The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

As per request, here's all the new graphic mods in one spot...including the brand new Melnorme...which looks terrible but I don't wanna touch it anymore :P

By Clay
(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2yehat.jpg)
(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2arilou.jpg)
(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2avatar.jpg)
(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2thraddash.jpg)
(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2kohr-ah.jpg)
(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2druuge.jpg)
(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2shofixti.jpg)
(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2melnorme.jpg)

By VileRancour
(http://209.200.79.64/temp/ilwrath.png)
(http://209.200.79.64/temp/mycon.png)
(http://209.200.79.64/temp/vux.png)

By Censored
(http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/4800/chenjesu76vc.png)
(http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/4771/slylandro8presentation9ea.png)
(http://img439.imageshack.us/img439/9282/melnorme50gj.png)
(http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/3791/umgah57yh.png)
(http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/9047/orz5revisited26io.png)

And as a bonus, here's my screen mockup:

http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2redo.jpg (http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2redo.jpg)

You'll notice the Druuge is missing...that's intentional. ;p

I must say, they all look incredible, even the Melnorme is quite stunning.

Awesome work all round, cant wait to see how the Kzer-Za vessels turn out.

I'll definitely second that comment; this is great-looking stuff! I particularily like the sleekness of the Chmmr and VUX ships.  :D

The Yehat and the Sylandro are probably the best. Great job. No one I know could of done it better

They are pretty awesome, I hope they will make it into the game!

I like Censored's Trader better, but I think, if I knew Clay's one first, and then saw Censored's., I propably would find the one made by Clay better.


The only ship which does not quite fit my expectations is the Kohr-Ah... I always imagined it less smooth... As if the surface has to be much more like the ships of the Borg in Star Trek. With lots of small appendages and even holes in it...

http://www.startrek.nl/pictures2/voy/borg_cube01_1024.jpg (http://www.startrek.nl/pictures2/voy/borg_cube01_1024.jpg)

Perhaps it was just my interpretation of the pixel-effect ;)

Everything here looks great...keep up the good work!

Actually i envisioned the Kohr-Ah to have a "jagged edge" look with dark red alien writing similar to the klingon all over the ship

I was unfortunately completely unaware of the "alien writings carved into the hull" bit of lore when I reinterpreted the Kohr-ah ship.  I was more interested at the time in their fascination with bones, and thus tried to give it a very organic/bony structure.

Some folks seem to like it though.  If any were to be redone, I'd hope people would try some of my much weaker pieces instead...like the new Melnorme ^_^;

But yay, a vote for the CHMMR...when I first posted it, I wasn't happy...but it's now my favorite...along with the Kohr-Ah you don't like.  *laughs*

it's not that i don't like it, it's a good render but it doesn't look like what i thought it would...

i like it, in fact i was gonna make a spinning gif image for my avatar but i can't seem to get it to spin the right way (slowly counter-clockwise) without blurring... i'm not big on graphics editing/creation/animating

These are sweet!  Any way I can use them in the game, or is that still work in progress?

Me neither, but this is what I got with the simple rotate function from Gimp:

(http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/1172/drunkpilot4md.gif) (http://imageshack.us)

I appropriately named it drunkpilot.gif...

In fact the rotation should be applied FIRST, before the Lighting...

go ahead.

Actually, you need the source-data of the picture, which only clay has  ;)

well thats better than what i got ;D

Really good looking improvements. Although my favourites Spathi and Pkunk are missing :(

Excellent graphics. I hope they make it into the game...
BTW, a random thought...

...are there any plans for remaking graphics for projectiles, explosions, asteroids and planets in combat? Or maybe you think they are good enough as they are?

Clay, the Yehat has never looked so sexy. Nice work.

I am new to this community so please forgive me. Is it reasonable (from a programming standpoint) that these model can be used in SC2? These are just stunning and would be a super addition to the game!

Joel

Hey

got a big test tomorrow, so I thought popping in for a visit is the best thing to do!

Clay, nice work on the Trader, though the black swaths seem too dark ^^

also, something which I only realized after looking at yours - though the low-res version of the Trader has lots of protruding pixles, I never thought of them to be a characterising feature of the Melnorme.
I mean, look at the conversation screen - the Melnorme captain looks like a potato, the eye is round, heck even the teeth have (very) smooth edges. the bridge is an oval gradient. the ship itself looks like a balloon. hence my version is very smooth.
frankly I think the only logical reason for spikes on the ship would be little antennas for deep-space communication etc.

in any case, what happened? everyone lost motivation? ;)

I draw like a drunk 3yo boy, but maybe this guy can collabore in submitting designs for UQM: http://itchstudios.com/psg/main.php?id=sce

Whats going on with this thing? Ur-Quan masters could really do with that facelift.

Hey Clay, thanks for finally collating these! It was a real pain to sift through all the conversation in the old thread just to find the images.  :)

Could you repost the druuge for the sake of completeness? I liked it.  :-\

(Also, reposting your old progress chart would help prospective contributors decide what ships to try and redo.)

This is brilliant!! Could these graphics be embedded to UQM? The frontend looks awesome too! :D

Some major work will have to be done for the engine to support graphics of higher resolution, since now everything is treated as if the target resolution is 320x240.

It was said that this work would be given higher priority if there was an impetus to revamp the graphics. Well, here's the impetus.

just the product of a lonely, free evening..

comments are as usual welcome, alas I remind you the semester isn't over yet  >:( so don't expect a swift reply.

enjoy!

(http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/3791/umgah57yh.png)

Nice! That's about as good as you can expect an umgah drone to look.  ;)

yes, there's not that much that can be done with it.

don't forget the remake is at least two times as large as the in-game sprite at maximum zoom, so I see no real logical reason for giving it any more details / touches.

