Possibly, do you have a link to the 3D model?

There are some limitations to the current engine that I can see a model like that bumping up against because it looks designed for tv/video/film not games so the textures will be huge and there will be a very large number of polygons. Probably the mesh will be split in a non-optimal way for realtime rendering to make it easier/faster to model.

None of those are real show stoppers though <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' /> just things that would need to be taken into consideration.

The engine used to have a limit on the number of vertices that each obj model could have, 65536 (16 bit) in fact. I've tested models right upto that limit and they've run quite well so long as there's nothing dynamic going on. Thankfully the NCC-1701 is a mostly static model.

So sure, if you can get the model file I'm sure we can take a look at it. Maybe do it as a mod.

Andy

Also just found this lot on the guys site.

Wow, just took a look at that model... nope, totally made for TV.

163 material

187 meshes

432292 faces (triangles)

398479 vertices

I reckon we can easily handle meshes with about 30,000 to 45,000 triangles as long as they meet three criteria they use at most 2 materials, 2 meshes and use no dynamic components which affect those two meshes, i.e. simple landing gear are probably ok.

That NCC-1701 mesh will need a modeller to go over it and do a lot of polygon reduction, texture merging (probably retexture it) and merge all of those little meshes into a single cohesive mesh. Then they can take that, probably still very high poly model and reduce it right down to about 500 triangles for a collision mesh and low-poly viewing version.

I've just installed Blender and imported the model into it. Impressive program seen the fact it's in the GNU. But, I don't have any experience in modeling and the interface is a bit alien to me.

But if anyone ever feels (s)he would like an Enterprise refit, even a very simple one, I'd love to work together on some of the scripting, I could spend a few hours on the specs of the ship.

I don't have a clue what the max size in metres is for a ship in Pioneer, to fit in a space station. Obviously it would/should not land on a planet (or maybe only once <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-)' /> )

i guess the faces should be to handle, that it uses materials instead of textures is a advantage, pioneer can handle this better, as far as i remember, but it will need a complete overhaul anyway.

erm, size shouldn't be over 100h/100w/100l, roundabout to have a useful spaceship for pioneer which can dock everywhere, depends also on if i (or someone else) makes some bigger spacestations/ports or not.

this will be a mini enterprise, likewise the one i made once.

but only for the fun of it it will be ok, or like marcel stated once, it is to see as somekind of a replica, which was build in order of a rich trekkie, right?

hmm, the enterprise can land (i guess it needs antigrav landing pads then, some fantasy is allowed here), i have seen a graphic in a trek comic where she's landed on a terrestrial spaceport.

as i have nothing special up now, i will take a look at that ship and see what i can get out of the model, for sure i can strip some poly's.

usually CGI models are build "lumpy" and have a lot of useless (unseen) polygons.

it won't have a proper LOD, but i will see...

oh, only as long as there is no veto against that i will do it <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> (expect that i will exceed the limits, again, lol).

It would be great to find it next to a "lynx" or "lrc" parked near a space station. And greet the old Spock. <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//popcorm1.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':popcorn:' />

Hello Gernot! Now I know this is possible! Good team that I see here! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//clapping.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':clapping:' />

Hey Gernot,

Checkout the models on the link that I gave, they seem to be a mix of different models with textures and without. Not all of them have such high polygon counts. You might find one of the others a better starting point.

Also there's a smaller version of the "NCC-1701 Refit" that hasn't been baked into textures. Also a better starting point.

Maybe this would interest Darkman and his Star Trek mod too.

