thanks a lot for all the crits...as far as the light angle goes, i just left it at default in lightwave, spun it, and tried to get my sprite...i wasnt worried about the lighting being consistant with nova as of yet, i was more worried about making it work

i'm just finishing up a nicer looking ship that i'm going to use, so the lighting issue will be fixed, and i'm going to try the minimize thing again with only my mask this time

(edit) i just tried the minimize the mask alone, and it significantly reduced the fringe..its still there a little, but much lest noticeable (/edit)

This post has been edited by Mythran : 14 April 2006 - 01:48 PM

I'm not quite sure what you guys are talking about with this "fringe" but looking at the two images you posted I noticed that your mask actually still has grey bits in it and also that it's a little too tight.
A good way to make a mask from your sprite is to just increase the exposure which will make all non-black pixels white (I use graphic converter and had to increase it twice to make them all completely white). This is an easier way of getting the same result as the second method orca mentioned but only works if your ship has no pure black parts (true in this case). Yes, you can still see a black fringe around it but it is small and if you make the mask any smaller you will actually destroy the anti-aliasing around the edge of your ship and will end up looking worse. Most of the time ships fly against a black background so this is the best you can do.

Nova's lighting:

View Postpipeline, on Aug 1 2005, 09:57 PM, said:

Main light: Pure white, 100% brightness -- located at (if looking at ship from Nova perspective going up the screen):

• X = 100 (left 100 units)

• Y = 100 (up 100 units)

• Z = 100 (forward 100 units)

In other words, top-left corner of screen.

You should also turn off any ambient lighting, and add a fill light (pure white, 20-25% brightness) at X = -100 (right 100), Y = 50 (up 50), Z = 0.

All lights should be targeted at the ship (the middle of the scene, coordinates 0, 0, 0)

best always,

Dave @ ATMOS

(EDIT): Okay, just had look at the plug you posted and it appears the mask of the sprite is identical to this one which would imply that EVNEW created it itself and didn't use the one you made. So in fact your plug is fine, except you should delete the "mask" rleD. Rles have built-in masks so the mask field in spins and shans is ignored.

This post has been edited by Guy : 09 September 2006 - 09:13 PM

thanks for the lighting info, it was the next thing i was going to try to find out. the images i included earlier were the same in the plug i posted, but i just edited the mask, reducing the white a little, and it didnt mess with my model really, and did pull down the fringe quite a bit..now theres just very tiny bit of black, which i'm fine with for now...its not like the model is anything spectacular, it took me all of maybe 20 min to make/texture/render. i'm just glad i figured out what i was doing, and i'm really greatful for all the help along the way

Mythran: You're welcome!

@guy, on Apr 14 2006, 07:07 PM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

(EDIT): Okay, just had look at the plug you posted and it appears the mask of the sprite is identical to this one which would imply that EVNEW created it itself and didn't use the one you made. So in fact your plug is fine, except you should deleted the "mask" rleD. Rles have built-in masks so the mask field in spins and shans is ignored.

This is troubling -- is EVNEW actually using the mask files given to it, or does it just throw them away and generate its own by trying to detect the background in the sprite image files? A readme for EVNEW is on Azzy's EV: Nova Page. Its section on rle8 / rleD resources says:

Quote

....You can import graphics into (an rleD) from an image file that contains all the frames layed out in a grid, or you can import the frames one by one from seperate files. When you select File -> Import, enter the width and height of each frame, the number of frames across a row in the image file, the number of frames down a column in the image file, the number of frames to import from the file, and the 1-based index that the frame in the upper-left of the image will be loaded as. For example, if you have 108 frames for a ship layed out in three separate files, where each file contains a 6x6 grid of 100x100 sprites, you would do three imports. You would set Width and Height to 100 and X Frames and Y Frames to 6 for all three imports. For the first file, you'd enter 1 as the first frame, For the second, you'd enter 37 as the first frame, and for the third you'd enter 73 as the first frame. You'd enter 36 as the number of frames for all of them. You then do likewise for the masks....

If I understand the last line of this quote, then, mask files are required input. This is the readme for "Public Beta 1.0.3," though, and I don't know whether a more recent version may be handling things differently (Does your readme match this, Mythran?). The readme could also simply be wrong....