Cool.

If the original res (for the 3DO version) is 320x240, then the ships need to be 3.2 times bigger for 1024x768, 4 times bigger for 1280x960, and 5 times bigger for 1600x1200 (per dimension.) So for the Umgah icon, thats 90x90, 112x112, and 140x140, respectively.

The Umgah looks pretty slick for such a simple ship, nice work. However, my only criticism: according to the SC1 Ship Specs, those "red dots" on the top are actually observation blisters that Umgah sit(?) inside. It would be awesome if you actually drew the little pink blobbies in. ;D

okay.

I'm very angry with myself because I really needed to study (or sleep) but I just couldn't stop   ::)

this one's not finished entirely, but I would like some feedback on it. I already have one imprefection there, see if you notice it (then again, it might just be me, staring too hard for a couple of hours, so don't scrutinate it to the pixel..  ;))

enjoy..

(http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/9047/orz5revisited26io.png)

p.s. comments still welcome on the Umgah.

^ Awesomeness!

Awesome!

Have a marine too?  ;D

Whoa, nice..

However, I don't like the new "curveyness" of the.. err.. "blades" to the sides of the ship. They're very curvy, yet on the original it looks as if it's pretty much a straight line.. Same goes with the other stuff you've done with the ship, it's all a bit more curvy when compared with the original...

thanks

the marine is software-generated (green/red dot) and wasn't in the graphic source files.


yes well, the original is also made of a bunch of pixels.. besides, I like the curves. it's like owning a Ferrari!  :D
(a Ferrari mounted with an artillary cannon  8))

Very nice indeed.

Excellent !



My guess is that you mean the port wing 'rail' does not have any highlighting as it does in the original?

I decided to give it a try. So here is my own modest attempt:
(http://jon.ssofti.com/screenshots/Ur-Quan-Comparison.png)

The paint program I use (Paint.Net (http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/)) starts screwing up when I zoom in so making the image look cleaner is hard.

Have you tryed GIMP?

http://gimp.org/

Hm... not bad for a start, although I don't really like the star-thing on the back. Should be simpler IMO.

Also, looks a bit handpainted in parts... which is fine for stuff like arne's ships, but the other ones here use cleaner edges.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to apologize for my extended absence.  Just got busy with some of my "real" work on my RPG and some ad-design stuff.

I'm really pleased to see it has progressed some in my absence.  Umgah's pretty cool, Censored!  And I happen to think the curvy Orz is nice.  After all, they are aquatic...organic shapes should abound!  I'm not a big fan of the changes to the gun, but we'll call it even for people who weren't happy with some of my changes >_>

And Halleck: ...I'll think about posting the Druuge...maybe... ;p  I'll redo the list later, too.

Bio: Not a bad try on the Dreadnought!   Especially if you've never done this sort of thing before.

It actually was completely created on the computer with my trusty mouse and keyboard.


is this better?
(http://jon.ssofti.com/screenshots/Ur-Quan-Comparison2.png)

Much better, though some parts (the fronts of the sidewings, for example) still look a bit paintyish....

I like the new colours, though.. The old dark colours looked a bit weird, especially with the gray "light" to the left..

I think wether these graphics make its way to the oficial game or not, it'd rock if a just-melee (that could have modifications/improvements/additions to add stuff, later on)  hi res version of the game, was done...in this 2d hi res style.

just an small thing having 'only' melee stuff. I think there are some efforts already, just tend to have my cache memory flushed every 2 weeks..

Using the Adobe ps -or gimp, etc-  trick with the lighting filter for keep rotations frames well shaded with a fixed light, you could have easily the hi res versions full frames. That counting on yet counting on 16 positions only. Well, doubling it to 32, as I suppose allways is done non destructive, rotate allways from original one, would not be so hard, specially as each author makes his frames, not a poor little buddy doing it all...

I think it'd rock specially have full graphic freedom for artists go wild.

Also as it'd be a short to make game in gfx terms: the melee ships and a bit of UI, and bang, a great  evolved fan based bit, that could have some interesting additions to game play(melee, we speak only of that!), and graphic enhancement.

I have ended the game, now I'd like something like that, hehe.

Yep, I know. i should do some stuff for it too...I am allwasy sidetracked by $ projects, while this kind is which I'd love more.

This would not be excluding the possibility of adding to UQM, but would be no pressure then, and the gfx would have a sure destiny. Like a dual one.

I like the new one much better, bioslayer.

And yeah, I meant "handpainted" in the sense of "hand-drawn", not in the sense of "drawn on physical paper".

Adobe Photoshop CS2 has a trial version available for download.

yup, and though is the absolute king, and my tool of choice at work for years, there's free Gimp for windows, supporting since like 2.2x , the wacom pen's pressure sensivity, and...well...I haven't managed to do the lighting effect as well as with adobe's, but heh, with a layer above , with a gradient b/w, set as hard light mode (the layer) , and a percentage of layer opacity, you can achive very good effect. Indeed, you can evolve the concept with other sort of additional layers.

That in case u don't prefer just to model the whole thing in 3d and that's all ;)

is it me, or there were more ships made?

Am just seing what is to be done yet...

guess the list is what appears at start of thread and it goes updating...

Well, here is what seems to be the last touch to the Orz.

if you guys have any major requests please post them, otherwise I'll update my original post with the finished version in a few days (and politely ask Clay to update the thread with the Umgah and Orz  :D)

edit: original Orz post updated.

Looks done to me, though you might want to make somekind of small marine image, like Halleck said.

Very nice work. :)

These images look very nice!  The only one that I didn't like is the Kohr-ah model.  It's well done, but, it's just not dark and sinister enough, IMO.