[background=rgb(33, 47, 58)]"goin to work on that next weekend ..."[/background]

I feel that A26 will be well dressed with mods. <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//hi.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':hi:' />

thanx fluffyfreak, i will check it out as soon as i solved TigerHearts problem and as soon as i finished watching "Just Imagine"

but by now mr.sandman has come to visit me...

dozzzzzzzzzzzzze

he, he, "micromachine", besides it's not mine, i only fitted it for pioneer, i chose this one because of the rather low polycount for a enterprise model and that it uses no textures only materials.

i loved micromachines on the miggy...

by looking at it now, it's a quite nice model, it has some leaks like the wrinkle in the top disc section. but it's fairly close to the original, another reason why i chose this one, many other models aren't as close to the TOS enterprise, most will reflect the ones from the movies.

fluffyfreak, a Q;

you said "combined to one mesh" (and since a while i try to follow that idea as far as possible), i also remembered that it has been spoken out that XNA would be better, but XNA models are mostly not of one mesh, it's one model file, yes, but if you open the file you will notice it isn't one mesh often. each mesh is separated, bracketed and has a own matrix, in fact it is a own mesh, likewise i seperate meshes in the lua script, just a little different, but single meshes anyway. depends of course on how you build the model, but in a compressed bin you will never see this (means, no one would ever suspect numerous meshes in it, you wouldn't know or notice it visually, but if you have a script and a "lot" of .obj meshes you see how many there are). if you apply different materials to it, it has to be separated even for a XNA model, there is no getting around that (if the engine allows at all different shaded materials). what i wanted to say with this is, if we would use XNA i.e. you never would have noticed if "gernötli" uses one or ten meshes for a single body, right? (except you open the model with MView i.e. which will show you the #meshes used, this helpful tool, whysoever, is not longer handed along with DX since long. which is imo poor, it's the only one that can proper convert between txt, bin and compressed bin, besides of other cool features, it allows to import any XNA model to blender or to convert to the proper format from a blender export, to check for "bugs" and so on, what runs proper in MView, will run proper in any game using XNA models).

though still it's not to clear to me what will make the difference if it's split to several meshes or not?

because, let's take FFED3D as example, there is no noteable performance hit on my models i made for it, such complex ones as the "Lego" shuttle, with many meshes due to the many animations it has, work as good as a simple shuttle which are made of one single mesh?

even coolhands viper, with the complex landing gear, works as good as any other.

so i wonder what exactly will make the difference, of course it's obvious many dynamic parts costs something, but it's really hard to notice in FFED3D, which even has no LOD. somehow i expect the crux must be hidden somewhere else.

in FFE(D3D) you have battles sometimes with up to 9 or more ships on screen at the same time, but if it runs smooth on your machine at all, it won't matter much one model on screen or 9 (while i feel 9 is alread a "large" battle for a game like FFE or pioneer, i guess massive stormsof ships i wouldn't like and won't fit to this game, like it would be to imagine in a SW like game, with battlecruisers that launch 100 fighters at once, anyway imagine they would target as good as the AI in pioneer... damned SW pilots are blind, in the movie and the games. that has made me so addicted to FE2, it's hard(er) to fight against a single offender as in other games against 100 of them, it's no stupid shoot 'em up like galaxian, not the number of shot ship counts, it counts to survive a single one, at least when i started to play it, now it's a bit like a run through for me. but pioneer has a enormous skilled AI, one is really as hard as 100 in any other game i know. when i see games like one blender made i presented once, they make me laugh, just like galaxian, you shoot down myriades of enemies with total overpower, where's the fun? except... ah, i don't like that. you could even fit a button for a "smart bomb" then, screen emptied -> game won. likewise in the 19xx series from the 80's, get the right powerup and you are invincible, close to at least)

one thing is obvious to, the rest of the bodies in FFE (planets i.e.) are super low poly compared to our terrain, that shouldn't mean i would like to miss a single poly of the terrain in pioneer.

anther Q, i hope you get a idea of that one,

we have (still?) this problem that we can't have smoothed surfaces (joined vertices) and texture islands, this is somehow obvious that it couldn't work naturally, because it's logical that if a vertice is unified the texture will get smeared between split texture coordinates.

