Hallelujah!

[Selezen]

I take my time, but I get there in the end. Spinny nacelles and everything.

I've even managed to get the laptop working in the short term, so it's ready to OXP up and send out there. I just need to remember the rule for packaging for Macs. Anyone feel like reminding me?

[Captain Hesperus]

Hmmmmm, I'm having a premonition. I see Selezen changing his avatar....

Nice work! Me Like!! Elite IV would have to be SOME project to match up to the eye-candy being turned out by you guys!!!

Captain Hesperus

[Cmdr. Maegil]

AWESOME!!!

Altough it could, just maybe, look even better if smoothed?

[CaptKev]

Selezen, excellent ship you've created there, it looks like it will to be quick and agile!

[reills]

SCHWEEET!!!

[Charlie]

Lookig forward to this one.

[Killer Wolf]

damn, that looks sexy.

[JensAyton]

I just need to remember the rule for packaging for Macs. Anyone feel like reminding me?

The only one I’m aware of is: don’t put the Read Me inside the OXP.
The rule for Linux is: get the case of names right. (Strictly speaking this is needed for Macs too, but most people don’t use case-sensetive file systems.)

[Selezen]

Altough it could, just maybe, look even better if smoothed?[/size]

It's deliberately not smoothed. It gives it a meaner and more Elite-ish look.

Plus which I can't remember how to do smoothing.

Apparently, ICs will have three lasers. Cool. Unfortunately the player versions will not. Poo. Ah well. Can anyone remeber how to access the external views? I want to see if the laser is coming out of the right place...

[Killer Wolf]

christ no, don't smooth it! that wedgey F117 look looks fantastic! paint up a black skin and you could have a high-speed military stealth recon ship for scouting Thargoid bases in Witchspace!

[Charlie]

Altough it could, just maybe, look even better if smoothed?[/size]

It's deliberately not smoothed. It gives it a meaner and more Elite-ish look.

Plus which I can't remember how to do smoothing.

Apparently, ICs will have three lasers. Cool. Unfortunately the player versions will not. Poo. Ah well. Can anyone remeber how to access the external views? I want to see if the laser is coming out of the right place...

FWIW I agree this is one of those models that probably looks better without smoothing.

<key>smooth</key>
<true/>
In the shipdata.plist if you want to experiment.
( either for the ship itself, sub-entities, or combination )

External views:
shipdata.plist
<key>custom_views</key>
<array>
.
.
</array>
...copied out of the .plist of a similar-sized ship. Press 'V' to activate.

You can do selective smoothing in the .dat file ( eg Pelamis ) but as I don't use Wings, I never worked out how to do this in other packages.

Hope this is of use - really looking forward to your new IC.

[Commander McLane]

I'm using the following external views for my ImpCour:

Code: Select all

		<key>custom_views</key>
		<array>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>External View 1</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>0.0 30.0 -141.42</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>External View 2</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>100.0 30.0 -100.0</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>0.9239 0.0 0.3827 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>External View 3</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>141.42 30.0 0.0</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>0.7071 0.0 0.7071 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>External View 4</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>100.0 30.0 100.0</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>0.3827 0.0 0.9239 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>External View 5</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>0.0 30.0 141.42</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>External View 6</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>-100.0 30.0 100.0</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>0.3827 0.0 -0.9239 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>External View 7</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>-141.42 30.0 0.0</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>0.7071 0.0 -0.7071 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>External View 8</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>-100.0 30.0 -100.0</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>0.9239 0.0 -0.3827 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>Down View</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>0.0 150.0 0.0</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>-0.7071 0.7071 0.0 0.0</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>view_description</key>
				<string>Up View</string>
				<key>view_position</key>
				<string>0.0 -150.0 0.0</string>
				<key>view_orientation</key>
				<string>0.0 0.0 0.7071 0.7071</string>
				<key>weapon_facing</key>
				<string>FORWARD</string>
			</dict>
		</array>

And as far as smoothing is concerned: I did smooth my ship, but it turned dark during the process. I undid it an did it again. This time it worked. Now after a long time of using it smoothed I had an external look again, and was stunned: It wasn't smoothed, but still dark! I set <key>smooth</key> from <true/> to <false/>. Result: not smoothed (not surprising), but still dark! I put the very bright texture from the wings-model folder to the textures folder and renamed it: I got this bright, but not detailed texture. After the next restart of the game it's still the same texture, not detailed, but... it has turned dark as well!

What is happening here? Is there a very basic problem with the smooth-command? Right now when I want to take a screenshot for showing it here... everything looks fine again. The model is not darkened, but smoothed. Only problem: in shipdata smooth is still false!

[JensAyton]

Smoothing groups: open a DAT file in a text editor and search for the word “FACES”. After that, you’ll see lines like:

Code: Select all

127,127,127,	0.86847,0.47531,0.14083,	3,	2,1,13

The first three numbers were originally face colour, but were unused after textures were introduced. The first of them is now the smoothing group; if it is zero, the face will be unsmoothed, otherwise it will be smoothed with respect to adjacent faces in the same group.

Obviously working out which face is which in the DAT file is a tad tedious. The converter script can load smoothing groups from an OBJ file; in OBJ files they’re specified by a line like:

Code: Select all

s 1

before one or more polygons.

Smoothed models going dark: I suspect this is a case of normals being inverted. I don’t really know what to do about it at the moment, though.

[Commander McLane]

Thanks for the info, Ahruman!

I will have a look into that.

[Gareth3377]

Awesome - can't wait to see it in the game. Personally I'd keep with the angular look rather than smoothing it. For me, the angular looks makes it look a more efficient hunter/killer.