How's this look?

I was going to have the green stripes cycle from dark to light, but it turned out to be basically invisible once the images were shrunken down to size. Similarly, I can't see how running lights could be added to the ship without making it look like it has (comparatively) massive glowing globes on it.

This version of the Atomos is slightly larger than the Confed Gunboat, I think; it's a bit hard to tell as there's more empty space surrounding the individual frames in my images than in the Gunboat images.

This post has been edited by Derakon : 28 February 2007 - 09:54 PM

I just had another idea. Does anyone know how difficult or easy it might be to make it so those plates at the ends of the engine nacelles turn like rudders when the player or computer turns the ship? I know extra animations can be done with extra frames. If this is feasible, I'd say set the exaust deeper into those, make it move with them, and then it looks like it's using vectored thrust to turn. Since there's no vectored thrust outfit in EV Classic, it wouldn't matter that it could do this on its own. I believe it would take the "Extra frames in base image used for" flag being set to "banking with engine glow."

EDIT: Also those glows look a little big in relation to the ship itself. They'd probably have to be sized down just a bit anyway, regardless of how we do this.

This post has been edited by CaptJosh : 01 March 2007 - 12:07 PM

Capt Josh: Yeah, you can re-render the spinning ship with the plates turned first to one side and then to the other, and EV-Nova will serve up those frames when the ship makes a hard left or right turn. i think the ship will be too small for the effect to be noticeable, though. If this is a fast ship, I'd use the banmking frames for... banking!

Because I wanted to prove to myself how fast it could be done, here's Derakon's latest sprite in a plug:

zAtomos_trial.zip (66.21K)
Number of downloads: 10

It took less than 10 minutes, I think. (Writing this may take longer!) I just used MissionComputer and (to create the masks) GraphicConverter. Obviously, this version doesn't bank! I wouldn't suggest using these rleDs in your finished plug -- the mask is very sloppy, and I didn't give a thought to resource size optimization or EVN 1.0.9 compatibility. The plug simply replaces the shan for the shuttle with one that points to the base and glow sprites for the Atomos so you can load up a shuttle pilot and fly the Atomos/shuttle around to get a sense of how it works in-game in terms of things like style matching, scale, and engine glow functioning. Enjoy!

Edit: As to ship detail getting lost if the sprite is too small: That's what the shipyard pics are for.

This post has been edited by Dr. Trowel : 01 March 2007 - 12:50 PM

Thanks for putting the plug together, Dr. Trowel! Unfortunately I'm at work right now so I can't check it out, but I'll take a look when I get back.

I flatly refuse to make banking spaceships. It just doesn't make any kind of sense, physics-wise. The vectored thrust idea would be fine, except that as Dr. Trowel mentioned, the ship's a bit small to show that kind of detail.

As for the size of the glows, in my opinion they should be huge. I mean, look at those engines! The entire point of the Atomos is to have a fighter body strapped to a couple of rockets; that's why it's so fast! We don't need to stick to the proportions that EVN laid out, or even the ones that rEV uses; these are Clavius-built ships, and they're going to look a bit different.

Though the Korg I'm working on will be a bit more traditional.

But they shouldn't seem larger than the diameter engine nacelles. This isn't atmospheric flight. Stuff doesn't just push out to the sides. The length is fine, I think, but the width could be shrunk.

EDIT: Doc, it's nice that you put this together. It'll be good for Derekon since he's on a Mac, I guess. All I really need are the images though, since I'm just going to import them as the rlëDs for the Atomos shän directly into my Clavius rEVisited plug.

This post has been edited by CaptJosh : 01 March 2007 - 01:24 PM

The GIF I have up above is actually demonstrating a rather odd bug in Blender: if I reduce the render size (e.g. from 800x600 to 160x120), then particles start getting drawn where they aren't. When I did the 6x6 grid glow image, though, I rendered at a larger resolution and then manually shrunk everything down, so it doesn't have that "spew to the sides" problem.

I'll check it out, then. This is starting to get really interesting.

The only thing I don't understand is the nacelles appear to narrow to a point and then they have this flat disc stuck on the back with huge engine flares coming out the back. Like all that thrust generated by the engines is being forced through a pinhole and then spread out over the disc.

Yeah, that's a side-effect of not having had the exhaust bells in the original design. Unfortunately, the nacelles do narrow to a point - that is, a single vertex - and I don't know in Blender how to "explode" that vertex out so I can un-do the damage.