Also note that the readme says that you can import frames one-by-one! Mucking around with creating grids in Photoshop may not be necessary after all.

EDIT : Hm. Just got the EVNEW 1.0.4 readme. It adds this:

Quote

• RLE masks are now automatically generated after imports, using black as transparent pixels (but masks can still be imported separately, too)

If you use automatic mask generation, you won't be able to have true blacks (or whatever color you designate as transparent) in your image, I surmise. If you want to avoid black(ish) fringing, you'll have to change to true-black all the near-black pixels that are adjacent to true-black.

This post has been edited by Dr. Trowel : 15 April 2006 - 11:25 AM

@guy, on Apr 15 2006, 12:07 AM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

Rles have built-in masks so the mask field in spins and shans is ignored.

I'm not completely sure what you're saying. So I don't have to make masks for the RLEs?

I just assumed that the mask image was combined into the RLE with the ship image, but that the ship and mask still retained their own resource numbers.

I assumed this, because the original nova RLE files use every other resource ID number, and I figured that the masks were in the skipped IDs. Also, the shans confirm this layout as they seem to reference the missing IDs in the mask fields.

But if I simply don't need to use the mask field, how does it know what the ID of the mask is?
Does the RLE tell it, or is it supposed to follow the convention used in the original files? That is, the next ID in sequence.
Because I haven't been following that convention. My masks are located at ship ID+500.
Though now that I think about it, I have been seeing some strangeness with regard to how shots impact some ships.
Perhaps Nova is trying to use the next ship image ID as the mask for the previous... I'll have to check this.

On a Mac, both EnRLE and MissionComputer require mask files as input to make rleDs and rle8s. Once you've made the RLEs, though, you no longer need to have the mask files in your plug -- EVN gets all the transparency info it needs from the RLEs, and the numbers in the mask fields in the shan or spin are ignored. If I remember correctly, there's no longer any need to skip any IDs if you are using RLEs -- ATMOS just left things that way in the stock scenario because they began development before the engine could handle RLEs, and it was easier to maintain the organization scheme they already had in place.

so i think i'm getting this right..do you need import the mask rle to make it know what to mask, then you can delete it?

@mythran, on Apr 15 2006, 03:24 PM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

so i think i'm getting this right..do you need import the mask rle to make it know what to mask, then you can delete it?

On a Mac, yes. On a PC, you apparently have a choice as to whether or not to use a mask file at all when creating an RLE -- but, if you do use a mask file, you no longer need it once the RLE of the sprite has been created; EV Nova won't be making any further use of it.

(I'm still wondering whether you have found whatever you have to do to make EVNEW pay attention to a mask file, though, and I think Guy is, too. If you've got any doubt, try feeding EVNEW your sprite along with a truly messed-up mask -- draw black lines across the white areas of the mask, or something. Make the RLE, delete the mask file (for good measure), then look at your ship in-game. If it has sections missing where the black lines were on the mask, you'll know that EVNEW is using your mask when it makes the RLE for the ship.)

@dr--trowel, on Apr 15 2006, 09:22 PM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

On a Mac, yes. On a PC, you apparently have a choice as to whether or not to use a mask file at all when creating an RLE -- but, if you do use a mask file, you no longer need it once the RLE of the sprite has been created; EV Nova won't be making any further use of it.

This discussion is strange because the mask is being singled out for deletion. You don't need the ship images either, once the RLE is created.

But on that note, I wouldn't recomend deleting your source files. Just don't have them in the plug, though I'm not sure why they would have been there in the first place...

He's not trying to use two RLEs, one with of the mask and one of the ship, right? Why would the mask have exsisted as a seperate file in the plug?

@desprez, on Apr 16 2006, 09:56 AM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

This discussion is strange because the mask is being singled out for deletion. You don't need the ship images either, once the RLE is created.

Yeah I'll agree with that.

@desprez, on Apr 16 2006, 09:56 AM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

He's not trying to use two RLEs, one with of the mask and one of the ship, right? Why would the mask have exsisted as a seperate file in the plug?

He sure is, download the plug and see. It existed as a separate resource because that's the way he imported it (thinking that's how it's supposed to work).