BUT if i load the same mesh into most model viewers that exist, it works, they show no smearing. how this is made i don't know, but i know it works, they display the texture proper. i know that in "older days" it wasn't possible and most old games respect this fact in their models, no matter which format of meshes they have used, except XNA, they store seperate texture vertices to allow texture islands on a smoothened surface.

however nowadays it seems to be possible and i guess all modelers would appreciate it if we had this possibility in pioneer, to have texture islands on smoothened surfaces, i.e. that i can smooth a sphere seamless and have no smeared texture.

yes, i usually worked around issue that in a more or less clever way, but that's typical me.

because of this issue it's i.e. impossible to texture a cone in a good way, because whatever projection i choose the cone will produce texture islands (not quite true, unfolding would work, but then all is non isometric (bended) on the texture layout and that's not good imo, you get far more out of the resolution if vertical and horizontal stays isometric, you can avoid alot aliasing and crumbled lines, further mip-mapping is no friend of non isometric textures or bended projections).

just as a idea, perhaps i should lookout for a open source viewer on the mac, so we can snoop the code to see how it's made?

i have to say that it's not logical to me, i would say, if i didn't knew it works, it cannot work. how should the software know how to handle the texture islands without stored extra data?

finally this will allow to have what is state of the art even in pioneer.

i.e. take solcommands nice models, the texture is splattered over the sheet in little pieces and in the actual way i have to break all in little parts (resp. split the vertices along the islands) to avoid the smearing.

that's first uncomfortable and second it looks shitty afterwards.

personally i don't work that way, i have to say i have no idea how the guys achieve that, but i guess i have still a lot to learn.

besides, i'm no hard headed idiot <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> i would stand to XNA it offers a lot, but i guess it's not GNU compliant.

means if ever commercialised this would need licensing, right?

further, GNU compliant or not, it will mean we are on the umbilical cord of MS, something i feel is not in "pioneers spirit".

most of all i would like a own system, not wavefront not any else, we can look over the shoulders of them, but will do it our own way.

and it didn't has to cost as much as a car or a small yacht.

ok, that was science-fiction now, lol.

@Gernot

Ok it is true that you don't *need* to have everything as one single mesh, in fact if you've got any textures with alpha in them then you will want two meshes at least, one for solid texture and one for alpha'd texture.

However the lower the number of meshes and textures the better, hence the target of 1 mesh & 1 texture(/material).

That "refit" enterprise file was an absolute worst case, hundreds of small meshes, with lots of textures and hundreds of materials.

The reason that is bad is because of how GPUs work... it's a bit hard to explain using ASCII art but i@ll give it a go.

If you think of the events between the CPU and the GPU something like this:

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_N_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

Some of it has to happen on the CPU, firstly the "SetupBuffers" and "TransferToGPU" steps whereby the OpenGL driver gets the geometry buffers and puts them on the GPU or alternatively they're already there but it needs to check they haven't been purged by the OS etc, it's all extra work that must be done and it's slow.

Then there's the "Render_N_Triangles" bit, this part is super-fast, it happens on the GPU and it charge through hundreds of millions of polygons in a very efficient manner.

Finally the GPU completes that and communicates back to the CPU ("GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore") that it's done that bit of work and would like some more please - this bit is slow again, it's back across the PCIe/AGP/PCI bus, then wait for the CPU to sync etc.

Now if you send the GPU 10million triangles then it has to do the slow "SetupBuffers" and "TransferToGPU" once, then "Render_N_Triangles" once with all 10 million, and finish with the slow "GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore" stage.

Imagine instead that you split that model up into smaller pieces, lets say 10 meshes, now you have to do each of those slow steps 10 times. That means that you spend more time just doing some housekeeping, tidying up, copying data around and waiting 10 times more than you were before. You're still only rendering 10 million triangles, but now it's taking you much longer.

In the Enterprise Refit model above there were 163 Materials, this matters because each material must be rendered separately, so even if the OpenGL driver does something really really clever and merges the meshes down this is still the minimum number of drawcalls it can make. 1 per material(/texture).

That means when you render that mesh it has to do all of those slow (very slow!) parts 163 times. Some of the meshes in the model only have 7 triangles in them! But the cost of doing that slow CPU<->GPU communication is always the same no matter how many triangles there are in the mesh.

