No, 2.49b is the latest stable release. There's a buggy 2.5 second alpha, but many people are waiting with bated breath for the 2.5 stable release, which will be amazing. Volumetrics get a lift, as does bump mapping and a number of other things. I'm very much looking forward to it. I've been playing with the alpha, but they haven't completed all the UI targets yet and a lot of the functionality that I've been looking forward to hasn't been implemented in that release.

What are you trying to do with the texturing tool that's causing it to crash?

This post has been edited by krugeruwsp : 16 July 2010 - 04:31 PM

Well, strangely enough, things have begun working now... sorta. It seems the problem was my models were scaled up too big. After scaling them down a bit, I can import some of them. I say 'some' because most of them seem to be too complex for Blender to import them before crashing again.

The first time I tried texturing, I was just trying to texture the cube that shows up upon startup. As soon as I clicked one button in the texture window, it crashed. Now, though, I simply can't get it to apply the texture. I'm not even sure I'm putting the texture together properly.

I'm not sure what your problems are being caused by, it sounds to me like you might be having a hardware issue- what kind of machine are you running on?

Although Blender ran pretty decently on my old, old, old, first-gen-last release imac (the graphite one, it's like 10 years old and still runs). So maybe it's how Blender is set up on your machine?

However, having just done some research, you might look into Octane Renderer, something I just read about on the Sketchucation site. It looks like it works for all platforms, and uses your GPU rather than your CPU to render faster. It looks pretty cool, and hopefully I'll get to testing it out here in the next few weeks. If it works for you you can forget about Blender.

I don't remember off hand how I did it, but I usually used something that I think was called "UV-Texturing." I exported an image of the various parts of the ship, and then painted that, and then re-imported it as a texture and it wrapped correctly. It was a pretty good way to texture, however I don't like texturing, I have a functional sketchup-based renderer, and my models are looking good enough that I don't care.

Blender does UV maps, but I've not had good success unwrapping models and then trying to paint them in a 2D image manipulator. Blender mostly focuses on materials-based texturing.

How are you trying to use the textures tab? I'm curious as to what's making it crash. It could be a OSX bug that the Blender team would probably be able to support.

QUOTE (Meaker VI @ Jul 16 2010, 02:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure what your problems are being caused by, it sounds to me like you might be having a hardware issue- what kind of machine are you running on?

Although Blender ran pretty decently on my old, old, old, first-gen-last release imac (the graphite one, it's like 10 years old and still runs). So maybe it's how Blender is set up on your machine?

I'm on a Macbook running OSX 10.5. I'm not sure what you mean by how it's set up.

QUOTE (krugeruwsp @ Jul 18 2010, 07:34 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How are you trying to use the textures tab? I'm curious as to what's making it crash. It could be a OSX bug that the Blender team would probably be able to support.

I don't remember how exactly it happened and I can't seem to make it happen again. All I remember is clicked on a button and it crashed once, the first time I tried using the texture tools.

I think I'll give Twilight a try once I set up Windows on my Macbook. Since I can paint in Sketchup, that should be good enough thanks to Delphi's greebling skill.

So, I worked a bit on creating some Enclave cargo ships over the weekend, and produced a few nice vehicles. None of them have names yet, so that'll come later.

The first is definitely a blockade runner, sporting two Enclave-modified artillery guns, though the ship has a low total power output so these can usually only be fired once or twice before the ship has to retreat or forge through the blockade. The first image shows the ship with its cargo pods attached, and the second without (just the base vessel).

The next one is a giant cargo carrier, much like the NDC Atlas. The Enclave has an Atlas fleet of its own, but the Atlas' massive armor plating and weapon armament doesn't suit the Enclave's style of nimble starships.

The cargo pods have been darkened slightly just for definition against the hull. The second one will actually exist as a ship just by itself, with lower cargo capacity and good modification options, used most frequently by independent worlds as a weak battleship.

The last one is the venerable Enclave battleship, carrying fully-powered artillery weaponry as well as the Enclave's signature graviton arrays. It's a beast, and though they exist in extremely limited supply, NDC captains know to respect this ship.

QUOTE (krugeruwsp @ Jul 18 2010, 03:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Blender does UV maps, but I've not had good success unwrapping models and then trying to paint them in a 2D image manipulator.

I never actually unwrapped my models for texturing, I don't remember what it was called or exactly how I did it, but what I did was just take parts of the models and use a UV-based process to paint them. I know that part of the process involved selecting the pieces of ship I wanted which textures on, and then they'd show up on the UV window as outlines and I could export them for painting. That worked really well for me, and is my favorite method for detailed texturing, but as I explained earlier, I didn't see much need to really texture these models.

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Jul 18 2010, 05:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm on a Macbook running OSX 10.5. I'm not sure what you mean by how it's set up.

I think I'll give Twilight a try once I set up Windows on my Macbook. Since I can paint in Sketchup, that should be good enough thanks to Delphi's greebling skill.

What I mean by "Set-up" is that Blender is pretty picky, and if you've got OpenGl or not, if you got Python or not, and if you've got some other number of things or not effect it, though I do not have the technical expertise to know and diagnose those problems.

