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s2odan
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Is this project dead? Its a shame if it is but we always have pioneer which is better anyway 🙂


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DarkOne
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No official updates have happened in some time for FFED3D 🙁

But Pioneer is a great project and deserves the support of everyone, maybe FFED3D will ramp up on its development soon.


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s2odan
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Oh well, I was hoping I was wrong about this one 🙁


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Pinback
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Headhunter post on page 51 of the general discussion thread give six point about the project.

1. The project will continue its development on the basis of VS 2010 and DX SDK 2010.

2. The project will be transferred to the status of "open source".

3. Support files. Midi will be temporarily cut out, because absent in modern DX SDK.

4. Video unit will fully work through the shaders (shaders) (now it is an option).

5. Users should focus on the video card with PS 2.0 +.

6. Dates are not yet known.

This might all be connected with this Gmod. ❓

will have to put a post on Elite games forum and ask about FFE.


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s2odan
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PINBACK wrote:
...

2. The project will be transferred to the status of "open source".....

Excellent 🙂


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Pinback
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I think point 6 is the important one as there does not seem to be a lot of activity on the forum. 😥


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Geraldine
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This post (number 675) on the Frontier Forum seems to indicate that the Russians may be back! 🙂 http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1084

I do hope so! If anyone can log on to Russia's Elite forum (I can't), could you find out anymore info for us english speakers/readers?

Oh, and all hail S20dan for yet another crazy avatar! 😆


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Pinback
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the new buildings are by Wandour. 😎 😀

Find them here.

http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/vi ... &start=420


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Geraldine
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Excellent Pinback!, downloading now 🙂 All they really need to do now is just tidy up some of the aspects of the gameplay, I am not that bothered about the vids, they would be nice to have, but I would rather have targeting tunnels and fixes for some of the equipment and missions. I do hope Dreamzzz comes back to it.


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Potsmoke66
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Quote:
I do hope Dreamzzz comes back to it.

i guess not..., sparks told me they need a new developer(s) (not a easy life as artist, i can tell... 🙄 ).

i gained some noise at least by bothering them continuously 😉

i guess targeting tunnels will never appear again (they was present in a older version and you can see there all font has had a different use then), i'm pretty shure they was made with the bevels from standart dos typefaces, since they mixed up font use (what ever was the reason for) some typefaces are "lost", or replaced by others. FE2 uses a very own type table, some like the targeting box aren't standart dos (you won't find in a ansi font) and was replaced by the [] brackets, with the loss of ä and ü therefore. i'm pretty shure about that, because i wanted once to revert to old typefaces of FFE, but it's not possible from within FFE's code, i would need a source for FFED3D to do so. even to setup a different special FFED3D font won't help to solve all problems, but brings back at least the ö in Köhl Station.

one problem is that some hex values used for font are used in FE2 for special graphics and the use of them is "forbidden" (game crashes, shows weird graphical stuff). to be safe only the upper section of the code table can be used.

imo, they would better have changed the way FFE uses the font, so it represents a unicode font (lot of work, i know), instead of a workaround with the wrapping for it.

or even better, left all like original and created a FFE font, respecting the UNIX type table used in FE2, that would have been the softest and safest way.

equipment and mission fixes would have to be hacked into FFE's core.

missions would be very difficult i guess.

equipment? you miss something or is it just the missing (sub)model on the ship?

a least something i can probably help.

the internal FFE models have to be rewritten to let all ships show the scanner, ECM, labels.

i iced that all up because of Pioneer.

let's see if i can get the sub-models back on steves viper...

there is a slight problem in FFED3D, and some models can sometimes prevent other models from getting loaded, i'm not shure why, but it's a fact.

maybe because they have to have some sytem to prevent the original model from loading when you add a new model to the game.

---

i played around with the viper, but can't find no proper reason why the equipment didn't appears on the ship.

that's confusing and disappointing me 😕 .

i guess i would have to compare it to some more models that show the equipment as only the cobra1.


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Potsmoke66
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for those who missed this under new ship pics, again the new falcon

you can download a beta from here,

http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/viewtopic.php?p=2573006&sid=8e6de9875fe9a221875d0c409ff28862#2573006

i'm not guilty for transparency and red windows... 😆

the direct link to the file

http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/download.php?id=4068&sid=8e6de9875fe9a221875d0c409ff28862


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Pinback
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Shame about Dreamzzz not continuing with it, hopefully they can find some one to take over the project.

Nice falcon 😎


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 Anonymous
Joined: 54 years ago
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potsmoke66 wrote:
FE2 uses a very own type table, some like the targeting box aren't standart dos (you won't find in a ansi font) and was replaced by the [] brackets, with the loss of ä and ü therefore. i'm pretty shure about that, because i wanted once to revert to old typefaces of FFE, but it's not possible from within FFE's code, i would need a source for FFED3D to do so. even to setup a different special FFED3D font won't help to solve all problems, but brings back at least the ö in Köhl Station.

one problem is that some hex values used for font are used in FE2 for special graphics and the use of them is "forbidden" (game crashes, shows weird graphical stuff). to be safe only the upper section of the code table can be used.

I got fed up with things like "K[hl Station" and "Kr]r 60" so I hex-edited the exe to make them read "Kohl Station" and "Krur 60". Not strictly correct, I know, but it looks a lot better. Similarly I corrected oddities in "Sean" and "Seamus" which were looking weird. It seems if you stick to the "safe" upper reaches of the ascii table you're ok. At least, D3D hasn't crashed on me since I made the changes. 🙂


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Geraldine
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Is there any chance you could put that exe on your site Steve? Or even upload it here?


