Notifications
Clear all

Afar across the universe (retrospective to alpha8)

Page 3 / 4

Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

ScreenShot_113_zpscc051165.jpg

 

ScreenShot_115_zps0a4bf0e5.jpg

 

tell, think, say what you like, but to me nothing looks as cool as scripted geometry, it's somehow like the difference of listening to a soundtracker module or a mp3.

one is "fresh" "alive", even though it's made by the machine, the other is hmm... odd?

i guess it's the artificial look and feel which makes the difference, it's super clean.

 

and of course the feeling that you crafted a model, some satifactional moment you get when you reached the goal.

this was a rather quick one, i started it right after the post i made in the "total mod genesia" thread and finished it a hour ago.

it took me quite a while to get good photographs and a blueprint of the Sputnik.

 

assy_draw.jpg

 

PS-1 has diameter of 580 mm, lenght 588 mm (with that pimp at the rear of the sphere). 2 antennas were 2400 mm in lenght, other two - 3900 mm, angled to 35 grad to spacecraft symmetry line.

 

 

 

if like to get a closer view to the russian space program, check this website:

 

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/index.html


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

name the ship 😉

 

screenshot-20140824-190228_zpsfa7088db.j

 

screenshot-20140824-190327_zps88ae50fc.j

 

"i have ben thrown out for such a long time" the walrus said "but wait for my comeback"

"finally i found my balance and no longer i have to tilt from one side to the other"

 

screenshot-20140818-215015_zpscc7671f4.j


ReplyQuote
Geraldine
(@geraldine)
Rear Admiral Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 3446
 

name the ship 😉

Easy!  Goo goo goo joob goo goo goo goo joob


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

"everybody... no i don't repeat this here - just guess of my former nickname"

 

Beatles, wow, i wasn't sure if i'm trippin'... must be because i work so fast, the clip & the music seemed to me like it's in slow motion.

 

---

 

"pimp my ship" - next one

 

ScreenShot_121_zpse5fd9e68.jpg

 

ScreenShot_122_zps99e540d8.jpg

 

the only thing i wonder is why i haven't made this before?

 

TomM's ships don't look bad once they are textured and some details are added to them

 

even to replace the standard gear i could have done long ago (and have had in some way), really new is only the gear which is to place under the wings as for the Walrus

and uses a little less space in depth.

 

a second thing i puzzled out is a table to get a idea for the capacity of a ship, base will be the volume i.e blender shows you for a object,

then i took the maximum load which is still useful for hyperspacing as a maximum, roundabout 2000tons and the minimum 10 - 12 tons,

maximum volume is a cube (my spherical ships come close to) with 100m sidelenght, larger won't work with our stations.

assuming the 100m sphere can hold 2000tons (which is "low", but i imagine a lot of free space in such a giant ship, space there would be for times more, but it's not useful if you can't hyperspace,

well multiple engines - no that "lunatic" or isn't it?...)

i have now a table from which i can read the capacity for a ship, which is surprising low up to a certain limit of volume.

 

i had the idea after i noticed that 300tons for the downscaled "Walrus" are far to much, i guessed then 100, but wasn't sure like often when i have to guess a capacity for a ship.

according to my table it can hold now only 60tons, but that's not bad for a ship of 30m length and comes close to "FE2's Viper".

 

realistic or not i don't know, but at least it's handy to have such a table to get a rough idea of the capacity, a few tons more or less won't matter, but not 300tons instead of 60 to 100tons.

a little space for "creativity" must be left, i assume anyway that ships with wings can hold less cargo, the wings can hold maybe fuel, but not large amounts of cargo,

while a spherical or cube shaped ship can hold cargo up to the rim.

 

---

 

i'm really satisfied with the scripted models, it's a different thing and a real challange, needs quite more as just to work with a software.

even that is can use for this special edition standardized sub-models and textures, apart from that i decide how many equipment a ship should show

and how many of that will be animated.

 

the ships might be simple, nonetheless they are fun to play with.

 

"brand gernot" if you like, but it seems to me this isn't a bad brand.

 

---

 

 

"rot_gear( 'model_name', position, vector_x, vector_y, scale, degrees, direction(axis, cw or ccw), starttime, endtime )"


ReplyQuote
Geraldine
(@geraldine)
Rear Admiral Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 3446
 

Nice to see these big ships getting some attention Gernot!


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

ScreenShot_124_zps78905ade.jpg

 

i had the stupid idea to convert the Ladybird to SGM (.dae), but it didn't worked out and i have no idea why, any other i made last year work fine.

spent a night for nothing except a f*** up brain.

 

and again i feel "good old LMR, everything turns out as expected".

 

besides, talking 'bout horrible issues,

i was looking for a error i made for about two days, guessing i've done something wrong while i was working on the source of alpha30,

 

... until occasionally and as a last try i thought "maybe it wasn't my fault" noticed that the new release adds some lines to the config file which older releases won't accept.

 

edit: i forgot genesia stores the stuff in a own folder

though if anybody has problems to run "alpha30" after running a new release of pioneer, he has to delete the config file.

 

 

"horrible issues" because pioneer leaves you in the dark, showing no error message to either, like often (since quite a while)when it crashes.

and where you like to start to search if you haven't just a tiny hint what has caused the crash?

 

the config file was really the last i could imagine...


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

comparison

 

ScreenShot_127_zps87dba0d3.jpg

 

ScreenShot_128_zps266badd0.jpg

 

no big difference at first sight, however it leaks certainly of all the extras, doesn't lands on his gear and shows the ship wrong in the preview window (gear is half retracted).