As you can see, this is a very stupid way of working. It makes sense to turn the model into a single mesh, bake all of the materials/textures into a single large texture and then you only have to do the slow parts once and can let the GPU do the rendering all in one big go.

because this:

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_10,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

is much faster than this:

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

|--SetupBuffers--||--TransferToGPU--||--Render_1,000,000_Triangles--||--GPUTellsCPUReadyForMore--|

Simply because it's a lot less work, for the same output <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

@Gernot

*phew*, ok next thing.

XNA and OBJ are container formats, i.e. they have meshes, animations and other things within them. So in that way they aren't better than each other. They differ based on what kinds of things they can contain, in what formats and what tools there are available for them and that's why some people prefer XNA, OBJ, 3DS, etc.

You can have multiple meshes within a single OBJ file too, in fact I took a look at adding support for it to Pioneer a couple of days ago, but that won't be happening, the way models are loaded in the load_obj function is just too horrible to my eyes <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//sad.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' />

So texture islands and smoothing, I don't know how 3D modelling programs do it, but I would do it by one of two different methods... bearing in mind I've never tried this and it's straight off the top of my head <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

1. Split the mesh behind the scenes so that there are really two vertices, two normals, two texture coordinates for the island.

2. Keep the single vertices and normals but have multiple texture coordinates for some vertices, have them use a separate index buffer to the texture coordinates.

Actually I think I'd try to use #2 but have #1 as my fallback plan for older OpenGL or other hardware platforms where rendering performance might suffer.

So yes it's possible but you could also just change the way that you export the mesh couldn't you so that texturing islands are split out into duplicate vertices?

Or do meshes where non-contiguous texture coordinates exist lose their smoothing or have some other problems?

Andy

Stardate 3224.1

Thanks to Vuzz and Gernot for making this possible. Also to Cap. James Tiberius Kirk for making such a long journey through time to visit Pioneer. <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//fan_1.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':fan:' />

[media]

I suspect that we will see other big ships that will visit us in the near future. Coupling dangerous in orbital stations, but it will be fun.

Thanks Azimech, to awaken it.

Gernot, Andy, sorry for the interruption. Many will learn by reading its technical comments.

fluffyfreak,

that was quite comprehensible, i understand and it's now as clear as "bergquellwasser" (mountains dwell water).

stupid that i didn't thought in this direction of the problem already.

but that's always if something logical is explained you feel, "hey that was obvious", it is (sometimes) not. not to long ago i critized some dudes that they wrote after one showed off on youtube how logos are made "bah, as if i wouldn't have knew this" while i said "sure you haven't, but after it looks as easy as 1,2,3".

yes, of course i know .obj offers except of animations a lot, you could even draw beziers...

the second answer is a little harder to catch,

texture islands,

erm, we could say method #1 is vice versa to method #2, right?

one affects to the mesh the other to the texture.

i guess i can't export to .obj in this way, how the 3D modelling program does it i neither know. true they neither show any problem.

the thing is i have only one method to smooth a surface, unified vertices resp. normals.

actually it means for pioneer;

if i have a texture island or split texture vertices in any way, i have to split the corresponding vertices "physically", this will lead to splitted normals, resp. result in a hard edge.