But, if they're going to be used for Melee, then one will need to make 16 images for each- and each of them needs to be lit correctly.  You could probably help this process along by combining rotation and flips to help get the lighting right, but, wouldn't it be easier to make 3D models?

... plus, one could use them to make some nice cinematics for the game.   :)

as said, just withlighting effect filter in adobe, or a layer of certain type in gimp, this is done easy, and rotation for positions, done with certain trick, and in a non destructive way. fast and easy.

But, yup, 3d way is easy too.

It'd be definitely a 3d task if we were talking about 60 positions or so...
if not, 16...more a preference or knowledge of the user...

I would gladly support 3D models, however, personally I won't agree to anything lesser in quality than this (http://www.scifi-meshes.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/1085/size/big/cat/) or this (http://www.scifi-meshes.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3374/size/big/cat/501) (and these are just few examples of the great things people do on that website), and unfortunately I'm not sure anyone here can do it this well  :o

also, there would be a problem with the more colorful ships, as the colors are too vibrant to seem realistic..

lol

just pay me

(a lot)

No, I really think that 3d here would just be to do stuff like the 2d ones seen here just done faster, same quality. As a faster way in the case too many positions are asked (more than 16)

well, in that case it's still easy to make a flat model out of an existing (remade even) ship, then add/pull some vertexes so it would have volume (in the Z-axis) and the lights would work.. I used to model a bit in 3DS when it was the newest thing out there so I know it's not much of a problem.

or, there something called bump mapping, right? I'm not sure I ever knew how to use it correctly :P

Yea, doing 27 ships like that for free is a tall order, especially once people started to complain that about you being a heartless demon for trying to make SC2 look like SC3.



Making new models is fine, just as long as they don't have to be too detailed.



Or normal mapping, for more specific lighting. Of course, if you are rendering sprites from 3D models for this sort of thing, then it probably isn't necessary.

I have worked in 4 game companies, and in my fourth, it has a bit of nostalgy touch..reason why I may be frequenting a bit these forums... Mobile phone games do need yet a lot  of 2d pixel art work of the old times... Though 3d low pol is solidly getting in.

i was referring to use 3d *only* for accelerate/do easier a result exactly like the one seen in the thread, not to start a new brand... Indeed, unsure yet if it'd be faster, it depends as allways how much each one wants to use time in detailing...

Bump mapping? you mean Normal maps..?

Well, however, is not really needed. It just may add some realism, if you refer to paint some greyscale bmp to force the rendering software to "bump" some extra details...maybe fo rthe case wouldn't worth it. Just model it fast in hi res, and bang some nice lights, and render. No actual need of uvmapping textures, imho.

BTW, is not that hard to do ships like that site you posted (scifimeshes?)...is just...time. And for free, I wouldn't go that far. This is all the far I wanted to go for a real time 3d game, freeware, and I had to eat the ship, as project was canceled for other reasons :

http://xs.to/xs.php?f=ship27.jpg&h=xs72&d=06115
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=ship21.jpg&h=xs65&d=06042

..though rt 3d needs low polygon count, low textures, and none of the eye candy you can do in rendering. rendering images like the ones you linked, that site. The freedom when just doing a render, is huge. When doing for real time 3d, you're sadly very limited, though lately this is changing with advanced 3d cards. yet never close to actual rendering. Those pics of mine are from an opengl viewer with no antialiasing, etc. A render is much nicer but...less hard work ;)

To go farer in detail and hours in my case, only if for $ ;)

But to get back on topic, to me that helping in an started project means to keep in the guidelines and style of the project. the 3d would be only to speed up things, not to do something different in style, as at the end usually better to keep it all coherent.

The already done work here is very coherent you canput it all in a single project and look solid.
Reason why I'd hoped someone would make an apart project of it in melee mode or something..as I don't see how they could fit just a bunch of ships in a game that has it all in very low res... (and if you ask me, quite nice artwork. Mobiles games I work for is that size and lower.)

Oh, yep, the way I personally prefer for th e3d method , is have an image to trace from it, build the silohuette, and...if u wanna do a hardworked job, well, yup, other views for tracing, but in this case maybe better just go wild bumping some geometry , pure free modelling. The ref is low enough to not go crazy about accuracy (speaking of same accuracy as at least seen here. There's a lot of interpretation already in these 2d ships in the thread (and very well done as said) , as from low pixel work   you must imagine a futuristic 3 branch antenna...;)  )

Hey Clay, who did this one:

(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2druuge.jpg)


I like it! ..I like em all in fact.. Nice work by everyone involved!

moving on.. :D

this one was pretty easy actually, and frankly it was fun doing the wings (like army camoflauge spraying), finished in record time (one hour).

still, it seems a bit empty.. I would like to add some details on the hull, such like the Shofixiti's red paws, but I can't think of anything Pkunk-related.

feedback is welcome.

(http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/1755/pkunk2done6ur.png)

imo its ok

maybe if u add some darker red, as Kit's (Michael Night) car light...Would add the illusion of being a bulb light more...
Which yep, in th edistance, can be more than just a sensor.

a question...

this sprites you are all making..Are to be resized down later ?

I mean, small/tiny details like extra thin antennas, etc, would be lost?

Well, my sprites are 500% of the original, which makes it compatible with a maximum resolution of 1600x1200 as Deus_Siddis calculated (pg 2 of the thread). I think the others are either 500% or 400%.
in any case, what you see here is what you would see when you get both ships as close as possible to each other in melee (maximum zoom), if you would play at 1600x1200.

otherwise, yes, they will be downsized.

also, the game engine is sprites-based, per zoom factor: small, medium, and big. there are 16 sprites per zoom factor.

all in all, yes, details would be lost.

