SpaceSimCentral

Thanks Luomo. I started a page on the subject. It's perhaps not complicated enough to warrant one normally, but it doesn't really fit in any one subject (textures, meshes, model system...) so saves repeating ourselves. [url]http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Transparency[/url]

WIP, I thought a tutorial that went from start to finish through the process of making a very simple ship and getting it into Pioneer was in order. Unfortunately I'm on someone else's Mac, and these things are a mystery to me, so hit a bit of a wall, but I'll finish it up next week when I'm really back home... Additions and corrections welcome in the mean time! [url]http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Making_your_first_ship[/url] --- Also, nearly forgot - here's the very basics of turning pointy clicky Blender events into a script. The video tutorials linked at the end go on forever and ever, but they cover much more... [url]http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Scripting_Blender[/url]

That's pretty cool. I'm not a modeller, but were I to give it a go, I would not be intimidated by that page. This is a good thing.

Thanks. I think it's heading in the right direction - keeping it very simple, so hopefully none of the usual "Build your space ship, then continue from section 2"...  --ETA That's a dig at Blender's docs, by the way, in case that isn't clear. Pioneer's docs aren't brilliant, but they're pretty good considering how few of you there are...

[attachment=1702:Bildschirmfoto 2013-02-24 um 22.46.58.png] [attachment=1701:Bildschirmfoto 2013-02-24 um 22.46.52.png] if you have two separate objects you can join them, but i recommend then to set for each part a new material, if you like them splitted at all you can split then by material use. if you like to keep them separate , i would unwrap and export the uv to a bitmap, you find that in the uv/image editor window when you switch to edit mode.[attachment=1703:Bildschirmfoto 2013-02-24 um 22.59.41.png] then you can load the uv of one obj to position the mapping of the other, if that was what you liked to do.e.g to unwrap a lower LOD mesh. --- but i see no reason for collada not to use the mesh materials (if you use at all more as one material) and to export finally all to one model.thrusters and other nodes of course only once, when you export the model you can select with shift the needed two or more layers,select all and of course export only selected. --- some of my projects for SGM i made so far (and a few other) you find here, [url]http://sdrv.ms/YPnw02[/url] might be helpful for someone to snoop into them.i have to say in advance that i first stripped them of old material, so it's prob. not all material i used,i.e. exported meshes i used as base for the project used original textures.mainly only the latest blender project(s) and the gimp project for the texture. don't be surprised most animations i made exclusively in blender2.49, but you can open the file with 2.65, no problemonly exporting to collada or any else won't work from blender2.65 or not as expected.it's just because i can't get the conrods working except for .x and only with blender2.49.but probably i'm to blind to see a solution, or whatever, maybe it really doesn't works.the problem is, i would have to use "visual keying" for the constrained objects,but as soon as i set the first "visual key", the animation gets mixed upand the movement ends somewhere complete different as it was set/limited through the constrain. but i will see next week, i have a idea why this prob. happens.on the other hand, i don't care to much, you can imagine.

a little hint, due to a slight change in the materials for alpha31 opacity 99 won't lead to semi-transparent material if you like such you will have to set it to opacity 98 --- some more experiences, shinyness should never be below 1 (=0), else it leads to unwanted extreme shaded surfaces (either lit or fully shaded, depending on view angle) if you like something totally flat shaded 1 is okay and use aditionally a black area in the specularity bitmap for such parts, then they turn out well. take also a little care when you use patterns, materials below a shinyness of 10 look "washed out" in conjunction with pattern colors,except you would like this specifically. while i'm not sure if 200 makes sense, because i can't see no difference to 100 patterns have a "secret" (i have no idea if that will stay in this way)imagine them as if one of the used patterns overlays the other, if you use only one i recommend to use the first available in the greyscale, turns out to be the red one actually in the game.this will be the first "layer". "green" tops "red" and "blue" tops or covers "green". also i found out that the mip-mapping doesn't do the pattern material good, but there is a little trick to workaround that.that's of course first, details are really bad for it (and i do mean bad, it's a bit sad, one could say best is to use it all only for whole objects/parts, thus you get around this issue).and if your machine allows it, use a medium to high mip-mapping level (8x, 16x) pioneer anyway looks rather bad with lower settings.especially above a certain angle textures smear else to much. but also try to choose a grey for the pattern which is closest possible to the change for the next color, a bit complicated to explain for me.that means i.e. "white 128" (of 256) seperates the "red" from the "green" "layer", it's on the edge you could say. if you choose a rather low white (i.e. "white 48") the pattern vanishes with distance and the borders turn to the underlaying color, in the case for the first pattern to the color the material has.if it's the second layer the first layer gets visible which really looks bad on distance. but if you set it rather high to the edge i.e. "white 120" that won't happen neither it will tend to fade to the next (very close) layer. this method can be used for all three layers. but also be aware that there is always a tiny border to see from the overlaying to the underlaying layers,like i said best is to use the first ("red"), any else didn't turn out well, except you cover the whole object/part with it. or it might be you like a sort of rainbow, then it's ok to use "blue", the border will be then red,green,blue.  --- i hope the "rubber coated" look will disappear once, it's not very good to use it at all actually.the random material, or what should turn once to this, decolorizes the texture completelylike it would be a only low indexed greyscale or b&w i guess this and that it's somehow "overlayed" makes it look like a "rubber coating",i really don't like how it looks, i used it so far...

Can the new model system handle tailsitters and/or variable geometry, yet? I've got the urge to play around in Blender a bit...

Can the new model system handle tailsitters and/or variable geometry, yet? I've got the urge to play around in Blender a bit...That's got nothing to do with the model system, really. The game would need to understand the alternative orientation... I think it would be a fun thing to have and I'd work on it if I had time. BTW, Blender 2.66 seems to have broken collada animation export - waiting for blender devs to confirm and/or fix [url]https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/issues/2123[/url] and other old versions are available at [url]http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.65/[/url]

Thanks for the tip. I guess I'll keep it at 2.65 for now. :prankster:

What is the absolute highest tri count we want for ships to be included in master? The wiki says aim for under 10,000; is that a hard limit or is there some flexibility? My comp can run models more detailed than that no problem but I know the goal is to be able to run Pioneer with low-spec systems easily.

I added the note about 10,000 triangles, if you're talking about here [url]http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Optimising_geometry[/url] I've seen that number quoted a few places (the bug tracker I think, perhaps the mailing lists too), possibly by kko / Luomu, but have subsequently realised they may have meant 10,000 polys, which is quite a difference. Hopefully someone can clarify. It seems it's much more important to get the LODs right, e.g. this page on the old model system. There's no established polygon budget, but don't go crazy. It's more important to have detail levels set up correctly so you don't use a 10K mesh for something that's only visible as a dot. [url]http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Blender_Model_Export[/url]