even not quite true, z-modeler offers a working on the normals, you can smooth/shorten/longen them, or even twist them if you like. but common formats like .obj or xna won't respect this, it's made only for special formats that exist for, i guess especially racing games, perhaps only one at all. NFS can handle all of that, if i enlongen a normal or twist it, it will show a effect in the game. some still suspect that vertices (...it's only a point) and edges can't be twisted, they can, at least the normals of them. my "viper x" has still twisted edges of which i can't get rid of, except to build it new. because i made it with z-modeler, some edges show a white line as if the edges would have a little gap, but there is no gap, the edge shows only "the wrong side of the face". in fact you can have in z-modeler unified vertices and split normals or vice versa (i guess all normals are split there by default and appear joined if they use the same data, no matter what you do with the vertice), but it won't be respected in the output usually, it works, as far as i remember, only for NFS. i guess it's to achieve proper environmental mapping, i can let the light get reflected from a predestinied direction if i like to. you can also project normals from a low poly body (a cuboid preferably) to the high poly model, the result will be that normals which are "bagged" behind a fender i.e. show normals, or in the final case the environmental mapping, in the same direction and with the same length (which is finally the distance and angle to the environment) as the rest of the body. the common way is to split vertices to achieve hard edges. neither you will have a length for the normals, that's only needed for env. mapping i guess. normals tuning i only know from z-modeler. hmm... thinking about env. mapping, wow, it would be cool if the stars would get reflected on the.... ah, better don't think about that. NFS cheats also in this, the environment used is always the same, it's a given, spherical projected texture with some trees, sky and a bright spot for the sun on it (i expect five of them, bright, misty or rainy, sunset or dawn - could be filtered from any, night, rainy night?... and the the "showroom"), but in the running game you will notice it like the course get's reflected on the car. it's not the real environment, i guess that would have gone to far, besides that was '98... but, nah really this goes to far, it would mean a realtime projection of a fast changing environment, argh, sounds impossible, maybe in the next decade

i remember that the behave of blender, where you won't find something like "smooth" as a order like in 3DSMAX, has confused me and many others who first used blender. anyway the method is the same however you name it "smooth", "split edges / unify vertices" (like blender), or "crease" (like z-modeler).

sounds somehow good, but i wouldn't know how to achieve that,

hmpf, wrong guessing,

...again...

(rattle, clang)

ok, got a idea, the texture coordinates are written "per face", so in fact they should be separated for each face already, no?

in this case only the normals are left unified...

anyway i can't control this in the 3D modelling software (usually, read the spoiler)

resumee,

texture coord. are split anyway, no matter unified normals or vertices (not always i'm not sure but, i.e. if i have default projection or "relaxed coordinates", i have only three coordinates for all tris, so i expect the software or the export script unifies them, on the other hand as soon as it has a unfolding/projection, they will be written per face. but i'm not sure if either the software or the export script will unify equal coordinates, then the issue would be right here)

normals are split usually the same as vertices are split "physically", one vertice one normal.

what is left, would be some extra data, some extra vertices, likewise a "vertex duplication list".

it seems to me that's very close to what i described in the spoiler what i imagine z-modeler has done.

but that's all guesswork...

i quickly googled for "vertex duplication list" (not indicies), but in most cases you want to do the opposite, unify duplicated verts (and use indicies).

but i'm really not sure, this exceeds my knowledge.

(this is something i never was quite sure about, it would mean for me in a scripted geometry, it's better to use a v#2 = v#1 instead to write them twice? resp. to create something similar as indicies, a list which points to the vectors? i expected naturally it's the same. besides in a scripted geom. this is a very rare occasion that i won't use the same vector for all instances)

http://gamedev.stack...na-seam-problem

i removed a link to http://download.auto...k_fbx_mesh.html

look under section "Classes"

and now, after writing all this, i feel like i have been a victim to the "brain suckers from space"

it has cost me the whole afternoon and many cups of coffee.

what was this quote from whom?

"western civ. wouldn't work without coffee"?

true it is!

walterar(gentinia) i'm the spoiler here, as usual

aproposito "redshirt",

[media]

the SW parodies are far better,

let's check one out,

[media]

<img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//laugh1.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':laugh:' />

Subtitles, please! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//sarcastic_hand.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':sarcastichand:' />

walterar, i was just thinking of translating it to spain, then...

i slipped into another dimension.

