffic of illegal stuff, drugs, bribes and killing annoying dudes...
I don't know really....

spara wrote:

If machine power in no problem, then for basic non-game changing consistent eye-candy I recommend

* Griff: Alloys and wreckage, Shipset Replace and Station Bundle (no additions, only replace)
* Deep Horizon Nav Buoy
* ZygoCinematicSky & Nebulas (instead of Realistic Stars for nebulas)
* Povray Planets

And make sure your Random Hits is the latest version.

I can't find the ZygoCinematicSky&Nebulas, I found some screenshots (they look cooool...) in this forum and a link to mediafire that doesn't work.... where can I find it?

iperich wrote:

I can't find the ZygoCinematicSky&Nebulas, I found some screenshots (they look cooool...) in this forum and a link to mediafire that doesn't work....

The link works fine here - I just checked.

Has anyone mentioned  Random Ship Names yet? Not eye-candy, but very immersive!