 

the only thing i like is the specularity map for SGM, the rest isn't worth the effort imho.

 

 

HOWEVER this is anyway my last model for SGM and i only made it for Marcel, if he says i like to have it i will finish the model

(it misses lower detailed meshes, but it won't cost much to make them).

 

still i think collada isn't suitable, sorry, but in every program you open a collada it gets displayed different, it's a mess if you ask me.

 

further i have no idea if it will work with a recent pioneer, after all the changes?

 

intentionally i liked to convert all of TomM's ships for SGM, but now i'm not so sure about, it depends if this will honored by somebody i guess.


ReplyQuote
Marcel
(@marcel)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1188
 

Sure I'd like to have it! I started on an SGM conversion myself. Only the hull was converted, so it has no landing gear. I got burned out trying to convert my original textures to fit the model properly. There was quite a bit of stretching of textures on the LMR model. I've got it so it looks ok if you don't look too closely, I have all the thrusters in place and it flies really well. You're inspiring me to go back and work on it again, but there's so much to learn that I get stymied. Converting the original Pioneer models to SGM is a good idea, imho. I think of them as old ships from pre-3200 that can still be found on the used market. I'm not certain of this, but I think the original models were made by John Jordan for Tomm as placeholders to use in his "Frontier Elite 2 clone".

About the ship not resting on its gear, did you make the collision mesh include the landing gear? I've read that you must do this, but I can't give you advice on it.

A thought on the FlowerFairy; I've had the idea in my head for quite some time now to use a version of the hexagonal textures you made for the Sidewinder on it. There's a center hex of one color surrounded by a second color. It reminds me of flowers and could be the rationale for why the ship is called a FlowerFairy.


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

cool, ok a hint to this, the model dumps of the modelviewer are nearly useless, it dumps all the geometry unscaled and unpositioned, thus called up sub-models

like the wheels will be centered to v(0,0,0) and scaled as scripted (not as called by the model).

to make my conversion(s) i use "GL Xtractor", the problem here is that the meshes aren't centered at "z" axis and that you have to make dumps for each LOD, means zoom as close as possible for lod4 and zoom out as much as needed for lod2, to get the collision mesh simply switch to it.

to get the landing gear it must be lowered (or you have to edit the model though the gear is even present in state "gear retracted").

to re-center the model to "z 0" is imo far easier as if everything is unscaled and centered to v(0,0,0).

mostly you will have to disable "capture normals", else the modelviewer crashes when you snapshot a model.

further since it's a simple snapshot, don't rotate the model, else the captured mesh is rotated as well.

but all this is easier to handle and to fix in i.e. Blender as the "wrong" (ordinally) scaled and centered sub-models.

it also dumps the textures by choice but of course they need to be flipped for Blender (due to the difference between a right handed coordinate system and a lefthanded)

like i usually say "when ever in doubt, use your hands" (or as "Harald Lesch" said: "diesen da" - thumbs reflect "Y" and point upwards,  middlefinger is "X" and has to point to the right, forefinger is "Z" and depending on the side of your hand it points "righthanded" to you, "lefthanded" away from you.

whenever i got problems with rotational stuff i refere to this and it becomes obvious, "merci, descartez")

 

i'm not sure who scripted the basic models, i assume it's Tom's and his wife Maude's work at least they are listed as "creatives" in the early releases.

as far as i remember "John" contributed the cobby from oolite.

 

no the gears in for most of my SGM conversions/models have no collision mesh, that's why the ladybird sits on the belly, usually i used a tiny triangle in the collision mesh to

proper position the models.

the reason is simply because conrods don't work with collada, basta, thus i use .x meshes for this that's stable and works 100%.

simple rotational stuff works with collada ok,

to let something just stick out of course even,

but to "drive" something using pistons, e.g. named conrod, fails.

 

(but i forgot; i sure can't handle this 🙂 )

 

that's mostly because collada as a 100% portable format uses no matrix stuff, it stores the rotational data, it's very similar to a scripted animation this grants that a collada animation can be always resolved, therefore it leaks in possibilities to proper playback constrained animations. (still it's no good choice for a game imho, one can never know if they change the format and even of the most recent players each shows a collada model/animation different, it's lousy if you ask me).

 

ermpf, lost half of the article due to a power failure (and unfortunatly i have to remove the batteries of the macbook, they are to old and overheat the machine useless, this causes else much troubles, new ones are a little to expensive for this old macbook imho, especially because we use it like a desktop machine).

 

never mind, thanks to clever made SSC i kept at least most of what i wrote!

 

however this will be the short version now and i don't like to repeat all the jokes i posted before.

 

though i will step now directly to my blender project for the ladybird,

it's from blender 2.49, because of above stated reasons of exporting conrods in a proper way, but you can easy load it to blender 2.71

and snoop into it in what simplified way i make conrods.