[media]

if you don't already know it, take your time to watch it, this is imo simply great.

if i'm back from THIS mirror universe, i will see if i can translate 1 or 2 of the spoofs for you.

it's a nice idea OSH

can you imagine another game in which the enterprise looks so sleek? (in fact any model, you just have to stay off for a month or two and you wil feel, wow that's a really great game, you have done a really good job people) .

might be also because i chose not a light blue/grey for the hull as most would do, i stayed to TOS where the color of the hull is more like "ecru" (something we call in german even "isabellenfarben", that's because princess Isabella Clara Eugenia from netherland promised not to change her shirt until her husband succeeded in a siege, which has last longer then 3 years, now you can imagine this color <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' /> anyway washing with water wasn't popular to the upper class in those days, only powdering.... therefore many skin diseases was very "popular" amongst them, they believed back then illness comes from water, fearful as the upper class is, they refused to wash, there was even more "issues" bound to this behave), some yellow scented grey. besides the color might have been a issue of NTSC (never twice the same color <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> )

if i only look at the still of the clip you made, it looks surprising good.

just guess the actual model uses not one pixel of a texture! nonetheless it looks stunning good to me in the clip you made walterar, perhaps better as any textured one, you can go as close to or as far you like from it, it never shows artefacts of mipmapping or some else issues that textures will bring.

perhaps some might feel my models are made in a "ancient" way, but after all, even when you look at the "Caiman" i.e. you will understand that i feel to texture them in the classic way, means to texture parts with a texture that only reflects the material, instead of using something like a texture that replaces or "cheats" parts in some or the other way, it looks far better to me, even because you can avoid the issues of mipmapping and aliasing.

it's maybe not state of the art, but looks to me as good as.

it needs a little more detailed models to achieve something good looking, but pioneer can handle it well, especially if you respect the LOD, even when you only make one low poly model.

neither i think it's necessary to have a full model for each LOD, adding or leaving details away is as good as, imo.

that is different to what is common, but just think of good old FE2, it's done i the same way, far simpler, but similar, you have no different models for the LOD, only the LOD dynamic geometry and details that will appear at a given distance (instead of a "fixed" LOD, each part or group of parts has a own distance set by which they will appear, but in the end it's almost the same. one thing i'm not to sure about is if that works similar as in our scripts, because in FE2 the routine is adviced to "jump" over a certain part of the code on a lower LOD, so it will never be processed until the distance is reached. somehow, maybe i'm wrong, i imagine a script has always to be worked through completely even the "if lod < / > #n" section, but i don't know, i just imagine because there is no "jump over #n hex-words", of course both has to be "proofed true" each time it's processed).

i don't know which way is in fact the better, but if i think that FE2 had to run on a M68000, there must be some clue behind that, i know also and

this makes perhaps most of the performance, all surfaces was not only LOD dynamic, they also was bound to the normals angle, responsible for this issue in FE2 that certain parts vanish a little to early when you rotate the model.

i checked fluffyfreaks link and i feel i have to convert some of them (TOS enterprise first), thanks fluffyfreak for your investigations even in this direction!

i guess if we work hard, we can make a ST mod, or at least start one.

i will also show off my progress, i hope others can follow then, because of course i still have unique pioneer models in mind.

the converting of existing models won't take to much time, especially when a model is not to complex and you don't have to rework to much (unlike the one i made already, she has needed a lot of rework, sketchup models have usually a lot of useless polygons and also there was some problems with overlayed geometries which i had to remove or fix).

somethig i would like is to get in contact first with the creators of the models, because i feel they should be at least informed that someone is altering or reworking their models, that's only fair and i know some might didn't like the spreading of their models.

you have to respect the work one puts in such a model. anyway i guess i will fit a small plate to each (likewise i did on coolhands viper) so everyone can see where the model origins from.

what we would need for a ST mod are also some very large stations, i think to get as close as possible a set of docks in orbit which are big enough to host ships like the enterprise, while the terrestrial starports can be rather small, of course then you can't land, but this isn't necessary and will be a extra skill to select the proper systems when you travel with a ship like the enterprise, else you wil have to take a shuttle or a fighter.

and why not, simply exchange the ship in the shipmarket, the loss of money isn't to big.

to sad i have so much trouble compiling pioneer actually, it would be a sneeze to exchange the default ships, but i can still use a nasty hack to do so.

erm, does there exist a map or something of the ST universe witch reflect all systems that appear in the series? we would need such i guess.

if you move all systems (except sol) to the mods folder, like i showed off once, then it's rather easy to replace the custom systems.

