You've been hard at work I see... Very nice indeed.

I'll have some fun tonight making use of these new arguments Cheers 🙂

Small Bug: Tomm it seems alpha channel is not working correctly in this wip build. It does sort of work, if you set alpha in the texture, but alpha settings in the lua are not working.

And ARG_SHIP_EQUIP_ENGINE = 6 is to do with hyperdrives I take it? Or are you planning something very cool with the standard engines/thrust units? As in fully upgradable thrust?

EDIT// Another random idea: This might be pointless but I'll put it out there anyway. Since potsmoker and myself have started adding cockpits inside the ships we could also add an argument for Autopilot, and any other internal components that might be visible in the cockpit.

When they are added, we could add in a small object that you can see inside the cockpit.

What do you think?

Another one i was thinking of was for certain passenger ships. I was going to make a large passenger ship and thought it would be cool to have passengers at the windows, but there could be an argument for passenger cabins, or even better for if you have a passenger on board.

So when you have passengers, the windows fill up one by one, depending on how many you have.

This is a really cool addition.

I've just added detachable weapons to the talon.

Theres the code if anyone else wants to try this.

As you can see the model had to be called in this way : "models/ships/extras/fighter_RtwinGun.obj" so I have now created a new folder called Extras which will contain all the doodads for the ships, like sensors and weapons ect.

We can then easily share them between ships and the extra folder makes it easy for anyone to understand where extra bits are.

Check it out:

http://www.spacesimcentral.com/downloads.php?view=detail&df_id=328

I'll add more detachable bits later when I have the time.

Good to see you're putting so much effort in Pioneer, Tomm! I'm glad you're so busy improving your game and keeping us posted on the progress. In the mean time, I've been working on a second Pioneer youtube video. I hope it'll be ready this week. I want Pioneer to be noticed. It deserves to be noticed!

I'm reminded of the line, "Build it, and they will come." 😀

Yeah I feel like I've been slacking and pursuing some dubious lines of coding. I spent 3 or 4 days working on high dynamic range (HDR) lighting, before deciding that it was a bad thing to get sidetracked with. I had a nice bloom effect going on, when you fly near to a bright star. That code is disabled for the time being though.

BTW, it is better to do get_arg(ARG_SHIP_EQUIP_MISSILE0) than get_arg(12), because the code is clearer to read and the numeric indices can change without breaking models.

The alpha blending bug can be fixed by putting this shader into data/shaders:

http://pioneerspacesim.net/sites/defaul ... .frag.glsl

good news after all, i guess i'm a little behind now 😉

s20dan one Q, why you don't simply used he sub_models folder for your "R/LtwinGun", a path will be then not necessary

or doesn't that work from there?

still i'm hunting that bug...

Ah so thats where the extra bits are kept. Ok I will use Sub models folder, but I think we will still have to use the path /submodels/*name* instead of just the name.

depends on what it is and from where it's called, yes

static

don't need a path in general

dynamic

needs path for meshes (.obj) and textures*

but functions and (sub)models of course can be called without a path, because sub_model folder is allways loaded previous to models (in fact there is a alphanumerical order to, numbers previous to letters and of course common 0 to 9 and a to z). this i guess is caused by the way scripts loaded at all one after the other like in the script itself it works like a batch.

so there would be the possibility to name a sub_model i.e. "1_somemodel" and it would be loaded allways previous to all others (until someone has the idea to call his model "0_mymodel", that's why i decided to make a spacial folder for the sub_models which i called then previously to models from pimodels.lua).

* with one little exception to that, you could place the textures or meshes to "data" folder to call them dynamical, but i did that only once for the stationwall and won't do it again, else we have a big mess there after a while.

if you open pimodels.lua you can see the order they are called up in this order

-(model)functions

-sub_models

-models

things have might changed a bit now but in general it should be the same 😉

Q, you put the raw .obj meshes to the folder then?

why don't make a little script, including the argument request and a possible animation? after you can call that as model

and don't have to worry about.

it could be a function instead of a model (you can place it then even to sub_models, that doesn't matters), the advantage of a function to a model is that you can pass arguments to it when called.