Somehow in EVNEW you must be able to specify both a sprite and a mask during one import. I'll leave it to Mythran to work out how. (though in this case it isn't important because his ship doesn't have any black. the automatic mask will be fine)

@guy, on Apr 15 2006, 05:12 PM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

Somehow in EVNEW you must be able to specify both a sprite and a mask during one import. I'll leave it to Mythran to work out how. (though in this case it isn't important because his ship doesn't have any black. the automatic mask will be fine)

OK, Desprez and Guy are making more sense than I am. To clarify (I hope):

All the game needs for the ship sprite to appear in-game is a single rleD resource. That resource has to contain the sprite image of the ship, plus transparency info. Usually, the single rleD is created by combining two flat graphics (created in PICT, TIFF, BMP, etc. format): one graphic of the ship and one black and white mask image (though it seems EVNEW can optionally use the background of the ship graphic to determine transparent areas, instead of a separate mask graphic). The available programs for making rleDs (EnRLE, MissionComputer, and EVNEW) each use different commands, and I don't know how to operate EVNEW.

Once the single rleD of the ship has been created, there is no longer much reason to include the source mask (PICT, TIFF, BMP, etc.), or the source image, in the plug. You can archive or chuck those files as you wish, since the game won't use them. The game also won't make any use of an rleD that shows just the mask, and not the ship.

The only reasons to include unused image resources in a distributed plug would be for your own organizational purposes, or for the (slight) conveneince of other plugmakers who might want to make modified versions of your sprite. Since including them will increase download time, it's probably not worth it. Including rle8s in your plug is also by now pretty much optional -- they are only used on Macs if someone is running the game in 256 colors, which is a very rare thing nowadays. rle8s never are used at all by the Windows version of the Nova engine.

I hope that's better....

yea, that is how i thought i was supposed to work...so, i'm gonna test a few things, and get back to you on how evnew actually handles the mask, cause i think i'm just as confused as all the rest of you about this now lol

(edit) ok, heres the deal w/ evnew. image 1(img=http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/417/blackbgandonshipnomask0xi.th.jpg) has my ship w/ pure black in it, and a pure black background, with no mask...evnew makes its own mask(gray is the mask), which makes the background and spots in the ship masked. also, having my mask loaded into a separate rle did nothing, but if you import the mask on top of the same file as the sprite, but choose "mask" instead of image (img=http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3867/importscreen1by.th.jpg), it will only use that as the mask, and leave the black alone on the ship(image 3)(img=http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/4377/blackandonshipwithmask0wr.th.jpg)(/edit)

This post has been edited by Mythran : 15 April 2006 - 09:47 PM

@guy, on Apr 15 2006, 04:12 PM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

Somehow in EVNEW you must be able to specify both a sprite and a mask during one import.

You got it!

Attached File(s)

• evnew_screen.JPG (15.69K)
  Number of downloads: 36

what was confusing me was in the shan resource in evnew, you get a field to specify the ship sprite resource, and the mask resource..so i thought you had to import them as separate rles, then use those numbers in the shan..if you dont need to do that, whats the reason for the field?

This mask field in the shän is only if you use PICTs. It's ignored if you use rlës.

And since PICTs are not recommended it's pretty much useless.

@zacha-pedro, on Apr 16 2006, 03:50 PM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

This mask field in the shän is only if you use PICTs. It's ignored if you use rlës.

oooh, thanks...that makes a lot more sense now..i have another problem though..

when i have any other ship, buying things in the outfitter is no problem..but when i'm in the ship i created, i can buy like, medium blasters, but not light ones, and i cant buy the iff decoder, or gravometric sensors. i compared my ships shan and ship resource to a couple other in game ships, and nothing seems to be out of the ordinary...anyone know whats causing this?

if i buy a different ship, i can buy all of those things fine...the minute i buy mine back, i cant...

Check that the contribute bits of your ship match up with the ones of another ship. There's some bit you need but I forget which.

@guy, on Apr 16 2006, 08:20 PM, said in Custom Nova ships in EVNEW:

Check that the contribute bits of your ship match up with the ones of another ship. There's some bit you need but I forget which.

thanks...yea i saw like, 0000001 w/ the starbridge i think..i'll check that out and see what happens...i didnt think those mattered

edit: thats exactly what it needed...i just replaced the last 0 w/ a 1 on the end, and it fixed it..thanks a lot

This post has been edited by Mythran : 16 April 2006 - 07:57 PM