 

[attachment=2726:ladybird_sgm.7z]

 

like i said it won't work for a collada model, because it's constrained and the constrained objects have no own "raw" translation or rotation data, one would have to write a clever python script which exports simply what is played back in blender as it was done for the "direct x 8" exporter for blender 2.49. still i'm not sure if it's possible at all with collada, because it's no matrix animation it's translation and rotation data, with this you simply can't have conrods working so easy. since it's similar to what i do in a script i know that it isn't easy, even if there is a mathematical solution to this. sorry but i dislike collada, it's not ment for games, it's ment for web presentations and to be 100% portable.

and as usual you can have only either one, the apple or the dime, not both together.

using collada for games is like working dressed in a smoking on the construction site, simply useless, it doesn't fits to the task.

and besides show me a single model in pioneer which has a working conrod?

there is none because it's not possible (i assume our modelers are clever enough to make a simple rigged animation, no?

yep as long as you only translate and rotate in a simple way it works, but conrods need constraints to work and here starts the problem with collada. neither it's the idea to hand tweak a animaton, i have seen such, not for pioneer but else, but it's never precise and neither it's the proper way to set up a conrod. parented objects have no raw rotational or translation data and where is nothing there can't be stored something, the needed data get's calculated while the animation is running. so called "visual keying" should solve this problem but somehow it messes up the constraints, thus it's not useful, why it does this isn't clear to me, but is it my problem to take care for blender? )

and i remeber well what "fluffyfreak" told me about skinned animations, nice one i know, but not with collada never!

this needs matrix animations, not a resolvable rotation translation thing.

working with bones which deform meshes COOL!, but it won't work with collada.

thus i prefere 100times my dynamic bezier stuff before a collada, which is not suitable except... i better keep this to myself.

 

besides once i understand the mathematical stuff behind a conrod i could set up a animation helper like the one i did already for

"rotten LMR".

i can setup a script to my longings, but i can't change the format and limits of collada.

i would wish direct x meshes would be better supported, then you could have nice working models and even deform meshes with bones.

 

this was my high hopes or what i thought "ok let them remove the LMR, maybe it will turn out fine"

"i'm pretty sure it can be made better today..."

but it destroyed all of my hopes and the result with collada is simply lame.

 

direct x meshes are ment for games and nothing else, it's their special task and their strongest side.

therefore the matrix is not resolvable so easy and depending on how the mesh is build even impossible to resolve.

but is this needed for a game?

no.

is it really needed that someone can resolve a games model?

usually not, and if then well you have to live with this drawback.

 

ts, some projects use even encryptable mesh formats, in the beginning i thought "mean",

but well at least you don't have to care about your IP as a artist in this way, it's then your opinion to offer it to anybody

or only for the game.

it's a lot of work and blood one invests in a model, thus why shouldn't he protect this?

i understand this now well, it might not be my opinion, but i understand the need.

 

a model is "just" a model, but on the other hand how coolhand said it's at least 50% of the visual stuff in a game, well said.

it's not important and it's important nonetheless.

we wouldn't need models for a good gameplay, but on the other hand...

who would play today a game without them?

except some retro freaks like me?

besides if that would be the point, throw you computer out of the window and play a classic role playing game with your friends,

it's fun as well, i grant you this!

 

"look at those cool hairdo's - erm graphics i ment"


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

maybe some pictures which will explain what you will find in the blender project, resp. how i make rigged animations and conrods resp. to let it look like the pistons would drive the the linkage, while it's in fact in the animation vice versa the linkage drags the pistons and the wheel resp. in this case the yoke.

the linkage is in other terms the "driver" which controls the whole animation.

 

 

first, obviousely the linkage is centered to it's rotational axis, just like your upper arm is centered to the axle

[attachment=2727:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.01.23.jpg]

 

second, the yoke is centered to the lower end of the linkage, just like your lower arm is "centered" to the lower end of the upper arm.

[attachment=2728:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.01.59.jpg]

 

in fact the center of the yoke is exactly where i positioned a extra verticle, it's easy to achieve this, just select all vertices of the lower end of the cylinder, command now "snap cursor to selection" then duplicate a vertice (any) and command "snap selection (selected "active" newly duplicated vertice) to cursor". now we have a vertice on which we can parent the yoke.

to this cursor position center even the yoke or whatever you like to drag behind the linkage or "actor" like i would call it.

[attachment=2739:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 01.31.25.jpg]

 

switch to object mode and select both first the yoke and second by holding "shift" down select the linkage object, it's now the active object.

move to edit mode and select the the verticle which will be the parent verticle.

open the "mesh tools"

 

edit: use better "CTRL P" it's not longer available under "mesh tools" whysoever, i don't know which devil rides them sometimes.

 

and select from "vertices" the option "make vertex parent", blender will ask "make vertex parent?" answer "certainly dammit what do you guess i'm up to?", i mean click "OK".

[attachment=2740:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 01.35.04.jpg]

 

that's cool try it, you can rotate now the linkage and the parented object follows the linkage wherever it rotates or translates to without loosing his alignment.

ergo just like your lower arm follows the upper arm wherever it goes to, while if you use no power on the lower arm it will hang loose.

 

that's already nice i guess, i don't have to mess with the alignment of the yoke, artificial gravity does the job for me.

besides this works only if you parent a object to a vertice, if parented to the whole object

a: reference would be center of the parent

b: it would be mounted stiff to it and not "hang loose"

 

now we mess with the pistons, it's pretty the same here, create a new vertice at the point where the pistons should follow to,

(i changed this already for both models, scripted and the new blender version have a extra cylinder instead that it simply sticks into the

linkage, but it won't matter to explain the procedure)

 

ergo almost like before, "where i get the cursor positon from?"

ok yes, let's assume the gear is in retracted position, center now the lowest piston to it's lower end, like before select the vertices of the lower piston in edit mode and and snap the cursor to it, then in object mode center already all pistons (you can select all toghether for this) to this cursor position "center object to cursor".

