p66 updates & new models

[gernot66]

a few words in advance.

textures have been mirrored where it's needed (according to that the changes only affect .obj meshes).

sizes of the models have been reset, i don't like them to be changed and if you would have to change a lot more rather only the size (i.e. pilot). fe2 & ffe models have the proper scale/size, if you feel it's to small compared to the mass, then lower the damned hull mass again to something closer to fe2/ffe. some ships that use no pilots and have no special scale could perhaps be changed in size.

please keep the zbias, i didn't set them such high for fun.

---

sub-models

this REPLACES the complete sub-model folder, missiles have been moved here (since long) and should therefore be disabled in ships.lua

no other sub-models needed! the old (scripted geometry) pilot has been removed, ships (not mine) which still use the old pilot model must be updated therefore.

new sub-models

• additional scanner models
• different cargo models
• "mono rail"

http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/sub_models_dec2011_2.zip

a few advices for the use of the sub models,

the pilot is split to three models, this lowers the amount of needed variations much (div. by 3). all pilot submodels use the same centre and can be placed at the same coordinates. the centre is on the lowest part of the pilots back ;) the new names are,

pilot_1, pilot_2, pilot_3 and pilot_1_lit, pilot_2_lit, pilot_3_lit (local lit version).

pilot_seat, pilot_seat_lit and pilot_cseat, pilot_cseat_lit (c for comfort ;) ).

helmet_mod (modern...) and helmet_old (fishbowl), there is no local lit version because if a ship is big enough to have a bridge no helmets are needed.

---

buildings

all buildings of mine, plus greyoxides blds.

delete old "city" folder, models which are still in use are included in city3k, the old factory shouldn't be used before we can separate hostile and breathable atmosphere planets.

anyway i think common skyscrapers/buildings look a bit displaced on a moon/hostile planet, but...

http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/buildings_p66_dec2011_2.zip http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/bld_ind_p66_dec2011_2.zip http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/city3k_p66_dec2011_2.zip

---

stations

use it by choice ;) changes the groundstations models and the "big crappy" delete old stations.lua if used

http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/stations_dec2011_2.zip

---

ships

eagle - revision, new pilot changed size (orig.), removed some variations http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/4_eagles_dec2011_1.zip

adc - new http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/adc_dec2011_2.zip

adder - revision, flipped textures http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/adder_dec2011_2.zip

asp sparks - revision, flipped textures http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/asp_sparks_dec2011_2.zip

cobra - revision, flipped textures ship can easely be removed from stock... http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/cobra1_dec2011_2.zip

constrictor - revision, flipped textures, new pilot http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/constrictor_dec2011_2.zip

courier - revision, new texture, less variations, new pilot http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/courier_dec2011_2.zip

gelios - new http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/gelios_dec2011_2.zip

gunboat - new http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/gunboat_dec2011_1.zip

hullcutter - new http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/hullcutter_dec2011_1.zip

ip-shuttle - revision, new pilot http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/ip_shuttle_dec2011_1.zip

lanner - revision, flipped textures http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/lanner_ub_dec2011_2.zip

lynx - revision, flipped textures, rescaled http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/lynx_dec2011_2.zip

rapier - new http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/rapier_dec2011_1.zip

shift - new http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/shift_dec2011_2.zip

sidewinder - revision, new pilot http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/sidewinder_dec2011_1.zip

stardust - revision, flipped textures model can be removed from stock if you like http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/stardust_dec2011_2.zip

terra - new http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/terra_dec2011_2.zip

viper coolhand - revision/replacement, different (true) UC animation, new pilot, flipped textures use it if you like... http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/viper_ch_dec2011_2.zip

viper x - revision, flipped textures, new pilot, fixed zbias http://pioneer-universum.web.officelive.com/Documents/viper_x_dec2011_2.zip

one is missing so far, the "defender", i will add it soon.

you don't have to use all of them, i understand that it's, 1st get's a little "gernot lasting", 2nd not all ships are really nice (in some eyes even ugly, shitty, lazy modeled, stupid, guess whatever you like...)

and "finger ab de röschti, de vatter hät d'füess druf"

---

if you have any GOOD reasons to change the size of the ships, tell me, i'm curious.

[robn]

@gernot66 You'll hear from me sometime in the next few days. I need to finish a few things for alpha 20 before I can go through all this with you.

[robn]

Background reading: http://www.spacesimcentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=2714&p=27149#p27149

Please choose a single updated ship (not the new ones) for us to work on. I don't particularly care which. Then, please make sure its working correctly against the master branch. If you can't do that, try a nightly. If you can't do that, we'll work against Alpha 20, which will be released on 9 March.

[gernot66]

hm, not easy like i said, most use the new pilot model, so it wil be (nearly) unevadeable to take any updated one without the new pilot.

well, perhaps the courier would do the job, i can if you like use the existing pilot model or even no pilots. it would please me, because i like the new textures much better. it's also stripped down somewhat and uses a single texture sheet now.

i guess that's a good compromise.

will take a hour or so, from on this post.

i guess i offer both versions, with the new pilot and with the existing pilot model. because then you can better decide and see what the new pilot model has as advantage. i know it will at least have a 20% better performance, especially with the courier.

which of the courier model you take into alpha 20 (with old or new pilot), i don't care to much actually. because i guess the gain in framerate will push the new ones sooner or later into pioneer.

thanks for the reply and the patience you have with "yosemity sam" ;)

is it ok if i link them simply here?