Twilight has worked wonderfully for me, as you can see, and I've attached that file which should allow you to simply import your model and click "render" - after having set up your materials, save location/file name, and scale, of course.

EDIT: I finished writing this while Delphi added his comment, and those are some pretty slick ships there. I think I like the way the cargo ship looks better than the battleship though, something about the cargo ship makes it look massive, but the battleship looks like the smaller blockade runner on top. Maybe adding a center beam and a rear engine pod like the cargo ship has would make it look larger?

And as a sideline, how long do you find it takes to make a ship (just the modeling, not rendering, texturing, etc)? I've been running anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours, depending on the size and complexity I want to put in, though I've been finding that less complexity is necessary than I've put in on some models; especially when I've rendered a 500 ton frigate at 64x64px.

This post has been edited by Meaker VI : 19 July 2010 - 10:25 AM

Delph, I find it cool that the Enclave always find a way to implement a signature wing in each of their designs. I think you know this signature wing I'm talking about. Keep up the good work.

Those ships are really, really awesome. Like, really.

Whee~ wants one

But if you're going to convert a gargo carrier to a battleship, you'd do more than remove the pods (You might even leave them on and fill them with asteroids as armor). I dunno, It could just do with some chunkying up, IMO.

I'd agree with Templar. The battleships don't look like battleships at this stage--maybe a few massive weapon mounts will change my opinion.

This post has been edited by king_of_manticores : 19 July 2010 - 10:56 AM

I could see about adding some visual weapon mounts. It's important to note, though, that the weaponized variant of the cargo hauler is really an amateur job at best. The cargo pods are very heavy in the first place, and removing them grants the vessel a much higher level of mobility. Also, the flat plating of the shup's body blocks most line-of-sight weapons (like turrets), so the hope was that stripping out the cargo pods would improve forward sighting from rear-mounted weapons. Still though, some minor modification may be in order to distinguish the combat variant.

QUOTE (king_of_manticores @ Jul 19 2010, 05:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd agree with Templar. The battleships don't look like battleships at this stage--maybe a few massive weapon mounts will change my opinion.

Piffle. That Battleship looks utterly beastly.

Oh goodness look at all the pretty ships! I love all your ships delphi! More power to the Enclave colonies!

Wow, this is quite a sight from not having even looked at escape velocity for probably close to 5 years. Seems like you have an awful lot of fun with your modeling. I started playing around with SketchUp and your parts and its LEGOs all over again!

I'm curious about more civilian ships, like the Journeyman from the first page and the Cruiser from the second, as they have a pretty appealing style to them.

True, we haven't seen very many ships with a sleek design like those had. I would like to see some of those if it fits the theme of Delphi. You can all probably tell I like sleek ships from my own design style.

QUOTE (Dracheseele @ Jul 21 2010, 09:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wow, this is quite a sight from not having even looked at escape velocity for probably close to 5 years. Seems like you have an awful lot of fun with your modeling. I started playing around with SketchUp and your parts and its LEGOs all over again!

I'm curious about more civilian ships, like the Journeyman from the first page and the Cruiser from the second, as they have a pretty appealing style to them.

I honestly haven't done much with them since I created them way back so many years ago. I've been thinking of going back and redoing them as a combination between the new detail parts and the original model structure, but I just never seem to get around to it. As it stands, I most definitely intend to put the Journeyman into the game as a playable ship, though the other derivative vessel (the cruiser) might not be in the final product, simply because it doesn't really have a place anymore. The story and the universe has evolved from what it used to be, and in the original concept the civilian sector had a lot more pulling power, much like the Federation worlds of Star Trek. As the NDC and its history was written into the game, I sapped a large amount of power from the people, putting it instead into the raw military might of the Coalition's military. It changes the formula from the Nova norm, that is certain, but also adds a lot more atmosphere to the game, when civilians are restricted to small gunboats at the most, while the NDC darkens the sky with monolithic capital ships. A simple visit to any heavily-populated system instantly paints a picture of militaristic oppression, which is exactly the way I like it. The Enclave, on the other hand, has several independent-world civilian ships in its space, both because of more lenient government and the necessity of civilian trade in keeping their worlds supplied.

Fortunately for the Journeyman, it has use in the NDC ranks as an executive transport for officers and politicians. In fact, the military Journeyman is one of the most overpowered ships in the game, though this only lasts a moment. Completely contrary to the standard for ships its size, the military Journeyman carries standard missile weaponry and a single Nichron artillery cannon, miniaturized specifically for the vessel but certainly not lacking in firepower. However, the ship has a drive core typical for a craft its size, and cannot fire its high energy weapons with any kind of appreciable frequency. As a result, it is practically never used in an offensive role.

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Jul 21 2010, 09:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

True, we haven't seen very many ships with a sleek design like those had. I would like to see some of those if it fits the theme of Delphi. You can all probably tell I like sleek ships from my own design style.