[attachment=2744:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.03.36.jpg]

 

you have the cursor posotion now where the pistons should be mounted resp. follow to.

select the linkage object and switch to edit mode

copy a vertice of the linkage and "snap selection (active vertice) to cursor position"

[attachment=2745:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 02.30.06.jpg]

 

now again in object mode select both first the pistons (all of them) and as last the linkage to make it to the active object.

switch now to edit mode, select that damned little pig and tell blender again "make vertex parent".

edit: i see right now this has changed a bit, it's now longer under "mesh tools", but you can always call "make vertex parent" up

with "CTRL P" (such changes to the surface i really dislike)

[attachment=2735:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 01.18.02.jpg]

 

cool, if i now move my "actor" the linkage, the pistons follow it to, half of the job is done we need now to set up the constraints.

 

we need now a reference object for the pistons, resp. for the constraints, choose a simple name for it, it makes it easier, here it's named

"raxle" that's typed quick and i know this is the "right axle", i.e. object "some_object.001" is shitty to type, neither i know exactly what it represents, else it doesn't matters and could be named whatever as long as the name is unique (it will be, blender adds a .00# for duplicates).

you could use a bone or a empty object for this, i use usually a solid object, because it looks proper to let the pistons be mounted to something, a sphere or a cylinder.

[attachment=2731:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.06.05.jpg]

we have now a reference object for the constraints to set.

 

next step is to setup the constraints for the pistons, recently they still would all simply follow the parent vertex.

thus they need to be clamped to something, the "axle" in this case.

it will look like this

[attachment=2733:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.01.59.jpg]

this constraint named "locked track" grants that the object won't follow simply the linkage (actor) it is now restricted to follow it

along it's own Z axis, in other terms it's clamped to the reference object.

cool if i rotate now the linkage the piston follows the linkage on this clamped path, we are nearly finished and for the lowest piston we need no else constraint.

 

the other pistons will follow also to the end of the movement after setting this constraint, but we like to stop them at a chosen point.

therefore we use "limit distance" again distance will be referred to our reference object "raxle" (or how it's named ever).

[attachment=2741:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 01.48.36.jpg]

 

this is the standard procedure for a simple rigged animation and a conrod by using no bones, because we don't need bones, the gears parts itself are the "bones".

 

it could be made as well by using bones and posers, but we don't need such, that's cool for other tasks but needless for a landing gear.

 

the final big big problem is to set the keys and to export it properly.

in principles and when i use the old direct x 8 exporter it's damned easy, i only have to set the rotation keys on a given timeline.

some use 100's or 1000's but all this is useless for pioneer and other games, we have a given animation durance by the engine, it will play back 10 keys on the whole endurance the same fluid as 1000, depending on how complex the animation is, if i change rotation speed or direction in the animation and if it should be linear or a "bezier curve" (starts slow, ends slow, this is default in blender) one will have to set more as 10, but my experience is 30 keys are fine. for FFED3D and absolute linear animations i used 3 keys, start - movement - stop, that works and the animation is as fluid as with 20'000 keys.

 

the problem is that common keying neither will respect the constraints nor the rotation of the parented objects, since the parent drives them.

for this would be "visual keying" which should store the only visual present rotation and translation of the parented and constrained objects.

unfortunately this fails gratefully in blender (for 2.71 i have to check this first, but up to 2.65 it was like this).

 

that's why i first don't use collada for the animations, even if visual keying would work, collada has no "idea about" matrix animations (ergo no conrods),

neither i use blender export scripts for direct x meshes higher as 2.49, because only this clever made script exports "stupidly" only what is played back by blender (not stupid, that's smart!).

 

i don't need visual keying i only set the keys common, have no issues and a proper working matrix animation as result.

 

i'm happy and satisfied and only this counts, the damned RESULT!


ReplyQuote
Marcel
(@marcel)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1188
 

Wow! There's a lot to respond to here! 😀

   As I said, I'm not sure who made the original Pioneer models, but I think it would be nice to include a proper credit if we can find out. Your info is interesting. I didn't know that Tom worked with his wife Maude on this project.

   You say you use "GL Xtractor". Do you mean OGLE? I can't seem to get to their site at the moment. It would be really handy if I could pull out the textures with the model. I'm doing the uv unwrap bit with Blender, but no matter how I much stretch and pull I can't get everything to line up correctly. I'm just figuring out how to draw textures on the Blender model, but it's been tedious. I want to redraw them in higher rez anyway.

   Landing gear has been a total mystery to me. I haven't found a good tutorial on it, up to now. (thanks) I'm planning to tackle it after I get the textures to my liking.

   As usual, most of what you're trying to tell me is a bit over my head, but I'll refer back to it when I'm ready for it.

 

 


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

GLXtractor is "a cool tool for OGLE" as it describes itself, you won't need OGLE, GLXtractor comes with all the needed libraries and the config files are preset to work out of the box.

 

erm sort of "screen hack" like robn stated once, but it didn't harms anything. don't forget even the cartography dudes of "ETH Zurich" use OGLE.

that was the place where i found GL Xtractor first, our premium technical high school.

(they are cool and well even old "Colonial Conquest II" for the miggy is from the biologists section of ETH).

 

i guess it's still here on SSC's download section if not, and if it isn't available in the web anymore tell me i can upload it to my skydrive.