Thanks for the info!  8)

Nice fury.


In the original, it looks like the wings bulge a little in the blue areas. Perhaps creating more of a similar lighting effect would give them more depth and complexity. Maybe make them just a tad brighter, as well, if this is not already done by said bulgification. :)



Note that UQM's current max resolution is 1024x768. 1600x1200 is the res of most 20 in. screens, and is about the max that you'd have to make anything that'll be played on a PC (at least right now.)

Looks good!

okay, sharpened the red band and hardened the texture, and so I'm done with the Pkunk..

what's next?  any special requests? :D

Here is what has not been done so far (I think) :

Androsyn
Earthling
Mrnmhrm
Spathi
Supox
Syreen
Utwig
Zoqfot
Vindicator
Sa-Matra

I'd recommend doing the Vindicator and Sa-Matra last. I'd personally like to see a Cruiser, X-Form (is that what it's called?), or Blade. I think Mark Vera requested an Eluder some pages ago. Your call. . .

I suggested a Jugger way back when this first started, so seeing one would make me happy, anyway. But the Supox and Mmrn would be cool to see, too.

I re-did the glowy parts.
(http://jon.ssofti.com/screenshots/Ur-Quan-Comparison3.png)

That was me.  I neglected to post it because I hated it so much. ^_^;  But glad someone likes it.  I think Halleck asked for it to be posted...so you should be happy now!

Censored: The wings of the Pkunk are awesome!  The body seems a little flat...Do you mind if I tinker with it, some time?

Excellent, much better. You might want to lighten up the wings and the stuff around the red engine exhaust slits (it is hard to see those areas, especially against the black background of space.)

Good job bioslayer! It looks much cleaner. Only change I would suggest is to make those vents at the back of the pontoon things be nice and straight.

Also clay, thanks for the repost.  ;)

thanks!
sure, tinker away. message me if you need anything..
p.s. I'd apprciate it if you could add the Umgah and Orz to the front page  :)

em

cough

is the Earthling already taken by someone? .I'd like to make my hi res version of it...

BTW, for $, I have made a 21 space ships game lately..the gfx I mean.Game is in production, and will be released freeware.Pitty i can't show yet the artwork. Argh.

the earthling...I think I have a good idea about it. I'd also like to do the zoqfot, but if someone grabs it firts, ok, as I am gonna do the earthling.And then, maybe the zoqfot if it is free yet.

How much of "free interpretation" is there allowed?

Lol.beware, Im dangerous when left "freely"

Vux: Well since it's all volunteer, you can do whatever you please.  At the current time, this entire endeavor is hypothetical.  Who knows if any of them will see the game?  A more faithful rendition will likely be more popular though.

Censored: Here's my touch up.  I kinda rushed it because I'm on the go, but here it is.

(http://www.wiseturtle.com/sc2pkunk.jpg)

I'll fix the front page with the new entries when I have time. ^^

Wait a sec...Clay? as in, the clay from Fantasy Realms Online?

One and the same, sir. ^_^ 

What a small world.  Who would've thought that there was any crossover appeal between a manga webcomic and a 10 year old computer game? -.o

Great work on the Pkunk. Censored's already good Fury was pretty much perfected by Clay's tinkering. Nice touches. Really nice.


--Eino

Added some of the new stuff to the first post, excluding the Ur-Quan and the Pkunk, since they're semi-in-progress.

Also, repasting the list of ships here, so we can better work:


- Androsynth GUARDIAN
c Arilou SKIFF
s Chenjesu BROODHOME
c Chmmr AVATAR
c Druuge MAULER
- Earthling CRUISER
v Ilwrath AVENGER
c Kohr-Ah MARAUDER
c/s Melnorme TRADER
- Mmrnhrm X-FORM
v Mycon PODSHIP
s Orz NEMESIS
c/s Pkunk FURY
c Shofixti SCOUT
s Slyrandro PROBE
- Spathi ELUDER
- Supox BLADE
- Syreen PENETRATOR
c Thraddash TORCH
s Umgah DRONE
b Ur-Quan DREADNAUGHT
- Utwig JUGGER
v VUX INTRUDER
c Yehat TERMINATOR
- Zot-Fot-Pik STINGER

c = Clay, v = Vile Rancour, s = Censored (Sorry, I called dibs on "c" first!), and b = Bio Slayer

Actually, BioSlayer, do you mind if I give the Ur-Quan a shot? I have an idea for the star on the back...it'll either rock or totally suck. *laughs*

S'okay if not.  Don't wanna step on any toes. ^_^

I like it, though I think the shadow on the left wing-set is too dark. it looks like the wing is cut off; should be a much lighter shade IMO.

nice to see you back in business ;)

oh, and don't forget the Sa-Matra and Vindicator on the list! we should do the Starbase too.

I hope to make a good work on the earthling ;)

But then you will be out of initial letters when you put me there... ;)

if you start running out of initials you could switch mine to:
 bs = BioSlayer   ::)

Dont mind at all.

I agree. It looks fine in all other areas (though maybe the concave circle in the back looks a little weird.)

Fair enough, I'll work on it.  ^_^

And yeah, the concave circle isn't my fave either.  But it looks better than NOTHING...I'll just have to mess with it.  Time is short these days. ^_^;

wow....lol

About the Ur-Quan. The orange thing at the center of ship would be better without black arcs over it. If you don't mind, please, try to remove all the black lines over orange thing in the newestest version, it may look better.

Agreed. I think I mentioned this earler.

Looks awesome! :) Keep it up :P My favourite has to be the VUX so far, the detail is great.

By the way I do agree with removing those black lines on the Dreadnought like people have been saying..

