Z's FO Conversions.

[K_merse]

The ISDs and the Acclamators look awesome. But the Venators seem a bit low poly alongside them.
It's not an offense, it's very hard to make a Venator which doesn't look low poly but it is in reality. It's in its design I think. I tried it three times, failed every time

 

[Adm_Z]

Yes, well I don't make models (much) so it doesnt matter to me too much. They match and they are all made by Amateur, so It makes little difference to me.

@ Majestic

I know what you mean... It is one reason why I haven't been extremely motivated on my bsg mod. That, and I know it will only get max 10 downloads...


And yes, I made the selectionbox and UI and I am so happy with the way it turned out! I wasn't able to make a new one, so I edited the textures of the federation one and changed the name of the sod to match my race.

The UI is not complete however, I plan to 'spruce' the main info box area up some more when I get some time.

I"m glad you like it Maj.

 

[Majestic]

This morning I have been looking into doing custom select screens and all I get are CTD. I tried hex editing one and then entering in the sprite info into the fleetops.spr file but no luck.
I see your way is the best way enough though I was hoping to make custom ones for my mods and perhaps some blank ones for people to download and use themselves in their projects.
I guess that is something the FleetOps team will have to do, if they wish to support mods on their system they will need to start producing either tutorials or templates for some things.

Back to topic, I really like where you're heading with this, I like the idea about just the one resource, I myself am thinking of a min of two with a max of three. It's also great to hear you're planning of enhancing your UI as well.

 

[thunderfoot]

...I know what you mean... It is one reason why I haven't been extremely motivated on my bsg mod. That, and I know it will only get max 10 downloads...

One of the reasons I stopped doing mods for A2 was I found myself doing things more for the approval from others rather than to please myself. It took a lot of the joy away and made what used to be fun something I looked forward to dreading. I got into doing maps because they are actually easier to do than almost anything else. Ya Rly! I spend about a week thinking of a theme or idea, about a day sketching a map out on paper and then about three or four hours making the map and then about two or so hours play testing.

It is hard to stay motivated for a D/L count of ten or so. But those ten are people who will appreciate the hard work and effort you put into the mod. How do I know this? Because I am one of the ten, natch.

 

[Adm_Z]

@majestic
Yeah, as I said earlier, I will have it so you gain credits by getting kills or keeping ships alive. these credits will be used to buy ships.

The problem with recreating a selection sod is that it needs to have a sod with no model and ms3d doesn;t allow that. You might be able to do something with it and make an invisible mesh, but I don't know how a2 would like that. For now, the easiest way is to edit the textures of one of the current races or the default race selection box.

On a side note, I believe the devs have been working on the modding guide alot lately, adding significant additions to the odf code sections. I don't blame them for not having the time to write the tutorials... I wrote a couple myself and I know how much time it can take.

@ thunderfoot
Thanks my friend, it means a lot.

 

[Adm_Z]

Got two fighters in game. I think I may adjust the v-wings color to make it a less vibrant red(or the arcs to be more vibrant), and also use a red Y wing rather than the yellow ones so it matches my other fighters. I would love y'all's opinion on this.

I am having a little trouble getting my fighters to work properly since the devs removed the replacementaction line, but I think I have found a way around it to trick my fighters into moving in the first place. Right now, my controllable fighters will only replace and sit there until you tell them to do something. I want them to move around the carrier at very least, if not follow it around and guard it until you tell it to do something.

 

[Majestic]

Beautiful looking work Z, they look great in-game. If anything the mothership's red is too bright compared to the fighters.

 

[Adm_Z]

Its possible, but from a distance, the red isn't quite so bad. I will experiment with the shades.

Alright, I have my first skirmishes going!! Not that I am close to finished or anything, but setting up a battle by giving the enemy ships through the map editor seems to be working quite well. They launch fighters like they should, but I"m kinda dissipointed by the fighter battles. I will have to work to improve them because as it stands, they don't work nearly as well as the fighters in my bsg mod. I might have to let the AI control their own fighters rather than having them launch fighters which are not controllable. perhaps that will make them more challenging....

Anyway, picture time!

 

[Majestic]

Looking good Z, it's always hard to get good shots of fighters flying around.

 

[Adm_Z]

Yeah, unfortunatly I went for a somewhat realistic sizing of the fighters so they are not only acting improperly, but very hard to see. I don't even really care weather or not you can see them, but I want to at least see a bunch of weapons fire and explosions in the background while the capital ships are fighting.

That and I want my enemy ships to actually attack bombers...

 

[Adm_Z]

More pictures!! I think my fighters might actually be fighting now that I got a sound effect and shortened their shot delay. It seems like they might have just not been in range for longenough to fire. Also, I found a bunch of music and sound files in my Republic Commando game folder which I am trying to use in the mod, however with 100 1 minute long music files that are made for a FPS it is kinda dificult.

I have decided that I may want to release my fighters and edits before the mod is done as a sort of sample, so I will probably get around to releasing my V-wing, the textures for the Y-wing, and a secrete project that may take a bit longer, but I"m sure you all will like it.