 

i see it must have ben before SSC moved, thus i will upload both to my skydrive.

or why not here on SSC under utilities as it was before.

but i need to check first if it's present on the macbook, else this would take a week, i ran out of money this month, had to pay power and my new ordered web, which has cost me all in all half of the money i receive from welfare.

ran to a police hold up, ("up against the wall motherf***") and this wasn't funny at all, even when i soon laughed about it, on our independence day, they cut your wings, well, well, i wonder what wiliam tell would have done in such a situation...

i had a blody nose, was nearby hospitalized (i told the doctor, do you see any harms? me not please let me go)

while the constable ran to the doctor because his hand is hurt, erm phew what term to use for this without hurting someones feeling...

a mimosa in my eyes. now it's a official delict, i attacked the police and not like it was in reality the police attacked me and robbed my freedom.

well by my honor i never attacked them, verbal maybe but not physical, i have no words for such a injustice.

except maybe

 

 

who replaces freedom with security will loose both

 

me the buddy of the local "hooligan" (who isn't a bad boy after all), friend of any poor farmers boy who had to go through hard times because daddy was a drunken head

you do this to me? i hope you burn well in hell! no, better burn long, endless long.

 

"take this rotten badge off from me, i can't use it anymore"

(in other terms, who should wear the badge for real the mimosa constable or a boyscout like me?

i thought they get trained in fighting? and run to a doctor because hand is hurt? in what world do i live?

they wear protective gloves with carbon inlays, how can he have hurt his hand at all?

what a liar! and what a weak character, certainly the badge doesn't belongs to him!)

 

i have a hundret good reasons why i don't like to work anymore, i don't like to work for softballs like him and be even suppressed by them.

it's not, it's never worth any money i can gain.

first learn to have respect, only then the donkey gernot will go back to work.

i'm not a "horse" i'm a "donkey", i'm not stupid, i only have my limits, i have some pride and some ideology i follow.

i would do anything for a broken ass, even share my bed and food with my foe, but not for ppl like him.

 

edit:

there is one job i would like to do. i would like to... "look how shiny the oak gets if i polished it, doesn't it looks great?

doesn't the texture of the oak look deep? it's made only from the best natural grown swiss oak, i ran into the forest at newmoon in december to chop it only for you, it's your shrine my friend..."

 

(lets figure this out, i'm here to put things in the right light, usually the donkey is the "sucker", but it was uttered unwisely only to keep ppl down.

who is in fact the "sucker"? a horse will pull the plow even if you beat it, no matter how often you beat it it will still pull the plow. the donkey won't do such, he can do hard work, maybe harder as the horse, a donkey climbs any passage and walks on where the horse steps back because of fear. but if you beat the donkey he stops and kicks you, that's anything else as stupid, the donkey only has it's pride and limits.

 

it's imho a sign for typical human behave, we preferred the animals who are in bondage, we prefere the dog in front of the cat even we prefere the horse in front of the donkey. we say "a horse has pride" - what pride if he pulls the plow no matter if i beat it? it's a good slave to us that's all, that's why we honored it and said it has pride where is no pride to see at all, neither any dog has pride, for a handful of food he wil be your willing servant, while a cat will never loose it's pride, no matter how often you feed it, she knows "i don't need you, but i'm pleased and feel comfortable in your presence". though we measured it by the will to be our slaves and not by intelligence or pride, and believe me the same we do amongst our own species, we honor the willing slave and dispite the prideful upright woman/man. remember? my cat was a good friend to me, she awaited me from work almost like a dog, nonetheless she was free and could leave and return whenever it pleased her. she hated it to sit on my shoulder nonetheless she did it because she knew it pleases me, give a animal it's freedom and it will honor it, same to us humans give a woman/man it's freedom and you will be honored for a lifetime. some will first have to learn how to handle freedom after thoousends of years of slavery which still goes on even if we don't like to see this, no one likes to be a slave, nonetheless most still are. some are simply slaves to the money, some are slaves to drugs, others are slaves to sex and most are slaves to power.

as a resumeé i would honor snakes and cats far above any else animal, just like the ancient egypt did, one simple reason is the capapility of hunting the mean rats which eat our food, a second one might be their natural pride, you can't enslave cats or snakes.

if we look now at our monotheistic religion hmm... we turned everything upside down our ancestors believed in for what reason?

a simple one, it grants easier enslaving of ppl. but it has nothing to do with pride or intelligence only with servility. the roman empire didn't fall by christianity, the roman empire would have been stupid as a bag full of straw if it wouldn't have recognized this power).

 

i once uploaded it together with the my slightly edited direct x export script for blender 2.49, "edited" because my version exports "key 1" (as it's in blender) as "key 0" how it's needed for FFED3D (even this is a simple solution 1 - 1 = 0... and so on, who would have ever suspected this 😉 ), further it removes some more "dangerous" naming remnants which aren't allowed in a x mesh (# * / and other glyphs will be replaced with a underscore). e.g. if you open/convert a 3ds mesh the objects and materials are named "#some_name" such will break the direct x mesh and that's why i replaced them. that was quite a easy task to do, some restrictions was already made i only had to add some more in the same way.

 

---

 

i like it if things are "idiotensicher", intentionally my "rot_gear" was planned as "idiot safe", but it failed at a point of which i should have been aware of, the idea was to let the script create a submodel named "'entered name of model' .. _sub" to pre-rotate it for a otherwise impossible "z" rotation, unfortunately or logically you have for a standard gear if it's called then more as once several "gear1_sub" and this results in a slight confusion 😉 nonetheless it didn't crashed the game, but i guess when two models get drawn at the same time with the same sub-model it will be the wrong one for one of them.

 

they have to be idiot safe for a "cricket brain" like me.

i'm not stupid but i can forget things very quick, that's why my school buddy "jürgen" gave me the nick "cricket brain" - "you know quite a lot things gernot, but often you forget the simpliest things so quick" - ok, cricket brain, that suits - a rinse of a memory.