Here's something that I, uh, had lying around:

(http://209.200.79.64/temp/supox.png)

This one probably doesn't fit the ongoing "project" in this thread - mainly because the lighting is "hardwired" into the image and couldn't be applied to other rotation angles without doing the whole image from scratch.

(Why did I do it this way, you ask?  Earlier in this thread I said I was working on "Something Else" - the above "new" image is sort of a by-product of that, so it wasn't really done with this graphic enhancement project in mind.)

I also don't think it looks that good - not "smooth" or streamlined enough, and there are obvious problems with the proportions. However, maybe it could serve as a starting point for someone else (or for myself, if I ever get back to it in the future).  ;D   Still, if anyone wants to make a different version, feel free to have a go at it.

By the way Clay - probably an innocent mistake in that ship list on the previous page... but that VUX is mine ;)

Meh, not sure how that happened.  I definitely knew it was yours.  Musta been a typo.  It's fixed now. ^_^

Supox looks awesome!  And BTW, all my ships use hardlighting as well.  I just use a "trick" to make it where it rotates properly.  It's not truly a moving lightsource, but dig up my spinning Avatar.  It works in a pinch.

I think all the SC2 ships are "hardwired" with their lighting. When I rotate the ships in Gimp, I flip the image so the shadow is in  the best direction, bland it out with the brightness control a little, then add a new light source. You can also get some interesting effects with the bump mapping.

Cool. Looks nice and clean.

I think the general impulse is to greeble up the blade. I've seen it styled mechanically before, ex: http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/sc2/shipspecs/rw-supox-spec.jpg

There's nothing particularily wrong with this approach, but the blade does give us the unique opportunity to create an organic ship. (Excepting the mycon perhaps.)

The only drawings I've seen of an "organic" blade were done by arne:
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/main.php?id=scesm

It's not unusual that a hortocultural species would not use horticultural technology. Do we drive giant fleshy ships around? Travel space in organic spaceships? No, we use ores and minerals and build our ships. There's no reason why the Suppox wouldn't do the same.

However, artisticly organic ships do "fit" the suppox better.

I don't know that we can really make assumptions one way or the other. For a while, we did craft tools out of bones. We still wear things made of animal skin, and the more decadent still use bone for decoration (ivory).

Who knows... on the planet they come from, it might be easier to cultivate giant husks than it is to mine and construct them.

I think that, according to the game at least, the only (semi)-organic ship is the Umgah Drone, although the Mycon Podship probably qualifies, too.

On the other hand, the Supox ship could definitely look good with a more organic, smoother design, even if it isn't actually constructed out of biological material. Like I said, my image is just a byproduct of something else that I decided to throw against the wall and see if it sticks - Arne could probably do wonders with the Blade...

I can't believe this thread got pushed out of the front page! come on!  ::)

vux_brush: how's the work going on the Earthling? I'm excited to see how it comes out  :D

Nice job with the enhancements, all of you.  I love the detail  :)

Just out of curiousity, any plans on working on the Sa-Matra?

About the Supox issue... Y'know those flower things that have purple lights on them and spray steam, or pollen, or whatever in the picture of the Supox? Well, they look metallic! However, the walls look like they possibly could be organic, but to me, they seem more like they're metal, but made to look somewhat alive.

I believe Clay and Vile would do a much better job with the details than me. still, I might give it a try - after all ships are done.

the Vindicator and the star base should also be revised!

not entirely sure about the cannon, but the rest seems okay to me.

comments and suggestions are, as usual,  welcome.

you can see the in-game sprite on the left; it is 5 times larger than the original.
the bigger image is the icon, also 5 times larger. the ratio between the in-game sprite and the icon is 1.81 (181%).

I chose to work on the icon-size, which is why everything looks bigger than usual (sorry :P). this made me wonder about size synchronization between all the revised ships, and though it seems like it could be a problem, I've checked, and the quality is saved quite well when you downsize it correctly.
I will post a less cluttered version for the front page some times later.


well, enough talk! enjoy! :D

(http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/116/andro7done27el.png)

*edit: updated for brightness.

Excellent work, again.

I'd suggest two changes, though. One would be to lighten up the dark side of the ship, so that it looks more like the original. The second would be to sharpen the comet image.

it is a bit dark, isn't it..
I've checked it on one of the computers in the University, which have CRT monitors, and I must I value my LCD so much more ;)

I'll lighten it up a bit.

I think I've made a good effort on the details this time, I hope you're proud of me Vile :D

*edit: brightness updated.

I'd suggest brightening up the shadow-side of the CHAOS bubbles too, on my CRT they look like crecent moons.

Is there a way to download and apply the mod?

your CRTs are killing me! ;)

I've updated it again. how does it look now?



currently not. bug the core team about it :D

Pretty good, except for the burn-in of Talana.  Wait, that's my CRT again.   ;D

Yea, I use an LCD, too. You just can't go back once you've tasted some liquid crystal goodness. :)

The ship and ammo look much better now.

*SIgh* You too dude? ;)

Ok, so which ships are left?.. I need to rip... er see em.. for my VB project..Ya know, inspirational purposes.. :)

For the wary, here's a comparison between the in-game sprite (x5) and the sized-down remake of the icon.
If this ever sees the light of day (or, in other words, UQM will support these), I'll be sure to refine the touches from the original icon-size image.

Can u Upload your file online or share us your link to it?

The file is right above your post, can't you see it? Just right click it and save.

Woah! That's one hell of a good work! Keep it up! ;D

Just letting everyone know I still live.  I got busy with college and my own projects...Sorry everyone who was looking forward to more new ships!

Either way, anything exciting happen in 2 1/2 months?

Yes.

I discovered PlanetSide and got to CR5 in 36 days, BR25 in 2 1/2 months.