(the explanation behind -- is only for us humans 😉 )

check therefore maybe woods_1.lua

now if i like to have a certain gelati, erm sorry, tree

i can call the function in the script and pass the args pos, rot, & scale to it

(the first argument is vector position, the second "direction" of course 0 is like the mesh is facing originally and 2 will rotate the mesh 360°, the third vector scaleing x,y,z so i can strech or squeeze the mesh like i want to)

this simple example shows another advantage of a (pure)function to a model

you can set a certain material for the function, like "pine" (see upper example)

later when called in a models script you can specify how "pine" should appear, by set_material('pine',.....)

in a more extended function you can set this way of course more then one materials that will be specified later (i have planned to upgrade the scanner i.e. to such a function to, that will give the modeler the freedom to specify different materials for the scanners base, it's dish and the inside of the dish)

imo that's a very comfortable and flexible way to make sub_models.

in this example a pine tree that comes in very different sizes and directions all from one basic mesh.

any questions?

function unique_name_of_the_function(argument1,argument2,and_so_on)

(commands, including the use of passed arguments)

end

there are other examples (check the biodome in city.lua) and it's use opens a wide range of possibilities

(man, isn't it enough i have to checkout what i can do with the new commands, now this guy comes along and suggest to make functions!)

Ah, shame... I would love to see it. But first things first, of course 😀 .

Then you shall!

Here is a scene without HDR lighting:

And the same scene with HDR lighting enabled:

It needs a lot of work though...

That looks pretty damn good Tom. The pink thrusters are a little wacky but they are still an improvement.

The planet though looks very nice.

Hmmm....pink thrusters.......ladybird.........Nah! 😆

I like it! Adds a nice little glow to planets and the spaceship. It's good to see new techniques. I must admit I'm a bit of a graphics ***** and we have never been treated with a spacesim that looks as good as Pioneer, i.m.o. At least, where planets, terrain and starfields are considered. It's my opinion that space has never felt more like space than in Pioneer and every improvement, graphics- and gameplaywise must therefore be embraced. I also greatly admire the work of modellers. Keep up the good work!

The planets and terrain I agree 100%. The best hands down from any game, the terrain engine is just amazing I feel it is not said often enough 🙂

But I haven't really noticed anything special about the starfields, maybe I havent really been looking properly but then all I do when I get a chance to play is fly around the planets, I dont trade or fight, I only explore planets 🙂

Just call it the Lady-Boy 🙂

I heartily concur, KingHaggis. The vision of space offered in Pioneer is just breathtaking in it's accuracy and ability to look like the very best films you've ever seen. It looks real, and that does most of the work of player immersion for you right there.

Yeah, well... it's not that the starfield is 100% realistic as in real constellations and stuff, but it's black! It's black and the stars are white/silver. Other spacegames always have those weird oversaturated nebula backgrounds. Sometimes, it looks impressive but I'd rather have space the way I see it when I look outside on a clear winter evening. Cold, black, endless with bright twinkling stars. Not those weird nebulae 😀 .

You got it! 😀

Exactly. It (and Orbiter) are the only ones I've seen that make me feel like I'm really out there.

That's what you sit on in the cockpit, a Lady-Boy recliner! 😆

Heh. Lots of my pioneer posts have celebrated the look of Pioneer and decried this very point; I was looking at a space game only yesterday that suffered this problem, Light of Altair ( http://www.saintxi.com/ ). Just look at those screenshots - why are developers so afraid of black as a background?? Isn't that what most of us Earthbound humans can relate to?

In the end this very point actually put me off buying the game...

😯 We're sitting on Lady-boys??? 😕

a bit late answer but i was off in dezenber so i din't mind

one must have started that Tard, and all the others copied it.

well remember the vid of a blender created 3d shoot 'm up i posted once?

same **** over there, lot of coloured nebulas no black space like we expect, i guess some like that

and whoaa what a stupid game, blasting ships out of the sky like you were unbeatable, one small fighter messes up a hundret, heavy metal soundrack (ok that's flavour) and a typical fitting comment to it "oooa, wow, eeek, whooa, and so on..."

but in the end a invaders clone not more, only in 3d

i like shoot em up's, but show a bit, only a little bit of intelligence... i don't mind when they come in 2d then.

nebule should have some practical use if put into pioneer

i wonder which...

besides of that. we look here from our grain of sand to the wide open space,

now you see a nebula (if it's a not a full galaxy, some are just named nebula, a leftover from the past), but in reality that object is so huge and the density of matter is so extremely low you wouldn't see when you stand inside of it.

in other words, our world could be place inmids of such a nebula and we wouldn recognize it's there.

usually we forgot the enormous dimensions of space.

a rather "small" one planetary nebula

and a huge one, where stars get born

colliding galaxies

it helps to measure the unmeasurable

for the observers eye from earth all the same, a nebula

and i guess it's obvious they have false colors sometimes on the photos to make things better visible, further they are compositions from various layers of different frequency ranges (not only visible light).

well most will concern now, ok, it looks fantastic but not very realistic.

