I'm working on an EV related project, and I was wondering if anyone has any Planet, ship, or landing images available.
I checked the looking for work thread, but the newest post is almost a year old.
For more information on the project, you can catch me on AIM at Icompugod1.
Thanks for your time.
You know, for landing images, you could always download the free program Terragen. It's available for both PC and Mac and it is very easy to use and makes very realistic views. Just Google Terragen. I believe it is a Sourceforge project.
QUOTE (Vast Deathmaster @ Jul 5 2009, 04:11 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
You know, for landing images, you could always download the free program Terragen. It's available for both PC and Mac and it is very easy to use and makes very realistic views. Just Google Terragen. I believe it is a Sourceforge project.
Thank you for the heads up. I'll check it out. I did the tutorial on how to create a planet that was posted in the stickies, and I've made a few that look pretty good, but any that I try to create with continants end up looking like crap.
I have done a few ships in 3dsmax that look pretty good as well, but I was hoping to not have to create all the images myself. (My ideas are limited)
If I remember correctly, the people who created EVN boast that they created the ships in Bryce3D. Using 3DSMax is major stuff. Other people have used free applications like Blender to do the same work you are trying to do.
Others have proclaimed that the most work isn't the graphics but the text. All I can do is make suggestions from all I have read on the boards here. Lots of people have asked similar questions that you have.
It is sort of like a movie. If you can present a good tale you may grab the interest of some talent out there and pull them in. Give some people what you are trying to do and you might be surprised to find willing help.
QUOTE (Vast Deathmaster @ Jul 7 2009, 12:07 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
If I remember correctly, the people who created EVN boast that they created the ships in Bryce3D.
LightWave 3D, actually.
I do recommend blender. I'm working on another project right now so I can't do anything, but blender is pretty capable once you get to know it.
(shameless self promotion)
(/shameless self promotion)
I'm still dinkering with Blender. It's got a steep learning curve to it, but like Crusader Alpha said, it's quite a capable program once you figure it out.
And CA, that is one thing of beauty. Nicely done. Is that all one texture? How did you get Blender to do all the little pipe/wire greebles? I can't get it to let me do that for anything.
I wanted to wait until I was a little farther along before showing it at all, but...
I am not (only slightly) ashamed to admit that in the late 90's I played text based versions of EV online, since it was the only form of multiplayer that we had. I started on Scurvy's board (i think... oxy-web i think?), and continued for maybe 3 years, up to having my own server hosting a board for a while.
Over the years, the community has consistently been told that there will never be multiplayer support for the game, even though it is probably one of the most asked for features in the game. That said, I, with little-to-no programming education, set about to remedy the situation.
Using CSS, ASP, Javascript, and SQL Server, I've so far managed a pretty good duplicate without any need to download a program. Yes, completely web based. Again, I wanted to be a bit farther along before releasing it, but version 1 can be found at http://www.jttpropertiesin.com/evnrpg/game.asp
Version 1 has:
Multiple systems
Map
Jumping
In-system movement
Landing
Bar
It also has multiplayer support. If more than 1 person is logged in, you can fly around the system and see each other!
Version 2 is a little behind version one, but I've been working on cleaning up the code to make it more programmer-friendly, and resource friendly. When it gets a little farther along, and if there is interest, I'll let you guys take a look.
Keep in mind, just based on the nature of the internet, this will not look the same in all browsers, but you should get the best look in Firefox and Safari.
This partially began just as a challenge to see if it can be done, but I believe it can be, and I was hoping for some graphic help from those of you here who make such great looking stuff.
Thanks again,
Marc
4 procedural materials, with the vironoi (spelling?) texture set to normal mapping on everything you can see texture on. Two of the materials are different shades of approximately the same thing, the other two are, 1. a blue-ish plain material, no specularity, set to have a high emit value, and 2. the plain metallic material with no texture composing the half-circles on the back of the cannons. The stripes on that material are actually a rendering mistake that I would re-do if it was worth the effort, but my computer doesn't render very quickly so I'll wait until I have access to the computer labs back at uni before worrying about details.
The greebles are just a bunch of deformed cylinders with a bunch of not-deformed cubes sticking through them. I think I deformed three cylinders and then just rotated them and scaled them to get that.
One thing I've been doing for a while now is just making a bunch of untextured handwavium parts and saving them individually, then appending them into something when I want detail but don't want to model something new.
If there is an issue with the creating a player, I'll look into it. Otherwise, you can try Username: test Password: test
This looks like an extremely cool idea. I tried it out, and while I can't honestly call the playable version itself cool, many of the basic mechanics are layed out here. With more improvement this could be an entirely satisfactory EVN multiplayer!
I found the following bugs;
When you enter a new system, you cannot move forwards. I can still turn, but I can't fly forwards.
(EDIT) No, actually that's not the problem. I figured out that the actual problem is that the background stars don't move, so you can't tell you're moving when you're in an empty system.
There isn't enough space in the text box to display all the description; perhaps you could implement a scrollbar?
Lastly, the ship is waaaaay too slow. Up the speed very considerably and increase turn rate, and it will be playable. As it is, it's very difficult for me to get anywhere.
(EDIT) I figured out how to turn and accelerate, you just have to keep tapping the button. You don't appear to be able to slow down, though. Perhaps you could have the S key used to move in reverse?
I'd be interested in helping out with ships. Be advised, I can't dedicate myself to making a huge number of ships right now, but I would definitely be able to make you a small number of high-detail ships. If you like I can PM you some examples of my work.
This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 13 July 2009 - 11:07 AM
QUOTE (Shlimazel @ Jul 13 2009, 04:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
This looks like an extremely cool idea. I tried it out, and while I can't honestly call the playable version itself cool, many of the basic mechanics are layed out here. With more improvement this could be an entirely satisfactory EVN multiplayer!