 

the idea was one could enter anything wrong as long as he states "i like to have a clockwise z rotation" the function should handle all, but i failed, or i see a solution to that now, but on the other hand until now only one idiot is using it, me - and to achieve this it gets very complex, to find a unique name based on the main models name, of course i could read the string and use it, but like i said as long as only i use it this goes to far, far to far and the "rot_gear" is already quite comfortable without that.

 

its already cool that i can now rotate a model with a "short" command and it spits out the complete animated model i entered.

the idea is that everything is aligned ordinally (or naturally, like you see it on the model) and it works, only for a z-rotation you need to pre-rotate the model in

a formatted way ("nose down", pre rotate model with +y pointing to -z, or with fingers: "right hands forefinger has to point upwards" ) else it won't work.

i have to pre assume a pre-rotation else i can't let the function spit out the animated model, that's why i liked to let the function control even this, but like i said it goes to far. x and y rotation - no problems and the starting position is corrected though it starts at it's ordinal alignment, like you modeled it, always.

you have still two possibilities for CW or CCW movement, either by entering the proper vector i.e. v(1,0,0) for CW along x or v(-1,0,0) for CCW along x i.e.

i needed this to differ between the desired rotation axes, this i can't foresee i'm no magician.

still one could use negative degrees with the same result, neither one has to guess about clamping, enter start and end to clamp to, it will be computed always to "0.0 to 1.0".

it does it all in the background, one who would use it only has to enter the model as usual and additionally desired degrees of rotation, direction and start&end timepoint.

 

if i'm not wrong you have to enter "v_right" & "v_up" as usual but it will be disrespected, or partwisely - erm "cricket brain" he wrote the stuff himself and already forgot how it works.

no i changed the function finally in a heavy way and now i'm not sure what is left of the original function i wrote, i removed the "idiot safe" part,

in the beginning it changed everything you entered to ordinal alignment, "idiot safe" enter it wrong but result is right, but i guess due to the complications i removed this completely, or i'm not sure, i would have to refere myself to the script.

 

it works, but hmmm... it seems i forgot already how it works exactly.

 

fanally a quote:

 

any smoothly working technology will have the appearance of magic - robert a. heinlein

 

another one of him i like much

 

politicians should read science fiction - not western and crime stories

 

 

and to calm the souls down...

 

10550835_687748897980593_380823185818139


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

to the texturing problem,

 

yes i found that interesting myself that a projection (besides the model dump function exports the textures as well) i made in the script isn't exactly the same

as a projection in blender, from my point of view, theoretically, or in other terms, i expected it should be the same, but practically it isn't.

 

which means you can't reach exactly the same relation as in the script.

 

but as long as you don't change the projection it shouldn't matter, only you have to flip it vertically because of the different coordinate system, resp. orientation.

 

projections you scripted are only usually displaced on a x repetition of the texture, because it's not easy to control this in the script.

 

if one would like to have the projection in the script on the first repetition or ordinal coordinates of the texture, he has to respect the righthanded system.

 

that means for the the positioning of the projection to use only negative values i.e. "texture('my_texture',v(-0.5,-0.5,0),v(1,0,0),v(0,-1,0))

you see a lot of negative values, position must be held negative to keep it on the ordinal coordinates, the "V" value in this example it's "Y" must be negative

if the texture is upright, ordinally, like you look at it, top is top.

that's comprehensible if you again take your hands as reference, "right hand forefinger points to you" this means -Z is the front section of the model,

on the 2 dimensional texture this is the same, "V" points away from you thus it's righthanded a negative value.

 

this is all a little ancient stuff, but why change what ms. decartez figured out? it works and we just need a congruent coordinate system in geometry to understand

3 dimensional things and to understand each other what we mean, this is called science - usually. it's good thus it hasn't to be changed in no case.

 

what can be done?

if you like to keep the original projection, don't touch it, transpose, flip the UV but don't make a new one on your texture you made for a scripted projection.

if it's displaced on repetition "x" of the texture and you like to have it centered, you can calculate this easy.

if the original texture you used has a size of of i.e. 512x512 pixels, well then translate the texture by exactly this values or a doubling, tripling.... of it.

in blender type "g" (for grab) if the pointer is in the texture window, then simply press the desired direction to move "x" or "y" and enter the value i.e. 512

and the projection translates to i.e. x by 512 pixels, negative values work logically as well, but usually the displacing of a righthanded scripted projection is "to the lower left".

however.

 

now the flipping, that can be a slight problem, you can only choose between, pivot:

- bounding box center

- median point

- 2D cursor

 

usually bounding box center is what we like, but if the bounding box doesn't reaches over the complete texture space the mapping will be displaced, of course no problem to move it, i suggest really only to move it with either integer values as discribed above, or by entering "g" and the desired direction x or y and pressing of the cursor keys, it will be moved only in integer amounts then. if you grab it with the mouse, it will be translated, moved by floating point values.

when translating with cursor keys (as well by entering the integer amount, i forgot, sorry) the texture should be loaded to the window, else blender doesn't knows what the size is and then the movement will be "fractions of" or "doubles of" depending on the size of the texture.

 

usually if you don't map it new the relation of your scripted projection should be held, if not (i'm not sure) then it's a issue of the dumping of the model,

OGLE resp. GLXtractor does it right, i know.

 

in general scaling or changing of the original relation shouldn't be needed, but i know i encountered such problems myself when i combined the textures for a new model and it was then automatically remapped to the new combined texture.

 

erm, like i said i neither have a idea what causes this slight difference in relation of a i.e. "from top" projection, in my very humble opinion it should be x as o,

but it isn't.

