Whilst I wrestle with materials and shaders in the Seraphim thread, and as part of my 'learn Z-Brush' training, I've started work on an alternative Thargoid.
1488 triangles with normal maps generated both from hand-drawn greyscale height maps in Photoshop (mouth and eye) and from a high detail mesh sculpted in Z-Brush (the tentacles). This is an early first go at the Thargoid Carrier, it may change stubstantially. I imagine the fighters as little parasitic wasp things, maybe'.
I agree.. Looks more Octopoid than Insectoid, but they'd make an awesome new alien threat for an OXP.
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
Didn't we have the suggestion of introducing Eldritch Abominations into the Ooniverse at some point? Big living creatures in deep space, or something like that?
While this tentacle being certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with Thargoids, it would also certainly be a prime candidate for such a deep space creature. And for this I like it, I like it a lot.
A suggestion: scrap the second ring of arms, let there be only eight, and the mouth underneath. But, more important: Would it be possible with shaders to make the arms move up and down? That would be cool!
Makes me think of the "Amnion" in Stephen Donaldsons "The GAP Series"
Grown ships of superior quality and precision, but low in numbers and production capacity.
Makes for a good setting in an OXP
"A brilliant game of blasting and trading... Truly a mega-game... The game of a lifetime." (Gold Medal Award, Zzap!64 May 1985).
Yeah, a lot of Shadow, mostly Tyranid though.
To be fair, the more I look at it, the less I like it. It's what my old graphics tutor would call, 'the beginning of an idea.'
Ho hum. I like the sound of the giant, mysterious living ships though.
A suggestion: scrap the second ring of arms, let there be only eight, and the mouth underneath. But, more important: Would it be possible with shaders to make the arms move up and down? That would be cool! :shock:
Possible, but difficult. The normal way to do this would be a skeletal animation system: you lay out a bunch of jointed rods, define the relationship of each vertex to the rods, and animate the rods to deform the mesh. There’s no way to do this in Oolite, though, so you’d need to calculate the animation of each vertex based only on its original position. The only animation of this type done for Oolite to date is Griff’s recoiling turrets, and that’s a lot easier.
A suggestion: scrap the second ring of arms, let there be only eight, and the mouth underneath. But, more important: Would it be possible with shaders to make the arms move up and down? That would be cool!
Possible, but difficult. The normal way to do this would be a skeletal animation system: you lay out a bunch of jointed rods, define the relationship of each vertex to the rods, and animate the rods to deform the mesh. There’s no way to do this in Oolite, though, so you’d need to calculate the animation of each vertex based only on its original position. The only animation of this type done for Oolite to date is Griff’s recoiling turrets, and that’s a lot easier.
how about a wavy flag like animation for each leg, that would be needed to be split into sub entities, and rotated ?
while not having tried to translate this into oolite vertex shader
struct appdata
{
float4 position : POSITION;
float4 color : COLOR0;
float3 wave : COLOR1;
};
struct vfconn
{
float4 HPos : POSITION;
float4 Col0 : COLOR0;
};
vfconn main(appdata IN, uniform float4x4 ModelViewProj)
{
vfconn OUT; // Variable to handle our output from the vertex
// shader (goes to a fragment shader if available).
// Change The Y Position Of The Vertex Based On Sine Waves
IN.position.y = ( sin(IN.wave.x + (IN.position.x / 5.0) ) + sin(IN.wave.x + (IN.position.z / 4.0) ) ) * 2.5f;
// Transform The Vertex Position Into Homogenous Clip-Space (Required)
OUT.HPos = mul(ModelViewProj, IN.position);
// Set The Color To The Value Specified In IN.color
OUT.Col0.xyz = IN.color.xyz;
return OUT;
}
I Know Griff tried his hand at it, at a time..
This is NEHEs example of a vertex shader that creates a wavy effect of a mesh, so like the arms would wiggle up and down..
The reason I'm asking this is because some effects of mine I have planed, includes some heavy vertex manipulation...
(They're not Thargoids - but I like 'em!)
.