For now though, I am focusing on getting all the units working ingame and all weapons etc to my liking. Balance is going to be a pain though, even with only three main ships.

 

[Amateur]

Some nice stuff you've got here Z. Glad that a few of my things could help .

Awesome V-wing as well, looks good in game .

 

[Walternate]

Those are some great-looking ships! Good luck getting fighters working properly, they're such an integral part of Star Wars...

 

[Adm_Z]

Thanks guys, here are some more pics for you.











Right now, I"m having problems getting the AI to work properly, i.e. getting them to shoot at everything they see and hunt me down until I'm dust.:x Any advice on this would be much appreciated.

 

[Adm_Z]

Thought I should post my pictures here now that I have them in game. Hope you like them.

 

[Majestic]

These look really good in-game with the lighting and rendering shaders working to full effect. Top work Adm_Z.

 

[Starfox1701]

Very nice

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
Those pics look amazing, even if I am no fan enough to try a Star Wars mod (I might try eventually) I can say those model look very very good ingame.

Keep it up!

 

[Adm_Z]

Thanks guys. My next task will be to work on lowering my v-wings polycount. I think the arc is ok, but the v-wing is so numerous I think that that is why it lags a bit.

 

[Adm_Z]

Alright, so I got it down from 1385 to 799 without doing much. Here is a pic of the result. I also changed my slightly complicated guns to prisms, which really helped.

before

after

 

[Starfox1701]

Not bad at all. You going to do a couple more and assemble them for LODs?

 

[Adm_Z]

Well, I have all the ships I need right now(I am tempted to do one other fighter, but I will keep that one a mystery) but I would love to know how to do LOD's.

The ARC-170 and BTL-B are not so numerous that having them over 1000 was a problem, but the V-wing is my baseline unit and in a small battle, they could go over 100 in number, so I need them as low poly as possible.


Good news though, I went and played and experanced no lag at all, so I think I fixed my problems. I almost halved the amount of polies the game was rendering.

 

[Majestic]

Good work Adm_Z great to see you're progressing on your project.

 

[Adm_Z]

Thanks maj.

So.. I lied. I think I will be using some neutral asteroid outposts to buy ships from. I based the model after this design I found(google)

And here is the model .

 

[Majestic]

Interesting design, so this is your warp-in station?

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
I like how the model is looking so far. It is always nice to see some asteoird bases, even if sometimes, they are not very believable (as asteroids can be build with the station, hehehe). But I think it should fit nicely with your idea of a neutral station.
Keep it up!

 

[Adm_Z]

Interesting design, so this is your warp-in station?

Yeah, I think I will put several variants(same station different asteroid) in the avatar select replaceweapon, to make it look a bit better, but I think I will just use it. That is, unless I find something better.

Hello:
I like how the model is looking so far. It is always nice to see some asteoird bases, even if sometimes, they are not very believable (as asteroids can be build with the station, hehehe). But I think it should fit nicely with your idea of a neutral station.
Keep it up!

Thanks chile, I think it will work for my needs. It will pretty much be a beacon or buoy that each player gets on avatar select. The station will be used to buy ships to "warp" in. You get money based on ship kills. It will take a kill with equal strength to rank up. For instance, you will get small amounts of money for fighter kills, but you will get more depending on the size of your ship. To get money for kills with an venator, you must at least kill a venator with it.


You will by default have to buy ships and have them come to the beacon, but you will be able to buy the ability to extend the range and possibly other upgrades. Depending on how much time I get to work on this, I could finish this rather quickly since each avatar is a mirror image of the other, other than visuals, I am not making any promises.

 

[Starfox1701]

Well, I have all the ships I need right now(I am tempted to do one other fighter, but I will keep that one a mystery) but I would love to know how to do LOD's.

The ARC-170 and BTL-B are not so numerous that having them over 1000 was a problem, but the V-wing is my baseline unit and in a small battle, they could go over 100 in number, so I need them as low poly as possible.


Good news though, I went and played and experanced no lag at all, so I think I fixed my problems. I almost halved the amount of polies the game was rendering.

All you have to do is download one of my ship sets. I include all the MS3D files so theres preaty much a guidbook right there

 

[Adm_Z]

So it will work if I just copy the hardpoint hierarchy and extra mesh groups? I really don't understand what a LOD it is doing tbh other than improving performance at further distance.

 

[Starfox1701]

What the LODs do is let you keep the best looking mesh for upclose vewing without forcing the whole system to bare that render load for those units to far away to see the detail anyway. Fighters in a game like A2 or EAW are perfect aplications for LODs because you can have the good mesh inside of 75m and a brick with the fighter painted on the top and sides beyond 300m put a couple of intermedit mesh in there and bam you have a 2000 poly fighter that runs like a 200 poly right 75 % of the time. You can use from 2 upto 5 levels of detail with between 1 to 6 meshs per level. The setup is the
Geometry
LOD0
M1
M2
LOD1
M3
M4
and so on. Any other questions?