 

in fact and this might be a little trick behind the LMR, a projection of a sphere or a bezier shape is very slightly like unwrapped, the result is a little bit better as what i can reach in blender, it reaches a tiny little bit more around the shape. but i can't say if it was willingly done or just a issue with a positive effect.

i guess it's wanted since you can only use projections for scripted geometry, while with a CAD like blender you could unwrap the shape for real and won't need such a trick. to much won't be nice it would visually destroy the relations of the texture, but a tiny bit, why not, you won't notice the slight bending but it's overall better as a flat projection.

 

however i noticed your problem as well and tried then to take care not to remap especially bezier flats or spheres if the texture was painted to the scripted projection.

 

if you combine textures to a larger map, usually the meshes will be remapped to the combined texture (to make such combined textures a shape must be assigned to a specific texture, to set the texture in the material isn't enough, you can prove this by, if you switch to edit mode, if the texture get's shown in the "UV mapping"

window then the mesh is assigned to the texture, it would be as well if you see in the textures names bar a red name, this means it's assigned but texture isn't present,

if everything is empty nothing is assigned). now probably you liker to combine a texture but like to keep the original relation of some parts, there is a workaround for this.

take then care that the meshes of your model are clean of any texture assigned to them, you can reach this simply by, if in edit mode, click on the "x" this deletes the assignment and the window is "clean", next time you switch from object to edit mode there should be no texture to see.

 

ok but in this way we can't combine textures.

but we can nonetheless, create a set of planes as much as you have texture tiles, move them somewhere you find them later on 🙂

assign now these dummies to the the texture tiles by simply unwrapping or release the texture coordinates on the texture tiles ("reset"),

select then only the dummies and "combine texture".

this method has a second positive effect, usually if you combine textures blender cuts away what is not used by the meshes, to reach a maximum of size on the new combined texture it often rotates a mesh resp. the texture, now this looks often ugly, some texture which is tiled probably (some sort of paneling i.e.) will look shitty diagonal or rotated by a few degrees. but if all the texture tiles are completely mapped to the dummies, it can't do it in a other way as to use the complete texture tiles arranged ordinally.

if you aren't satisfied with the relation between some textures, erm take my ladybird project as a bad example the engine textures for the tiny nozzles are very big while the texture for the pistons i.e. is very small (but it's a tiny object as well, just as a example), the change the sizes of the texture tiles you like to combine, large what should use much space on the combined texture small what should use little space.

often i hand edit the result some textures are simply to small while 64x64 would be fine but a resulting 52x52 is already a little bit to small if you have some space left.

 

 


 

 

to repeat what i posted years ago, even when it was made wrong, like the electrical flow, it's worth to keep it because it has no influence on the mathematical result.

(again i love the clip jery elsworth made about this problem she's super cool and i'm envious on her friend, she's not only brillant and "a force of nature", she's so natural that's what makes her so attractive, there is not a tiny bit of false pride on her to see. i only hope he will take more care about his body, his breath is already short because of his overweight and recently my brother in law has hard times because of disrespecting this fact, i know it's easier said as done and almost mean of a

skinny boy like me, lazy or not but overweight i will never have, it's in your genes and those who have these genes have to work harder against the issues as someone like me. i can eat sweets as much as i like, they get burned very quick, while others aren't allowed only to think about sweets, perhaps it's even the restless mind?

who knows, sugar is "brain food" and i dislike all the rant against it today, sugar calms the mind down, that's a fact as well as proteines force a agressive mood.

usually one won't notice this well, it's a subconcious process, but it's a important rule for ppl who experiment with halluzinogenes. to citate leary, "avoid cheese and other protein rich food, before you take such, this prevents horror and other unwanted issues" - we can transpose this 1:1 to the "unimpoisened", the process in the subconcious part of our brain is the same, it's only that we notice that far less. thus longing for power and dissatisfaction could be also controlled with the food.

probably sugar isn't good for the teeth, it has some drawbacks on our body, but our mind loves and needs it. if i feed myself now only with protein rich food and forego carbon, well then it's no wonder to me that i will be a type of person who longs always for more and more power, money, fame or whatever. yes we are a "simple" electrochemical machine and it can be - no, it is controlled with food, the chemistry in other terms. whatever one guesses it isn't only wrong or bad to have experiences in that, but we have to share the experiences and knowledge and take it serious if it's ment serious. i might be a "predator", i love meat and will never forgo this, i even like it raw sometimes, but i can't live without my "coke", coffee or a tea so sweet others say it crumbles their toenails. yes it's a drug as well, both coffeine as well as sugar, but it's a good drug not a bad one, while ok i'm not so sure about coffeine, that's "hard stuff", legal, but i would count it to the hard drugs

as well as nicotine. already the naming convention tells this, no joke that's science as well, naming conventions for substances to classify them. old school as well, but still it's true and won't change. while a "oleat" ok that can never be so harmful, with the OH groups we have to be more careful, e.g. alcohol, it's seen from one point only a sugar, but a mean one even in it's side effects to overweight, and erm "free bases" (a free OH) for god's sake this doesn't blongs in our body, never! but we mix it since the 60's to the tobacco to triple the effect of nicotine in the human brain, PM noticed this effect first, seen from this point they invented "free basing".

we are today at a point in chemistry that we can tell exactly which substance added to a specific drug will produce which mood in our mind, that is "fascinating"

but as dangerous as well. it doesn't count's only for drugs this knowledge is present to any food chemicist, which puts companies like nestlé in a bad bad light.

they know exactly what they do, but they would be the first who would say "oh, we didn't noticed this, it was occasionally" - nothing or not much is occasionally in the 21th century, especially not in chemistry neither it is in arts, even here we know how to control the human mind and has been abused several times, with exactly this excuse "oh, we didn't knew" dammit already the third reich knew it, don't lie to me!