Welcome back! It would have been a shame if this project stalled out completely after having gone so far in such a short time.

Truthfully, while it was fun at its time, I'm not sure it's worth continuing before we get a definite core-team decision and announcement of ongoing (not 'future') plans for the graphical engine.

Hell, what if they decide to use vector graphics? then everything so far was a waste.

Though I'm quite sure the most probable scenario is nothing will be changed.



*edit: spelling

...but they're definitely neat to look at.

I'm writing a game very similar to the SC melee. I've *thought* about maybe either making the game modable so people can do a graphically enhanced melee or maybe just doing a stripped down version of my game for a SC Melee clone with better graphics. I don't know if people are too interested in that or not though.

I do remember seeing a project somewheres to make TUQM/SC2 3D ... maybe you could steal, er "liberate" that code, and hack out some 3D models?

It died rather quickly when I got a job.  All I really had anyway was a few ships in VegaStrike (http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net) based on some SC models that were used to make the TW sprites, and others from the SC3D site.

Hmm.  It wouldnt be too hard to steal the VegaStrike engine - the problem with that lies in the fact that it does not currently support any form of 3rd-Person Camera.

I have a lot of experience with VS, though, I work (albeit sporadically) on the Wing Commander Universe mod.

Hmmm, is that a result of the ogre port?  The VS I remember from a couple years ago had multiple 3rd person camera modes.

Still does, as of the latest build (non-cvs.) Chase, target, and something that I think looks at your ship from the system origin (center of the sun.)

I think they said they wouldn't make the port to ogre until the build after the pending one.

Oh it is, I'm using the very latest CVS version since I develop for it :)  The old stable version should have it in the old iteration of the code.

Hey, those are pretty neat. There are still some blurry edges on your ships though. You should try one of three things:

1. make larger pixel art versions so you still have those crisp edges
2. make them with a vector program so everything is smooth and neat and they can be scaled to any size
3. make them in 3d and do prerendered ships (like SC3). Though something is obviously lost in this approach

A couple years back I made some large pixel art versions of the ships. Check them out:

(http://www.coreyannis.com/gfx/sc_ships.gif)

Nice. Particularly the Ur-Quan ships.

blurrin' is cool...

Those are very nice images, coeray.  I'm glad that this topic is still active... :D

lol, batman, is that my Orz Nemesis in your avatar? ;)

*blush*

Yes it is actually.  :D

It's a nice graphic.  I hope you don't mind me using it...  ;D
I'm also using coeray's dreadnought pic on another forum.  I hope he doesn't mind either; they're all nice images.

Wow coeray, very impressive.

I hope you all don't mind if I exhume this slightly old thread, but I'd rather have this on the front page than some thread about the druuge fuel trick.  ;)

Very neat.

UQM 0.6.0 HQ scaler does a surprisingly good job:
(http://koti.mbnet.fi/jouniku/hm/Clipboard02_small.jpg) (http://koti.mbnet.fi/jouniku/hm/Clipboard02.jpg)
Click the pic to see a larger one.

With some help - wow ;)

Hurray to our fine and talented core coding team!

I love looking back at this thread. It was fun messing with photoshop, I have to admit.

Yeah, I'm really surprised by how much we got done!  I was just here to rob a "few" icons for my boardgame, and it was like "Hey...we were almost done..."

Maybe it's worth finishing up, some day. :)

How many ships were left?

Looks awesome. Now just if we could somehow get those models in the game.

But in the other hand, if the only the ships are remodified, it would look pretty bad, so teh whole game should have that the makeover.  :-\

Updated list:

s Androsynth GUARDIAN
c Arilou SKIFF
s Chenjesu BROODHOME
c Chmmr AVATAR
c Druuge MAULER
- Earthling CRUISER
v Ilwrath AVENGER
c Kohr-Ah MARAUDER
c/s Melnorme TRADER
- Mmrnhrm X-FORM
v Mycon PODSHIP
s Orz NEMESIS
c/s Pkunk FURY
c Shofixti SCOUT
s Slyrandro PROBE
- Spathi ELUDER
v Supox BLADE
- Syreen PENETRATOR
c Thraddash TORCH
s Umgah DRONE
b Ur-Quan DREADNAUGHT
- Utwig JUGGER
v VUX INTRUDER
c Yehat TERMINATOR
- Zot-Fot-Pik STINGER

c = Clay, v = Vile Rancour, s = Censored, and b = Bio Slayer


That would be 6 left, not including the Sa-Matra. Not bad if I may say so myself  8)

so...

this is being retaken..?

Lemme then do that earthling. I know that this I said the last time, but if I do it now I think you wont be dissapointed ;)

An Enhanced Graphics mod would be awesome, but someone needs to redraw the background (I envision a pseudo-3D background, with stars placed on different layers, even with nebulas!), the planet and the asteroids too - and the weapons! Even the thrust perhaps...
And someone needs to program the game so that it only displays the new graphics, but still computes in terms of the old graphics.

Did it ever actually end in the first place? The thread has always been here, begging for some love. ;)

<3 <3 <3

Censored

Soooo close.

Don't forget cooeray's ships - they've got the Penetrator, Eluder and Cruiser covered along with versions of other ships.

--Eino

Earthling Cruiser done? where is that?

On the previous (9th) page: http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=2899.msg41422#msg41422

I think those might be too small. I think it is reasonable to assume that if UQM becomes graphics upgradible, it will be able to fit modern resolutions like 1600x1200. In such a case, bigger ships, like those on the rest of the thread would probably be better.

