First thing most tell you is worry about the ship graphics last... right now I'm working with 2d top down versions of the stargate ships for the Stargate Nova TC so find yourself a picture of the ship from the top view... use photoshop or paint or whatever to edit it with a grey background and use a program called spinapp to make the graphics needed by the game, the 6 x 6 tiles of the ship in all directions it has to face.
Have a look around the development forum as there are so many tutorials on how to make the ships for nova, i have no ability with 3d graphic software but you can get close enough with some time and effort using 2d that you can get the general idea across and might be able to get someone to help you out.
But make sure you have your plugin idea fully thought out... Are you adding only a ship or a ship with Star Fox technologies and weapons, if you are adding weapons then what will they look like how hard will they hit, will they have new graphics?
Play around for a bit, Scienceguy had been playing with editing nova for almost a year and i only a month when we started working on SGN in Oct 06, its now Dec 07 and i've learnt so much about the engine just from testing different things over and over again.
Don't be afraid to ask if you get stuck on things.
This post has been edited by Lostpinky : 03 December 2007 - 10:30 PM
Get Mission Computer and the Nova Bible from the addons page. Welcome to the boards!
Cosmic, if he's using EVNEW, that means he's on a Windows computer. He can't use MC.
@krugeruwsp, on Dec 3 2007, 11:23 PM, said in Plug-in designing:
Cosmic, if he's using EVNEW, that means he's on a Windows computer. He can't use MC.
Gah! smacks forehead Sorry, I just skimmed the post.
@g-spark, on Dec 3 2007, 06:33 PM, said in Plug-in designing:
I'm not good with graphics, so I was thinking of making the Kestrel white. How much of an affect do you think this would have? Close, kinda close, slightly resemblent, missing something?
It would be interesting to see what it would look like, though you'll (probably) need some form of graphics editing software besides MS Paint (although I still say that MS Paint is severely underrated and is an excellent program).
I would lean away from just inverting the colors, although it might look kind of cool, since it won't have proper shadows any more. I'm not certain what kind of effects you'll be able to get by playing around with the hue, brightness, and saturations, since it is mostly black to begin with, but the best thing to do is to just play around with what you have, I think.
Of course, you could always make a 3D model of the Kestral, re-texture it to your desire, and make whole new sets of renders.
Not knowing your level of graphics skills (my own being very amateur), this is about all of the advice I can give you on how to get it done.
All of that said, I think that while there is a certain something about a Black Kestral, I don't believe that its mystique relies on that in any real fashion. I think having a White version could easily be very cool, if you could get it looking like you wanted to.
I hope some of this helps.
Or I could just use EVNEW to change the color of the Kestrel white, make it availible anywhere, and lower the price, then throw that idea out since the Kestrel has only one set of wings, while the Great Fox has two sets. I'm probably going to be adding new tech in, but basing it on things already in Nova, such as the blasters on the Great Fox going a little more damage than a Heavy Blaster Turret, and the Hyper Beam, between a Med Blaster, and a Heavy Blaster Turret or something. I'm not sure what would be best to compare stats, since I don't use either very much.
This post has been edited by G-Spark : 05 December 2007 - 05:43 PM
Dont worry about the graphics for now. My advice, find a mac user who has an extra 10 mins and beg them to turn some pictures (that you've collected before you ask) into spins with spinapp. Then dont worry any more about graphics. then finish the plug.
"If you build it, they (artists) will come."