I've been teaching myself how to create more fluid, organic shapes in SketchUp, and the results are promising thus far. The method I used on the old ships is drastically different from my current approach, so a strategic combination will have to occur somewhere in the near future. In short, I'm working on it.

QUOTE (Delphi @ Jul 22 2010, 10:45 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've been teaching myself how to create more fluid, organic shapes in SketchUp, and the results are promising thus far. The method I used on the old ships is drastically different from my current approach, so a strategic combination will have to occur somewhere in the near future. In short, I'm working on it.

Ah fluidity in Sketchup. There are a very few ways to do that and do it quickly, however, some are already automated for you. I'd look up plugins like "skin.rb" and "soap-bubble.rb" (.rb is sketchup for Ruby-plugin). There are tons of tutorials on how to draw cars and stuff, which have all kinds of great curves. You can easily lathe things using a circle- for example, to make a sphere, you first make a circle on an axis (let's say the blue for simplicity), then copy it vertically, then rotate it 90 degrees along either the red or green axis. Once you've got all that set up, you can lathe by:

1. Selecting the edge of the first circle (Only the edge!)
2. Clicking the "Follow-me" tool
3. Clicking the face of the 2nd circle

It's difficult to explain with text, but there is also a how-to (I think also built into sketchup under the instructioner) online. The principle works for any shape, not just circles - so you could lathe a space-ship shape around a pentagon, or you could move the space ship way off to the side and get a pentagon-shaped doughnut with a space-ship cross-section.

That should help your fluid designing some, if you hadn't figured it out already.

QUOTE (Meaker VI @ Jul 22 2010, 08:11 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... a pentagon-shaped doughnut with a space-ship cross-section.

Sorry, I just had to post saying how funny that sounded in my head when I read it. It just made me think of high-up military officials sitting around eating sugary desserts in their giant 'Pentagon Candy Land facility'. :laugh:

And now some gameplay questions.
How is ship scale being handled? In stock EV games fighters tended to be huge compared to larger classes of vessels, EVC was particularly bad about ship scale.

I'm also curious about weapon variety. Are there ships with weapons unique to them? Something like a ship thats little more than a planet sized beam with an engine attached.

This post has been edited by Dracheseele : 23 July 2010 - 01:40 AM

QUOTE (Dracheseele @ Jul 22 2010, 06:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And now some gameplay questions.
How is ship scale being handled? In stock EV games fighters tended to be huge compared to larger classes of vessels, EVC was particularly bad about ship scale.

I'm also curious about weapon variety. Are there ships with weapons unique to them? Something like a ship thats little more than a planet sized beam with an engine attached.

Scale is being handled on what I can best call a 50% scaling basis. To explain: let's say you have a ship 100m long and another 200m long. If the 100m ship is represented by a 15x15 sprite, then the 200m ship may be represented by a sprite that measures 22x22. As it stands, I'll never make the ships completely to scale, simply because some of the smallest ships wouldn't even measure a mere pixel on the screen compared to some of the gargantuan battleships. If I follow the method above, there should be a fairly decent and obvious scale difference between large and small ships, and their stats will reflect the true values. I'm not completely certain on it yet, but so far this seems like a good rule-of-thumb. There will probably be massive amounts of tweaking to make it all work. Suffice it to say, there won't be scale issues like the ones in Nova, where four 10m vipers measured end-to-end on screen nearly compare visually against the Auroran Carrier (1+ km long). The fighters in Delphi are not pilotable, simply because there isn't a single mission in which you won't require a real ship. It would be like trying to use a bike in a world where everybody else has a car, and there isn't a road with a speed limit below 50 mph.

There are indeed ships with unique weapons, and most of these weapons are so unique to the ship that they cannot even be removed. The military Journeyman transport, for instance, carries a miniaturized Nichron turret for defense against assailing capital ships, but this weapon is not available to any other ship class. On the other end of the scale chart, the NCV Chrenari carries a massive overpowered nuclear particle accelerator designed solely for the purpose of eviscerating the crust of a planet. It's nothing like the Death Star, simply because absolutely destroying a planet is damn near impossible, but the Chrenari packs enough firepower to completely ruin a planet's atmosphere and kill nearly every living thing on the surface. However, though this weapon will exist in the game, it's actually not usable by the player. The Chrenari is simply physically too massive to actually pilot (covers almost the entire screen) and actually appears primarily as a space station. There is indeed though, a massive arsenal of non-standard weaponry for the player to choose from, to suit their playing style.

So far, the general weapon categories are Missiles/Rockets , Electromagnetic Lasers , Nichron Nuclear Artillery , Graviton Disruptors , Projectile Artillery , and Point Defense. Each category has several weapon types under it, according to caliber and behavior. For instance, within the Electromagnetic Laser category exists the different "bore" sizes (10 to 25 nanometers), a high-energy secondary weapon version that uses ammunition, a point defense variant, and a fully continuous (instead of pulse) version that also uses ammo. Therefore, just in the E-Mag category alone, there are between five to seven different weapons (subject to change as balance requires).

Trust me, there are a lot of killing devices in this galaxy I'm crafting. I hope you won't be disappointed.