I found the following bugs;
When you enter a new system, you cannot move forwards. I can still turn, but I can't fly forwards.
(EDIT) No, actually that's not the problem. I figured out that the actual problem is that the background stars don't move, so you can't tell you're moving when you're in an empty system.
This is being fixed in the new version... as well as the stars no longer overlap the status bar.
There isn't enough space in the text box to display all the description; perhaps you could implement a scrollbar?
Probably an issue with the way different browsers display text. No problem to add a scrollbar. Thanks for the heads up.
Lastly, the ship is waaaaay too slow. Up the speed very considerably and increase turn rate, and it will be playable. As it is, it's very difficult for me to get anywhere.
(EDIT) I figured out how to turn and accelerate, you just have to keep tapping the button. You don't appear to be able to slow down, though. Perhaps you could have the S key used to move in reverse?
I don't remember a way to slow down in EV other than turning the ship around and flying the other direction, which AFAIK works in this version. The X key will also bring the ship to a full stop. If I press and hold keys, it allows me to accelerate and turn without pressing multiple times. Maybe there is a way I can work on this playing with onkeydown, onkeypress, etc. Thanks again for the heads up.
I'd be interested in helping out with ships. Be advised, I can't dedicate myself to making a huge number of ships right now, but I would definitely be able to make you a small number of high-detail ships. If you like I can PM you some examples of my work.
I would definetly be interested in anything you might have available. Again, thanks for point things out for me, and for your help. I'll try to dive into the code a bit more tonight and fix those issues.
No problem, and I'd like to say that I'm very excited at the potential of this project.
Do you have any particular ideas for types of ships you might want (like shuttles or fighters or whatever), and if so, ideas for their designs? If you tell me what you need and give me an idea of what you want them to look like, I'll start working on it. (Edit) if you'd rather not post ideas directly to the topic, you can feel free to send me a personal message instead.
Also, a suggestion; how about adding a chatbox for player conversation on the main game screen? This would be handy for conversing while playing. I don't know if you can implement it or not, of course, just an idea.
This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 13 July 2009 - 11:51 AM
Tapping the movement buttons seems to give me much improved stats. X works immediately, without any deceleration. I can't seem to get anything but moving around and accessing the map to work. Also landing, I figured that out. I don't think the rest are programming mistakes, I think I'm just having trouble with the controls.
This post has been edited by Crusader Alpha : 13 July 2009 - 02:45 PM
QUOTE (Crusader Alpha @ Jul 12 2009, 11:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
4 procedural materials, with the vironoi (spelling?) texture set to normal mapping on everything you can see texture on. Two of the materials are different shades of approximately the same thing, the other two are, 1. a blue-ish plain material, no specularity, set to have a high emit value, and 2. the plain metallic material with no texture composing the half-circles on the back of the cannons. The stripes on that material are actually a rendering mistake that I would re-do if it was worth the effort, but my computer doesn't render very quickly so I'll wait until I have access to the computer labs back at uni before worrying about details.
The greebles are just a bunch of deformed cylinders with a bunch of not-deformed cubes sticking through them. I think I deformed three cylinders and then just rotated them and scaled them to get that.
One thing I've been doing for a while now is just making a bunch of untextured handwavium parts and saving them individually, then appending them into something when I want detail but don't want to model something new.
Cool. I'll have to try that. Thanks!
I'm sorry there's no tutorial or anything yet...
Controls
A - Turn left
W - Accel
D - Turn Right
X - Stop (will probably be removed, is used for testing)
M - Map
L - Land
J - Jump
Y - Opens control text box
( /land, /map, /jump, /stop currently work, I'm hoping to use this box to hail other ships and perform various other function in-game )
Known Bugs:
As someone already pointed out, you cannot see your ship moving if you aren't near the planets because the stars don't move. The stars are actually hundreds of divs, and looping through and moving them all would be an immense drain on CPU. In my version 2, they will be moved as a whole, and replaced by a new star as they slide off the screen, hopefully.
Due to the limitations of Javascript, some of the chat and movement controls are buggy.
The star field shows over the status window, this has already been fixed in the new version.
The animation for a jump does not work... Hopefully this will be fixed in the new version as well.
If anyone has any idea for how the commodity trading should would, I'd love to hear them. If I leave it like in-game, where they are always the same price, it will be way too easy for someone to gain a whole lot of money. I'd like to do a supply-and-demand type system, but I don't really know any math formulas that would make that real easy...
(edited for grammar)
This post has been edited by IcompugodI : 13 July 2009 - 04:14 PM
Supply and demand...let's see:
If you set a standard (would be fairly low) price for each commodity, and a maximum capacity for each planet for each commodity, then you could do something like:
Base$ / (current amount / max amount) = price
That way, if a lot of players bought a resource from a planet with a lot, the current/max fraction would become smaller, and the price would increase. The same would work for selling.
Just a few more bugs:
In the spaceport bar, there is some text which reads "Transmit" sitting on the top right of the screen which appears to be a bug.
In the Sol system, the planets overlap the sidebar.
If I leave the spaceport bar, some text flashes briefly in the text box on the side, but I can't tell what it says.
Another bug: When using the 'insta-chat' (type in the box and click 'transmit') only my first message appears to go through. The first thing I type will appear in the large box, but if I type anything else and transmit it, it doesn't show up.
EDIT: One more: Using the x key to stop right over a planet and then trying to land yields a 'you are moving too fast to land' message. Turning around and slowing works. Perhaps the game doesn't like a speed of 0?
Also, all planets have the same landing screen, but I doubt that's a bug.
Finally, pushing 'm' brings up the landed on Earth dialogue, not a map.
This post has been edited by Jalisurr : 14 July 2009 - 12:57 PM