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 Anonymous
Joined: 54 years ago
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Sure, download it from here but, be warned, I've gone a bit nuts with the hex editor over the years. I've changed the in-game font and various other things as well, although the core of the game is unchanged.

I don't seem to have a "vanilla" version of ffed3d any more 😆


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dilesoft
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I contacted with project leader, he promised to publish sources for open source.


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 Anonymous
Joined: 54 years ago
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Steve wrote:

I got fed up with things like "K[hl Station" and "Kr]r 60" so I hex-edited the exe to make them read "Kohl Station" and "Krur 60". Not strictly correct, I know, but it looks a lot better.

Like a dog with a bone, I am...

New version of FFE D3D has all the misprints corrected, so we're back to AC+79º3888 instead of AC+79^3888.

Similarly, we can have Krüger 60 instead of Kruger 60, Ciarán instead of Ciaran and François instead of Francois.

The star names are easy to check (just scroll around the map) but the people names are tougher, as you have to wait until they pop up on the bulletin board (yeah, I know people names are used for place names too, but it would take forever to find them). So far, I know that du Prés is ok, but I haven't been able to check the others, though I've made the necessary changes in the code.

The file can be downloaded from the same place ie. here


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Potsmoke66
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finally something is going on


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Geraldine
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Wonderful news! 🙂 I will upload this to the SSC.


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Potsmoke66
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should i post the new models here?

i do

i know the adder (as well as the courier) exists already for FFED3D, but i started the model almost two years ago, pioneer was creeping between, now it is ready to use for FFED3D.

2011-04-22_004252.jpg

2011-04-22_004030.jpg

you can get the model here: Adder_ffed3d_P66_2011-04.zip


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 Anonymous
Joined: 54 years ago
Posts: 0
 
potsmoke66 wrote:
should i post the new models here?

i do

i know the adder (as well as the courier) exists already for FFED3D, but i started the model almost two years ago, pioneer was creeping between, now it is ready to use for FFED3D.

Excellent work, Potsmoke! That is definitely the best Adder in FFED3D! 🙂


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 Anonymous
Joined: 54 years ago
Posts: 0
 
Geraldine wrote:
Wonderful news! 🙂 I will upload this to the SSC.

Thanks for doing that, Geraldine.

I wonder if it's possible to put a read-me in with the zip file, just explaining what the update does. The download section of SSC is a bit dry, compared with how it used to be 😥


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Geraldine
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Should be say enough to put a little txt file in there along with it. Just do a copy paste of your post with the info into a notepad document, should only take a few seconds to upload 😉


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Potsmoke66
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a thanks from "mr. Frontierastro" great, worthes more then gold!

what i liked to post here was some new old stuff.

i revisted my church for FFED3D and added a clock (a must!)

2011-04-23_201227.jpg

2011-04-23_201313.jpg

unfortunately you can't get rid of the original clockface numbers and the windows, they're plain text and have to be hacked out of the program.

further i ported my factory from Pioneer to FFED3D.

2011-04-23_192605.jpg

but i have actually no idea which building (no.) it should replace, choose one (perhaps the ugly orange cube bld (389)).

because Frontiermeshes runs only when it likes to, yesterday it was working today it hangs.

edit: sometimes i should better read 😉

if you wonder why all the models are standart FFE, to check my models in the game i use a minimum installation of FFED3D, loading time is much shorter.

something else, i guess anybody knows the texture for the gas giants rings is lost.

now i was checking my minimum install and using the standart textures from FFE, but they're still not there, any ideas?

it's not a model they used for the rings, i made proof of that, they appear the same "style" (count of rings, including the nearly unseen very thin ones) as they do in the original.

but what i didn't tried is to replace them with a textured model (i guess that would work), because then all the rings would look the same (i will give it a try as son as frontiermeshes is running again, because i need to know all sub-models used for the rings (at least 3 or 4). but they won't change color (but actually theyr'e allways white and they shouldn't be, if there's no model only the original code) and size as they do in the original.

btw, steve did you hacked it or did you rebuild the exe from source? not that i have any problems, only couriosity.


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 Anonymous
Joined: 54 years ago
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potsmoke66 wrote:
a thanks from "mr. Frontierastro" great, worthes more then gold!

😆

potsmoke66 wrote:

further i ported my factory from Pioneer to FFED3D.

2011-04-23_192605.jpg

but i have actually no idea which building (no.) it should replace, choose one (perhaps the ugly orange cube bld (389)).

Better to stick it in folder 373 (boring triangular thing)

potsmoke66 wrote:

something else, i guess anybody knows the texture for the gas giants rings is lost.

now i was checking my minimum install and using the standart textures from FFE, but they're still not there, any ideas?

it's not a model they used for the rings, i made proof of that, they appear the same "style" (count of rings, including the nearly unseen very thin ones) as they do in the original.

but what i didn't tried is to replace them with a textured model (i guess that would work), because then all the rings would look the same (i will give it a try as son as frontiermeshes is running again, because i need to know all sub-models used for the rings (at least 3 or 4). but they won't change color (but actually theyr'e allways white and they shouldn't be, if there's no model only the original code) and size as they do in the original.

This is how Saturn looks in my FFED3D install

rings_d3d.jpg

and this is how it looks in my old glffe install

rings_gl.jpg

but I don't know if they are how they're supposed to look.

A lot of people complained about pure-white rings, but I never got that.

potsmoke66 wrote:

btw, steve did you hacked it or did you rebuild the exe from source? not that i have any problems, only couriosity.

Rebuild from source? Ha, in my dreams!

No, I hex-edited the exe. I bore in mind your warning about using some higher ascii codes, but I haven't yet had the game crash on me, or do something it wasn't supposed to, since I made the changes 😎


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