of course a bit of fantasy is allways good and as i wrote this i thought about what we can do and how it should look then.

i guess it would make sense to have a clouded region in our game galaxy, you could hide something in it, but it must have then a relatively high density and no beautiful colors, more like some ink splattered on the map.

maybe it would do the game good to have some objects, not a full map, that identify the region you are in.

but on the other hand, the way how i play the game i don't look often at the stars (sounds egoistic but usually i look at my ships).

i do fly mostly with the outside view, i like to get something out of pioneers beautiful universe, but really i'm not fixed to the background, in fact i don't recognize it well. it a somewhat fast game (for a space sim) and in 20 or 30 seconds you have reached your destination, not much time to gaze at stars.

i guess we post at the wrong place here, who cares 🙄

hmmm. if you were a being from a different planet, you might wonder why all the game devs are making the games with cool looking dark coloured space rather than the more accurate pink/red/orange that lights up your world at night.;)

since pioneers galaxy itself is so far at least, a thin interpretation (literally so) of the entire galaxy i dont really see that it matters since its not really the same thing that you see when you go outside at night and look up. infact in pioneer and frontier, etc, on earth really you'd only 'realistically' see a few stars above and below the galactic plane because the galaxy is just a few lightyears thick. 😀

lemme think Pioneer is a "lifted" Frontier,

Frontier, do plays in 33century yes, but apart from spaceships and hyperdrives it's a victorian world

where adventure and danger exists, pilots flying tiny vessels to other systems through hyperspace, it's a bit like

sailors that travelled the 7seas 500 years ago. no lifeguards, not much security, and of course no "i can do everything" technology.

i guess that's a mainpart of what addicted players like me love at frontier.

the name allready is program FRONTIER, space (i repeat myself) the final frontier, just like the oceans 500 years ago.

if it would have a superbe technology, offering all the goodies we can expect from 33th century (like yeah, maybe you wouldn't have to wear a special glasses to see in any frequency range, built in you can say), i wouldn't like it that much.

i guess exactly this particular fantasy element what was even made Star-Wars to something special, on one side a future technology on the other "knights and sourcerers".

and if i'm not completely wrong mr. braben wanted to catch exactly this with elite and frontier (without just copying SW).

not a "super tech humans are better then all the rest of universe" game.

and if we would see a realistic space in pioneer then i would like to determine the course myself, using a sextant a circle and a map, can u feel me? it's somekind of mixed space, adventure, roleplaying, with no given storyline and no security.

what can be fun if your board computers doing it all for you, is there a challenge? just pressing a button?

allready i find it annoying that scanners reach that far in pioneer, they shouldn't imo.

the limits of ability makes the game, not "i can do everything".

but well maybe some must play first computergames for 25years, hack and tweak where they can to find out what is fun and what not.

maybe a stupid comparison, but yeah, soon as i knewed how to trick Frontier(amiga), it has started to get a bit boring,

having a eagle wit 500t cargo, a range of 1000's of lightyears, there is no fun. maybe for a short while exploring the galaxy, but apart from that.

i never made it to elite in frontier, not because i'm a bad pilot, no, because i get bored as soon as i'm unbeatable.

usually after some bombing missions i start a new career, it's better to fight with a eagle and a 1MW gun rather a

to sit in a ASP, fully shielded, fitted a 4 or 10MW lasergun, that's something for guys i described in the post before.

download the tie, hack the .exe so you have to start with the tie instead of the eagle, good luck commander.

that's what I like.

everytime i jump into a system i pray to god some pirates lurking around there, hopefully armed ones...

allready, pirates in 33th century? that is i don't know i guess unrealistic, but that's the spirit.

what we do in pioneer is like you would sail the seven seas in a dinghy! great feeling!

and i hope one day my targets start to fight really in pioneer, i mean when i pick a assasination usually they use large ships like a boa or the hammerhead (similar to frontier), but these ships are totally weak (even similar to frontier), you can hang on them and they don't have glimpse of a chance no matter plasma accel or whatever gun.

i really hope that is getting better in one release sometime, so they use a bit smaller more agile ships and hopefully they are armed, armed with all you can get in pioneer, guns, missiles and maybe a energy bomb? and shields, shields, shields.

then it starts to get real fun.

the best you can do by now with the hammerhead (oh, do i have posted my updated version dan? i've added some transparency polys to make the heads sledge invisible when uc is lowered) try to fly with you fighter in the very front of it before he recognizes you as enemy, and try to catch a view of it's inside, get as close as possible, ok you will probably crash and your ship is a piece of crap after, but that's fun. i guess when there is no danger i have to make danger myself.