If anyone else has the time/motivation to take a shot at this but does not want to spend any money, you can try out these three freeware/opensource tools, one in each category/approach (image, vector, 3d, respectively):

http://gimp.org/

http://www.inkscape.org/

http://www.blender.org/

I see, seems then is no bad idea if I do the earthling, as u need the uber high res. as far as I know, 500% than original game .Aint it? and with the rotation of the ship while keeping fixed that light direction.

Starting now, hope to keep u posted.

BTW, I tend to add dirt and stuff to ships, sorry, can't avoid it.  8)

Anyway, an intergallatic bunch of old metal crossing asteroids belts one day and the other and being shoot every week by random spathis and whatever, really can't be too shiny...

Oh, btw. yeah, those tools rock. I use em at work. I prefer A. Photoshop than Gimp and Illustrator to Inkscape, but they're pretty capable.  But I *really* like Blender. I use it a lot.

but this work's probably done only brush painting.

Also, Photoshop (Adobe) has a fully-usable trial version.

ehm...

some love.


Lots to do to it yet, as I went the 3d render route, for the light rotation not making me confortable...

need to add the lights , some extra detail I'll  create, some sort of dirtyness, better reflections, etc. but hey, it's a start... fan art is very in my last priorities, not cause I dont like but cause other stuff pressures more ;)

BTW, it'll be just the identical size of the others, and will try to get more painted look... is possible.

I'd have rather preferred 2d, there I shine more, but hey, light rotation makes it a bit painful...

forgot, fullydone with blender, no textures(but imho will be enough with some clever doing) for not having so much time...

It looks nice, but the style is too different from the other enhanced ships. It looks too much like if made with a 3D rendering program - which it is.

hmm yup
anyway, been thinkin' on using the frames for as a simple lights and volume layer, and underneath, the "texture" detail,(this 'd valid only if it's only 16 positions, which I guess is not...would be too much work, surely ,with more positions.) or straight on map to it a texture with planar uv, after all is just a top view...

Anyway, is a first shot...there's no render retouch, no painterly filter applied, etc, etc. I'll see what I make of it...

Bump filter for light wasnt being of my likings, in Gimp...
If that would have worked, I can really do a nice job by painting only ;) hehe

wait...am I too tired right now, or the rest of ppl is just painting with fixed lighting ??

gotta make some affairs of real life before, later on today or tomorrow may try certain trick , 2d only, but basing on that render.

Looks very goood. One thing I would modify a bit would be making the beams that connect the engine cylinders to the main hull a good deal thicker, at least as think as the 'caps' where they attach to the engine cylinders. Then I would maybe make them wider so that they were just a little bit like wings or fins, but not really. Sort of like the structures that connect the engine cylinders on the enterprise, since this design always seemed to be a parody of the trek ship.

You might want to also give the front section the characteristic diamond/hammerhead shape. It looks good stylized the way you have it, but since these sprites are just supposed to be higher res versions for the most part, I think sticking to the original design on this section would be cool.

sorry, I am not an englisyh speaker, in some stuff I get lost... Diamond shape, you mean where the crystal cabin is ? Is that a diamond really ? I thought it wasnt looking at a higher res image, probably in the intro, or at some point when you start a new full game... i thought the diamond shape was forced for the very low res, but was trying to mean some sort of more rounded cabin...

for the same reason, I dont exactly now which cilinder/parts you'd prefer thicker... roughly paint over it if you'r so kind,  to point which are those,  I dont mind it being painted.

anyway, look at that as first random shot, only.I guess the thing is going to be quite different...
can somebody answer me if these hi res images are using the 16 positions in the rotation, or more ? how many have been done for the other ships in this thread?

If the assumption is that sometime in the distant future these enhanced graphics will be inserted into the game, then yes, they will only need the standard 16 orientations.

I, for one, would use unlimited orientations (graphically they seem unlimited, but the game considers them to be 16 orientations really. Something like the Slylandro Probe's orientations in the latest version of Elvish Pillager's Crazy Mod).
Also, the background, the weapons, the planet, the asteroids and the sounds need to be enhanced to fit with the improved ship graphics.

one at a time ;)

I was bored so i put the new chmmr in my physics engine. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L9Pu6ez7j4)

Was any of this ever going to be implemented in the game as a mod?

It was my understanding that the UQM code needed a serious overhaul before any high resolution graphics could be used. I don’t know what progress has been made on this, however.

I would think that you'd have to basically port the whole game over to a new engine. By "port" I mean rewrite entirely... I don't think DOS ever supported higher than VGA graphics, did it? Probably need to move over to a DirectX-based engine.

I, for one, would love to work on a modern SC remake. The only problem is justifying the time commitment, ya know?

A bit of off-topic nitpicking... it sure did, as long as you had proper drivers (which Windows also needs in order to support higher-than-VGA graphics).  Just the natural result of the fact that VGA was the last video standard to gain total acceptance with manufacturers.

By the way, I've been working for a while now on quite a different "graphic enhancement" project (which would *not* require a total rewrite of the code, more like an add-on).  Might post the results soon, so stay tuned...

Nitpicking a bit more: graphics were never really anything DOS had much to do with. Most of the time, programmers used the video BIOS and direct hardware access. A typical use case involved getting the BIOS to set up a suitable video mode (possibly tweaking it further with direct hardware access) and then using it by writing directly to video memory (calling BIOS functions to draw stuff is slow). To get slightly back on topic, this is essentially how SC1 and SC2 on PC worked: use the video BIOS for basic graphics setup (and as a compatibility option in case the ultra-fast palette manipulation code confuses your graphics card), then essentially ignore the video BIOS and write directly to the card.

Naturally, all this fiddling with direct hardware access meant that graphics cards had to be compatible on the hardware level. This worked well as long as everyone was following IBM's lead (MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA), but after that, manufacturers started to add their own extensions ("Super VGA"), for which a video BIOS extension (VBE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBE)) was later developed by VESA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA). SC3 (on PC) is one example of using VBE to go beyond VGA.

