Oolite Bulletins

Hi All,

Not really posted here before as I was generally too busy with other things. Amongst which was playing on games - and that's why I am posting here. I have created a web site which I am currently building up as a homage to Elite and its descendents, of which Oolite is one - a very big one. I wanted to generate a video showing the the features of Elite and the descendents to show the uniqueness of the original game and how it has been developed over the years. I had Elite on the BBC, Archimedes and Atari ST. I did try Frontier but for some reason that never captured my imagination, but then I did delve into Oolite on the PC and the Mac. I must confess I am not very proficient at any of them, the best I got to was Elite status on the BBC but with encouragement and help from a friend.

I have made a video to demonstrate Elite ships with a running mockup and textured ships to imitate wireframe (I found wireframe programming and hidden line removal a pain). I have textured up a number of ArcElite style ships that were on the Archimedes and will soon be putting a video of them together for the second development stage demo. But I don't have all of the ships. I have produced models using Dat2ObjTex.py from one of Griff's rebuilds of the ArcElite ships - so I thought I would post and ask permission to use them for the video as there all there and better than my textured examples. So if you are reading this - is that OK Griff?

I have picked up on the Oolite history and seen many of the changes, ultimately I would like to produce videos of each generation. The Oolite Galaxy is so vast and there are so many ships and variations of ships I would find it difficult to choose - but that could be well down the line. My progress is very slow since I don't get much freedom to program nowadays.

Here's a link to my first video - I produced this on an iPad using Codea, a Lua based programming editor/viewer.

BBC Elite Video 1

Bri_G wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:23 pm

I did try Frontier but for some reason that never captured my imagination

<nods> You are not alone in that! Welcome aboard, Commander!

Thanks for the reply. Glad to know I'm not alone in the universe.

Bri_G wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 10:00 pm

Thanks for the reply. Glad to know I'm not alone in the universe.

I do like your wireframes - very chic!

Is your film supposed to be silent - or is it something I've done wrong?

Hi Cholmondely,

Built it up initially silent as I'm not too good with audio. Fancied playing the Stones "2000 light years from home" as backing but worried about copyright. May look for a public domain theme.

Do you think audio would add much to it?

Bri_G wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 7:01 am

Hi Cholmondely,

Built it up initially silent as I'm not too good with audio. Fancied playing the Stones "2000 light years from home" as backing but worried about copyright. May look for a public domain theme.

Do you think audio would add much to it?

Yes. How about your talking a little? Talk about the ships. Talk about making them. Talk about why you are so attracted to Elite that you are willing to spend so much time and effort programming and then making the film to show people. Talk about one or two of your best memories playing the game. How the game on the screen helps the game in the head. You could have a little music as a backdrop.

If you search around the Oolite treasure trove you should come up with some inspiration!

It's a great shame that so many of the old Elite sites have fallen by the wayside. Congratulations on setting up a new one!

Hi Cholmondely,

Thanks, will look into the sound files on the forum websites - good idea. These forums are full of info.

I need to get Griff's clearance to use his ships for the second video, and will try to incorporate sound. Will probably post links to website when that's included.

I've also almost finished a Codea app that shows the 8 galaxies with the data for each planet. Just need to get the final touches sorted on it.

I think commenting on the video is out, my voice is dull, monotone and uninteresting. May add a comment page though.
Thanks again.

Bri_G wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:44 am

I need to get Griff's clearance to use his ships for the second video

Griff pops in regularly, so he'll see this thread. I doubt he'll have a problem with you using his ships, but you're right to wait for clearance.

hi Bri_G
Good luck with your project, yes please do use any of my oxp ships in your projects, the arcelite ones i got from the old "witchspace" website via the wayback machine site, i think originally the witchspace site had the ships there in wrl format, i think that might have been some sort of 3d object format for websites. i think i used something like meshlab or something like that to convert them to obj, if you have some missing let me know and i'll see if i can find them - i think the ships from 'elite-a' and the abandoned elite2 that braben & bell started working on are there too


Incidentally, this amazing website
https://www.bbcelite.com/
where the author has picked through the original 8bit elite code and documented it all, has the 'ship blueprints' for all the objects
https://www.bbcelite.com/deep_dives/shi ... rsion.html
it lists the vertex co-ordinates and the edges so if you have enought time you could enter them into a 3d program and build the ships

Hi Griff,

Thanks for the reply and approval to use your ships.

Thanks for the links too, think I have seen one about the original BBC Elite breaking down the code but haven't seen the ship data - that could be useful.

I'll go ahead with the second video now and may post a link to the website when I've added a little more content. I've also made a little app on the iPad for displaying the eight galaxies and data for each planet. Will post details in the website and see if I can incorporate it into the website with Javascript.

Thanks again for your help.