Heya -

Nic, any plans to make a Mac ship editor? For game data, or for art?

Sure, save it as an OBJ and I'll see if I can open it without it being all screwed up.

As for the models, I'm going to do them my way because it's my personal project to model these things. If you guys want to use the videos, great, if not, fuggedaboutit.

That's why I said "usually."

{Both of those pages have a model pack with a cruiser in them, I don't remember which one is better. And it shouldn't be much trouble to find a 3d object converter (there are tons of freeware ones around) and convert it to something standard your modeller should be able to read, such as .obj.}

The problem is that most or all of those are in 3D Studio Max format, which is a proprietary format and there aren't any 3rd-party converters out there; you basically have to have a Max user save the file in a more generic format such as OBJ or DXF, which usually ruins its utility in two ways:

1. It goes from a dozen linked parts (in the Cruiser's case, most people would model the body as one piece, the nacelles as separate pieces, etc., with small details as separate parts added to each component piece) to one very complex piece that can't be broken into its separate parts. That in itself isn't a major problem because we're talking about a complete and finished model, but when combined with ...

2. It removes all textures, giving you a flat gray object that you have to retexture ... which is a MAJOR problem because now that your shapes are gone you have to figure a way to make it work, and it's basically impossible (for example, you'd normally wrap a cylindrical texture around the nacelle, a disk-like texture around the bridge, and so on, but you can't do that any more when the nacelle and bridge are now parts of a giant complex object).

Basically it's just easier to create your own model at this point.

{Out of curiosity, what modelling suite are you using? }

Strata 3DCX.

{EDIT: Just found the model I was thinking of:
http://mypage.iu.edu/~djtavria/vegastrike/shpearcr.3ds}

Yep, I can open that (I can open 3ds files no problem) but it's a melded and textureless object (problems 1 and 2). Here, compare how that file opens as one textureless melded object ...

http://www.seankreynolds.com/cruiser/shpearcr.jpg

... to how my file opens, as a set of textured objects which I can manipulate separately ...

http://www.seankreynolds.com/cruiser/sean.jpg

Hmm, I see no such link in any of your posts in this thread.

Edit: Ah, I've looked around and found what you're talking about.

Edit: But there is no Earthlink ship there. And they're all in MAX format, which I can't read anyway.

Ah ... I'm giving y'all the uncompressed version so you programmers can do what you need to do with the uncompressed version to make it work. In this particular case I need to know if there are looping problems on your end with a full render.

In the future I'll just render fewer frames for the previews, but I needed all frames for this situation.

OK, I have all my new software so I can do the stuff I was talking about. I've done a couple quick test renders of the Earthling Cruiser: no compression, 30 fps, 320x240, one in .avi and one in .mov

http://www.seankreynolds.com/cruiser/

Take a look at those and let me know how they work for you in terms of programming stuff. Again, this is a low-rez render with a placeholder background (a default "nebula" background image that comes standard with my 3D software).

In particular I'm curious how well looping these animations would work on your systems. If you loop the file from the end to the beginning (as it would if it were just a simple 360-degree spin like the 3DO ship movies) and it hiccups on your system, we'll definitely want to go with some other animation event for these things (such as a flyby or demonstration of ship attacks/defenses), otherwise you'll get that hiccup every 6 seconds (the 3DO version had one full rotation after 6 seconds) and that'll be yucky.

I'm not adverse to a different animation event; for example, I could have the cruiser fly into the foreground from the background, firing a missile as it does so, then "park" in the foreground, perhaps blasting an asteroid with the point-defense before assuming a static pose at the end of the file (at which point you'd probably want to hold the animation on that last frame, or transition to a still-frame rendition of that exact frame if that's not feasible). Or I could have it fly away off-screen and you could still loop the animation, so it would continually come into focus from the background, flyby, and exit frame again (in which case and animation hiccups won't be obvious because you'll only have the background image in frame and that will be the same at both ends of the file).

Curious ... any way to plug this in to the Mac version? I remember hexedit-hacking the SHP files on the PC version of SC2 and having some CRAZY high-powered battles with my room-mate, it would be fun to do that again.

OK, I see what you mean. I just figured it would be easier to have seankreynolds code the videos the way we want them and save some time on his initial upload of the files. Then again, I suppose that isn't a problem if Sean has enough upload capacity.

I have plenty of upload capacity, it's not a problem.

I'm not sure how the .mov was encoded; the conversion process to AVI was uncompressed, but the original may have some form of compression.
I've just upgraded to the new version of my software; I'll be in soon. With it I can export directly to AVI, which should take care of the problem.

I normally can do up to 60 fps ... the ones I posted are at 15fps because I didn't know what frame rate you were using and I didn't want to make huge test files.

So as far as the main videos go, we're talking a simply spin on its axis with a starry background, like the original 3DO files?

{Both .mov and .avi are container formats. They may contain media encoded using various codecs.}

You might as well be saying "blah blah blah" here. I know what a codec is but not the details because I'm not a programmer and don't need to be a programmer. Just tell me what I need to do.

{On my PC the .avi file plays, but the .mov file doesn't, but whatever lib we end up using could have totally different capabilities.}

I created the files on a Mac. The original export is a .mov file but I'm able to convert it to an uncompressed AVI easily. I'm sure I can find software to export it to other formats if that's what it takes.

{I suggest you just go with some common format which has an open source implementation or at least a codec that can be distributed and used with UQM.}

Such as ...?

{As for the dimensions, we could probably display anything, but 640x480 is the resolution that is used by the game (at least what you end up seeing).}

Easily done.

OK, I did a quick test render of an old crappy animated model and put it on my site in .mov and .avi formats:

http://www.seankreynolds.com/uqm

Let me know what you can do with those two formats. If one or the other doesn't work, let me know and I'll see if I can get some software that'll convert it to something that does work. Once we have a format that's working, I'll do some renders of my actual SC ships.

What dimensions should these animations be, anyway? 640x480? 320x240? 800x600?

Just tell me what format (though anything much more exotic than .mov is probably out of my reach with my current software) and filesize criteria. The ships I've finished are the Earthling Cruiser, Chenjesu Broodhome, Ur-Quan Dreadnought, and Arilou Skiff, Ilrath Avenger (a WIP), Druuge Mauler, and Pkunk Fury (sort of a WIP).

Meh... I think we could do better then that.
(And by "we" I mean anyone but me )
Seriously, look around, there are tons of SC art on the net, I think that people that made it would have nothing agaist using their models for videos of this kind in UQM.
And it also should be no problem to find someone with a voice less annoying then the one in the original videos...

I've mode 3D models of some of the ships. I'd be happy to do some flyaround renders and donate them to the cause.

As for the unfriendliness, no it's not. It's opinions. Everyone gets to have some. As long as the discussion is civil its just that.

As for the unfriendliness, no it's not. It's opinions. Everyone gets to have some. As long as the discussion is civil its just that.

OK, next time someone "makes the sign of dishonor in my direction" and hopes "the stars never align to show me the way home" ... I'll remember that's an "opinion."

May you wreck your car but walk away unhurt (and several thousand dollars poorer). That's my "opinion."