Compiling is important. I just take the time it takes my computer, which is not very fast. 108 seconds, less than two minutes. This allows me to make many changes of code per hour. <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//prankster.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':prankster:' />

Many years ago (almost 30) I was to buy a Apple 2, but then I decided on TRS-80, with Z80 and a whopping 48K of RAM! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//haha.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':haha:' />

It's a shame that I can not help you on this. <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//sad.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' /> Andy has Mac?

As for ST, I have a collection of CDs. I'll see them again, this time from a different perspective.

Visiting Achernar, are (Mods) surface and orbital stations P66 and Marcel. I have not seen, yet, parked the (Mod) Enterprise Vuzz. I changed the color of my ship (Mod). Red is my favorite. But I could not find any giant chicken.

looks like you have a quite good computer walterar, if i think: big city, with my port, screencapture is running, AND it runs still fluid.

i have to restrict a lot for a screencapture on the macbook.

nice new adverts!

overall marcels stations grow and grow and grow...

like a little plant that grows slowly to a big tree.

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to the compiling "issue", still yes, it really seems to be impossible to get the missing libraries installed on the mac, so i gave it up. one day my PC will be back in action, but that can take a little while.

but like i said i can still do some changes with a nasty hack, no matter which OS's version of pioneers executable (in case of changing the default ships for a Trek Mod).

but we need anyway some ships and stations first.

i tried to download one of the ships from the page fluffyfreak mentioned, but have encountered even some problems, but i got in contact with the modeler and hope he can export it for me to a "cleaned" model, i don't need all the animation paths, lights and stuff you need for a rendering, i only need the bareboned model.

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also i got in contact with sanguinelabs, they provide a animation library to animate wavefront in a clever way FOR FREE USE.

this seems to me the right thing for us.

but even there i banged into a wall, they offer no mac version, neither of the animation studio (which is not necessary needed) nor for the library.

like i said, i contacted them and hope they can help me, also because the description pdf's are empty. a little strange no?

further i'm not sure if our devs have to implement the library (i think so) or how it works at all, that's mainly why i contacted them.

by the short description on the homepage of sanguinelabs it is to read that you can use it without altering the existing code?

if i interprete this right, it would mean we could use it "out of the box" and have nothing to change.

just imagine, you wouldn't have to mess anymore with the scripted animations and can make them with blender as usual.

but i have to wait for a answer to see if that will work for us.

even the animation studio is very good in price, £9.99 isn't much money for a program like this.

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interesting how the appearing problems of a ST mod can force everything. for my part at least.

but the idea was to make it a little easier for people like (edit:)Azimech to convert ship models from elsewhere to pioneer.

Pioneers Chronicles - Stardate: 3224 August 23

Location: Sol

Replica of the famous USS Enterprise (NCC-1701).

The Class Battlecruiser Starfleet Constitution of the United Federation of Planets and one of the flagships of it, was built in 2245. Today, after almost 1000 years, has just rolled out a replica, suitable for super luxury cruises, residence of wealthy politicians, businessmen, union leaders, and perhaps you.

It is estimated that five of these ships have been built and are in demo tour. Occasionally, they may be parked in the vicinity of orbital stations.

Before anyone asks: Why a ST ship here? <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//haha.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':haha:' />

"[background=rgb(33, 47, 58)]looks like you have a quite good computer walterar, if i think: big city, with my port, screencapture is running, AND it runs still fluid."[/background]

No, not very powerful. My current workstation is:

Micro: Intel ® Core ™ i3-2100 CPU@3.10GHz × 4

Video: GPU included in micro, Intel ® Sandybridge Desktop

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H61M-USB3-B3

RAM: 8 GB DDR3 1333 MHz Kingston

OS: Ubuntu Linux 12.04 64-bit

I build my own computers since 1982 with selected components.

The way the screen capture is the next line in the terminal:

ffmpeg -f x11grab -s 1024x768 -r 15 -i :0.0 -b 25000k -an filexx.avi

With -an, delete the audio channel for lighter avi

I think ffmpeg runs on MAC