However, this was too little and too late to prevent manufacturers from developing hardware to specifically meet the needs of Windows ("Windows accelerators"), and 3D accelerators such as the 3dfx Voodoo (whose Glide API was available to both DOS and Windows software). Grand Theft Auto, for example, did 3D acceleration under DOS this way.

So, in conclusion, DOS-based software can and did support quite advanced graphics hardware, far beyond VGA. However, once Microsoft got DirectX sorted out (and consumer graphics hardware started to support OpenGL in a meaningful fashion), little reason remained to access graphics hardware directly, especially since using a (relatively) high-level API allowed for hardware to change rapidly without losing compatibility.

Note that none of this is relevant to UQM. UQM uses SDL, which uses whatever backend is available (which is how UQM can run on such varying platforms).
The only thing which ties UQM to legacy video is the resolution. The position of many objects is based on this resolution. The problem isn't just the hard-coded values used for everything, but also one of the in-game coordinate systems.
The location of your flagship when exploring a solar system, for example, is maintained simply as its position on the screen. So if you load a game saved on an UQM with a different internal resolution, the ship has moved.
And the range of some weapons in Melee are expressed relative to the screen size.

Well this is pretty nit-picky! You have indeed explained the scenario in my head: that Windows took over games by the time anything beyond SVGA became feasible for games development. Naturally, hardware is essentially OS-agnostic if you know how to write a driver for it. :)

I look forward to your results. I personally have to resist the charms of Star Con. On the one hand, I 'd love to re-write it with a modern engine. On the other hand, I don't want competition with my own project! :)

I took the androsynth and threw it into my engine. This demo shows off the new bump mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_mapping) feature of the Graphics library I'm writing to complement my engine. The bump map was auto generated so it’s not that great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0G8cU2pqNA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0G8cU2pqNA)

Just one little snag... I'm looking at tiny Androsynth Guardians at youtube quality...

maybe this will be better:
http://physics2ddotnet.googlegroups.com/web/FoundTheAndrosynth.wmv (http://physics2ddotnet.googlegroups.com/web/FoundTheAndrosynth.wmv)
You may have to refresh it after it tells you the file cannot be found.

Good to see this thread popping up every now and then  :D

Is that dynamic lighting? it looks good!

I always intended on adding little texture and detail to the Androsynth, but never got around to it. Truth is, the version I put here is much bigger than how it would look in-game, the Androsynth being a tiny ship and all, so I didn't bother with the details in the first place.

Thread necromancy alert!

1) Grab Project 6014 (http://code.google.com/p/project6014/wiki/Downloads?tm=2), install Project6014 with the high-resolution 4x packages
2) Run Project 6014, enable hires4x mode
3) Get this (http://mooses.nl/uqm/wip/genhancement.rar) 13MB .rar file
4) Extract the .rar file into the <project 6014 installation directory>/content/addons directory (so you get <project 6014 installation directory>/content/addons/hires4x/ships/...)
5) Play Super Melee with the arilou, chenjesu, chmmr, druuge, kohr-ah, melnorme, shofixti, thraddash or umgah

What it looks like (click for bigger picture):
(http://mooses.nl/uqm/wip/genhancement_thumb.jpg) (http://mooses.nl/uqm/wip/genhancement.jpg)

(NOTE: content copyright of the respective authors; I was just curious what it would look like, and thought I would share)

So, yes. I was wondering how some of these ships would look like under Project 6014 with the high-res 4x images enabled.
So I wrote some not-so-clever Python with hardcoded paths (use/read at your own risk; if you run it, MODIFY IT FIRST) (http://mooses.nl/uqm/wip/genscript.txt) that edited some .ani files and exported a .bat file which when ran would use ImageMagick to convert an input image into the needed big/med/sml .pngs with included rotation.

Obviously, the shadowing doesn't work correctly, and I haven't bothered with replacing all images yet (as can be seen in the screenshot above). That said, I remember someone in this thread posting the result of some automated tool that did some lighting things, and it looked fairly okay. Can anyone remember what that was and if it works neatly for all these ships?

Also, the sizes of the ships are mostly sized towards the Project 6014 4x ship sizes. For most of these ships, I had to downscale them from the images linked in various pages of this thread. The hotspots probably don't line up correctly with the original UQM hotspots (I manually determined where they ought to be without checking).

Don't use this stuff when you're going to play netplay, as your game will desync if your opponent isn't using this.
To uninstall, just remove the hires4x folder from your p6014 content/addon folder.

EDIT: This thread (sadly) has some broken links or not-too-great JPG images. If anyone has some of these ships mentioned earlier on in this thread, I'd love to see them again. Preferably as nice lossless PNGs. :)

I have this thread to thank for getting me really pushing to make Ur-Quan Masters HD and Project 6014 HD.  I saw it and got excited about higher quality graphics. Alas, nothing ever seem to come of this project.  One of those "If you want something done, sometimes you gotta do it yourself" moments.

Shadows for all the ships is too much work, but I do plan on making 2D versions of the ships too. I'll let people decide if they prefer the 2D or 3D look. Again, these are great for 640x480, but still could use some higher quality for the 1280x960 stuff.

Also:
If it's graphic enhancement you guys want (albeit of the 3D kind) star-control.com is starting to showcase  Zenzmurfy's models:

(http://www.star-control.com/Project_6014/zz_androsynth-sprite_0001_preview.png)

Click to Embiggen:
(http://www.star-control.com/Project_6014/ZZ_arilou_sprite_0002_preview.png) (http://www.star-control.com/Project_6014/ZZ_arilou_sprite_0002.png)