[laarmen]

It would be better for everyone if you made it available in a Pull Request from a git repository against the master branch. It might seem simpler to you to zip your models, but having it in git instead allows us to easily track what is worked on and test it in a matters of seconds.

I understand your work environment is Mac OS, I hear there is some good graphical interface to git available, and even a GitHub specific application (see http://mac.github.com/ )

You have to keep in mind that it is easier to integrate multiple small-sized changes than a big mashup commit.

Cheers,

Simon

[gernot66]

if i'm able to get it work...

would cost some extra time, i will see what i can do. yes i know it seems to be simple to contribute to git with the mac, but i'm really unexperienced with both. actually i try to find out what's behind the black textures

it gets stranger and stranger actually i have removed the transparent layer but it appears still black ???

only on the MAC build, windows build run via wineskin works fine, but i like to get them working in both builds, else i'm not satisfied.

[gernot66]

i'm getting to the core of the problem slowly. somehow this only happens with textures that have a alpha channel (ok, we know that already) interesting is to see that i.e. the decals or th squadsign submodel don't show this issue. (even that's not new)

i've opened both in xnview and the decals shown correctly as bit depth 32, if i select change bit depth it shows also correctly 32bit for the opened picture.

when i open i.e. the texture of the courier, it even shows 32bit depth, but if i select change bitdepth it shows 24bit depth.

i assume some information has get lost, while i reworked the texture with GIMP-painter (i'm not sure but sounds logical). what exactly has happened is still not to clear to me.

but i guess actually i will remove the layer and the alpha channel from the texture, it doesn't change much on the appearance of the ship (except that in the colorvariable version the chrome parts become colored) i guess i can live with that, even when it costs me some tears.

i will do a further test to see what happens if i use the full scale 0 to 255 on the alpha channel and not only 0 or 255. like i said manipulating the alpha channel with GIMP is anything else then comfortable or useful. could be it strips all true 32bit depth information when the alpha channel is not used in the full range.

still that don't explains why it works in the windows build and not so in the mac build. i run both builds on my macbook

something else, is there a way to run the linux build on a mac, anyones got a idea? would be nice if i can compare all builds on my mac, it would help to getaround such issues.

[robn]

Courier it is. I don't much mind about old/new pilot, use whichever you prefer. Also don't worry about trying to get them into Git or conform to any particular standard (eg magic use of alpha channels). We'll get into fixing/standardising work later.

Mac uses a different underlying image loader which is not as flexible as the one used on Windows and Linux. We've had problems with it before, see #867. If you can get it working on the Windows build then that will be enough. This may be the push we need to fix the problem once and for all.

This work won't make Alpha 20, which is now in feature freeze and will be released this Friday. There's no reason it can't make Alpha 21.

Post the model as soon as you can. I will get it into Git and then I can get working on it and get others working on any problem code that might be making things difficult (like the Mac image loader).

[gernot66]

phew, thanks a lot i was already on the way to remove the transparent layers from all models (no don't do it!). it has annoyed me much to see them all "black" (and still does).

actually for the courier it didn't matters, it seems i have removed ALL variations already and it appears only in "Gold". that could still be reverted, i guess i did it once simply to see if i can gain a few fps through that. because it has so many animated parts (wings, engines, engine tips, undercarriage) and no lower LOD mesh except for the collision mesh, it's already at the limit. perhaps i can manage it to use the collision mesh as LOD2 version to, if it's very small you won't recon. that at all. further i guess why shouldn't it appear only in gold, it's fine. FE2's courier is also simply light grey (silver i assume). i guess it suits the ship well to have no color variable material or other skins.

anyway i will see if i can participate via github, it will be a comfortable thing for me to.

i will shorten the actual script and remove all remnants of earlier versions (i usually only marked them as comment). perhaps join some .obj parts which can be joined now, due to colorvariations exist anymore.

perhaps i can't finish all today that texture issue has held me up a lot and costed me some nerves :) and humans need unfortunately food and sleep from time to time. tommorow and the following two or three days i won't have the possibility, i have to get home and empty my letterbox, unfortunately i have no web access (yet) where i live right now. (outback of switzerland?, yeah somewhat in midst of the mountains).

the model is near to be finished and runs already proper on the mac build.

thx for the "all-clear alert"

something has crossed my mind right now

isn't it possible to take the animation state 1 (lowered undercarriage) of the collision mesh as reference for the position of the model?

it's something that has annoyed me always to see some models "miles" above the landing pad. it's not important to solve this right now or soon, it's only a question.

[robn]

This all sounds great - nice work! Don't worry about being off the internet for a little while - we all have real lives to live and there's no hurry :)

[Philbywhizz]

@gernot66, if you need any assistance with setting up a development environment using git on the mac then let me know. It is quite easy to use once you get the hang of it.

[Philbywhizz]

(conversation taken offline as to not pollute this issue)

[robn]

@gernot66 Please don't edit existing posts. I usually don't look back over ones I've already read. If it wasn't for the image I would have missed it completely.

The hovering over the pad issue is a problem, and is something that needs to be solved in the placement code in the engine, not in the model. I don't think its a particularly complicated fix, just needs someone to take the time to test and understand it.

[gernot66]

understood, that won't happen again. (even when it tooks me some time sometimes to write them, english isn't my tongue).

[laarmen]

Oh, don't worry about time, or even not-perfect English : You are not the only one who is not a native speaker, as illustrated by the multiple translation files in the repository. If you have multiple things to express, you can always split your posts into bitesized pieces :-)

[robn]

Closing per discussion on #1316.