 

know you know why i dislike manga, it goes exactly in this direction, abuse of the lowest level of human urges, they know exactly what they do, but they don't have to mess with the consequences and leave this up to future generations.

i only ask for what? money? fame? is it really worth to put us in such a danger?

there is no conspiracy except the "conspiracy" of money and greed.

 

"you" impoison my children and their childrens children, i would have all the right in the universe to work on your coffin,

"doesn't the texture of the oak look deep and nice?"

 

how can we ever build a "new world order" with such ppl, this puts fascism in a different light, doesn't it?

i won't say that it's right way to solve this problem, but it makes it comprehensible

 

it's just what alexander did with the gordian knot, he cut it with his sword,

i'm more the type of guy who would say "ok, let's have close look at it..." or 

 

"is that the motor?" - "let me porouse it" - "ouch it burned me finger")

 


ReplyQuote
Marcel
(@marcel)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1188
 

I haven't mentioned it, but I haven't been able to run Pioneer properly since I upgraded to Ubuntu 14.04. I kept upgrading the Nvidia drivers using instructions I found on various web pages but no matter what I did I was getting 2 fps. I wasn't too excited about working on Pioneer because I couldn't play it. I just installed the 343.13 drivers from a ppa and finally got it running right. I was about to wipe the drive and revert to Ubuntu 13.04. It was that frustrating.

 

Stand by for launch in T minus when I next get around to it. I've been sitting in front of the computer for hours!


ReplyQuote
Geraldine
(@geraldine)
Rear Admiral Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 3446
 

Glad your up and running again Marcel. That info you provided could be a great help to other Ubuntu 14.04 users out there trying to get the game to run.


ReplyQuote
Marcel
(@marcel)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1188
 

I hadn't thought of that because nobody else was complaining. Here's the link to what worked for me in case anyone's interested.

http://linuxg.net/how-to-install-the-nvidia-340-24-driver-on-ubuntu-14-04-ubuntu-13-10-ubuntu-12-04-and-derivative-systems/

Actually, I'm still getting some glitches in pull down menus but I can live with that. I'm getting 30-60 fps now. I'd be really upset with the company if I actually had to pay for my operating system, but since it's free I'm just grateful to have it at all.

 

edit; Kind of like Pioneer!


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

screenshot-20140911-024922_zpsc95ec599.j

 

screenshot-20140911-025200_zpsbaa36506.j


ReplyQuote
Marcel
(@marcel)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1188
 

:O That is awesome work!


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

that's the first version of three

 

screenshot-20140911-163850_zps25a77804.j

 

screenshot-20140911-170839_zpsbe534a7c.j

 

i even know now why the docking sequence doesn't works proper with large stations, somehow the ship stopsin a precalculated distance to the station instead what

you entered in "ship_approach_waypoints", it seems to be related to the mediacre collision mesh radius. thus to release the docking sequence the

flagged collision mesh must be in very front of the station.


ReplyQuote
Vuzz
 Vuzz
(@vuzz)
Warrant Officer Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 491
 

Hey gernot ! i think it's not necessary to work on genesia now ^^, another game in LMR is on the way ( my dream is alive !!!)

 

You've take a long time to come back , but you'r  really comin ^^


ReplyQuote
Marcel
(@marcel)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1188
 

Can you two guys just work together now?


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

rebirth

ScreenShot_135_zps9c2312df.jpg

 

ScreenShot_133_zps1773a5d0.jpg

 

ScreenShot_132_zps48551c54.jpg

 

even this craft is reborn as script

ScreenShot_138_zpsfcd9ba8c.jpg

 

ScreenShot_139_zpse27c2e46.jpg


ReplyQuote
Marcel
(@marcel)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1188
 

The Interdictor is looking badass!

If I may make a constructive critisim, I think the textures could be improved. The texture makes a nice wall or floor but when wrapped over that model it doesn't fit with the shape of the ship. I really liked what you did with the SGM Eagles. The way the hull plates fit on the Eagle could be used with good effect here. Perhaps a different texture for the nacelles, perhaps not. They could look cool with radiators. (subtile pun)

 


ReplyQuote
Geraldine
(@geraldine)
Rear Admiral Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 3446
 

Nice to see the Interdictor getting some love, great work Gernot!


ReplyQuote
Potsmoke66
(@potsmoke66)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1815
Topic starter  

it's something quite different to work with UV unwrapping or simply to project textures, it wasn't my idea to make for each ship a texture, the textures are from a repo.

to make textures like for the eagle (while the sgm and later model(s) is textured new), the rapier or the corsair (gunboat) which are made especially for the scripted geometry, but thats a lot of work.

 

ScreenShot_145_zps5cf32ff3.jpg

 

ScreenShot_144_zpsc9ceaae1.jpg

 

ScreenShot_146_zps1dbbed4c.jpg

 

its's difficult to make textures if you won't use a uv export as layout, on the other hand that's a little displeasing to script a model and then dump it to get the projections

for shapes like the bezier from this ship or similar.

 

of course it could be done better, but not in such a short time (soon two months).

 

however the projections are made, one could now use the exported UV to create fitting textures

 

th_interdictor_uv_zps68615210.png

 

in fact this is a new projection, in despite of the small difference (but 1:1 should work) therefore yiu have now even the inlet parts to i.e. draw something into hem.

 

---

 

something like this?

ScreenShot_147_zps1048dfa5.jpg


ReplyQuote
Page 3 / 4