Fortunately, the fins are there to help carry the load. I might stick some pipes on there as well.

Edit - one thing I thought of recently. We probably want to get the Neutronic Turrets' look updated, so I may as well just make the turrets on the Atomos snazzier and then split them out as a distinct outfit model.

Sheesh...what am I getting myself into?

This post has been edited by Derakon : 01 March 2007 - 04:59 PM

A lot of pain, but a lot of satisfaction when it's done, man. Seriously. This is the third time around that I've restarted on this, but it's the first time I've ever thought I had more than a snowball's chance in hell of it being completed. I appreciate your help greatly.

If you can stand downloading a 2+MB file from my puny connection, here's a spin animation of the new Korg cruiser. And this is an un-reduced grid. And the "actual-size" grid. And finally, for something I can actually paste into the channel without overloading peoples' Net connections, here's the engine glow. <_<

Edit: Oh, and the running lights

Edit 2: And an image that isn't boring, yay!

This post has been edited by Derakon : 04 March 2007 - 07:25 PM

Very cool ship! I've got a critique anyway, though. Check out the rEV sprites that were posted into this thread earlier. The viewing angle is almost but not quite top down -- when the ships are pointed "north," you get a slight glimpse of their rumps. Most noticably, you can see into their exhaust vents a bit.

D'oh! I'll get a new one up tomorrow morning (EDIT: or tonight, as it works out. Images above have been fixed). In the meantime, have a Sentinel:

And in grid form!

Unfortunately, the engine glow's gonna be a bit, since it's trickier than it sounds...
At the kinds of resolutions I'm dealing with here, it doesn't matter if the engine glow isn't perfectly accurate. So here we go:

This post has been edited by Derakon : 05 March 2007 - 02:02 AM

Ok, I'm impressed. Guy is correct though. There is a slight skew in the viewpoint of rEVisited ships ane we are trying to match stuff up in terms of not only quality, but also look and feel.

Er, that would be " Dr. Trowel is correct". I think the angle is supposed to be 10° though I'm not sure.
One other criticism I have: they're too reflective. Spaceships are typically made of metal, not plastic

This post has been edited by Guy : 05 March 2007 - 03:24 AM

The angle on rEV ships is definitely less than on the ships of the stock Nova scenario. In fact, it's so slight that at times I've wondered if KMQ/KofQ didn't tweak the models to angle the exhaust ports upwards, and then "shoot" the ship from straight overhead. That would, of course, be crazy....

Well, the Korg is definitely being shot from a 10° angle now, and you can't see into the exhaust ports, so it's a possibility!

Oh, and the Sentinel is also shot from a 10° angle, just in case you were worried.

I'm also with Guy on your ships looking more "plastic" while the rEV ones look more "metal." I don't know if the issue is as simple as more/less reflectiveness, though. Nor do I know what sort of material or paint will be on starship hulls hundreds of years from now.... It's just a matter of being consistent with rEV.

Sorry. I was half-asleep when I typed that post. I'm not used to the doc posting here.

That's a monster ship there. Is that green spot supposed to be a view port or something of the like? Also, all those yellow squares, are they windows? It just seems like on the shipyard pic some of this stuff on the Korg looks a little fake.

As for the sentinel being shot from 10 degrees off vertical, not really relevant as there are no details to see except in the shipyard view. It's just an evil little ball of death. Perhaps too small, though. I'd go a bit bigger than that. That's smaller than most asteroid pieces. We want something maybe smaller than a fighter, but big enough that the player, if they played the old mod, might still recognize it before they get shot at, and, if not, will woder what that little round thing is. The size you've got that at will make em wonder if they're seeing anything at all.

This post has been edited by CaptJosh : 05 March 2007 - 12:28 PM

The green is the bridge main window. I got it from the reference picture, which I'm repeating here:

It is a bit bright; I'll tone that down. The yellow rectangles are windows, yes (though there's also a yellow glow from the fighter bays under the main body). One thing that's making it look a bit weird is the fact that I turned on radiosity for the shipyard rendering; this makes the glowing things brighter in appearance, since they cast light onto other objects.

I'll work on getting a more metallic finish on the ship. It's tricky.

For the Sentinel, keep in mind that the player will be able to see them on radar, and I always thought that they were supposed to be tiny. I can increase them a bit, but they certainly shouldn't be bigger that the Hawk sprite in rEVisited.