Transcendence art assets + (looking for input)A

[Djohaal]

Anyway after getting a working truespace -> 3dsmax importing pipeline, here's an idea, re-rendering all transcendence art assets with improved lighting, 60 rotations and (possibly) higher resolution.
Here are some samples:

Corporate cruiser (Unfiinshed texture job)

Glamour close-up (never mind the hole on the first window row, minor import mishap):



More-or-less acurate game-sized render: (60 rotations)



Luminous assembler: (incorrect textures since george forgot to ship the pack with a few of them, but I think we can staple them later on)



I'm looking for input on the following regards:

The lighting rig: is it good? what could be improved?

Render sizes: Since I'll be re-making all art assets, should perhaps stuff be upscaled for more graphical beauty? This would need a re-tuning of the game in several regards though.

[RPC]

I approve this message.
(and I could use the graphics in Sandbox )

[Atarlost]

60 facings won't always work right. Because of time quantization ships with more than 40 facings can't turn at the highest rate the game supports for 20 and 40 facing ships. I've heard that the AI doesn't like facing counts other than 20 and 40 as well.

[alterecco]

Those look great. What is your technique for importing? And yes, like Atarlost said, there are problems with the AI and too many facings. I suggest you do some thorough testing beforehand, or just render 40

[digdug]

awesome quality pictures !

if you render your ships 40 facings, remember to decrease the value of maneuvering, since the value is the number of ticks necessary to the ship to turn 1 facing, increasing too much the facings will also drastically change the maneuverability of AI ships.

[Djohaal]

The CSC has been sucessfully imported. Or somewhat. Still needs some polish IMO.



Glamour shot:



Altarlost: I can keep it down to 20 or 40 facings for smaller/more manouverable ships. Smaller ships also don't benefit much from so many angles because they are a much smaller sample of the geometry, and a change in six degrees can be almost unnoticeable. Or they fly too fast for anyone to notice their angles (such as the hornet battlepod) For the AI acting up with 60 angles it's just a matter of doing some field tests.

Alterecco: I select the object in Truespace, and save it (object) as DXF, then import into 3dsmax with the incoming file scale as meters, merging vertexes at 0.0005m (eg, contigous) and voila. It trashes all the material data though (or I'm too dumb to recover it).

Digdug: Same as above. lol.

[PM]

AI assumes no more than 40 facings. If the ship has more than 40 facings, the AI may act confused and pilot that ship away from its goal indefinitely (in a sidewinding fashion). I found this out the hard way. If it were not for that, I would have 60 or even 90 facings ships for Playership Drones.

[PKodon]

Are you rendering these in Truespace, and if so, which version (the last version does not seem able to import or load the files).

Also, so far, people's experience with exporting the models or scenes to be imported into other programs, like Blender, appears to be broken (in more ways than simply losing which textures go where, I seem to recall someone stating that meshes come out distorted when exported).

If someone could convert them to a more modern format, and at least repair the damaged meshes, it would be great.

PK

[Aury]

The textures always get trashed apparently. From my experimentation, there is no way around it.

[digdug]

I found that if I put all the textures in the same folder as the 3DS files I made, some textures are loaded properly on the meshes, but not all of them.

[Djohaal]

PM: 40 facings is it then. Case resolved.

PK: I'm rendering in 3dsmax. I am managing to import all meshes fine so far, I might as well make them available on a more universal format (.3ds or .obj) Materials and textures are lost in the process though.

Digdug: George forgot a few textures on the package, I'll poke him later about it.

Two more renders:

Ringer exchange up close, not totally happy with the result though. Going to work on it more.



Iocrym sentinel with a translucent-ish blue texture (not the correct hue though, still working on it), my representation of george's description of how Iocrym armor is made. Those mean looking gun fixtures inside the lobster arms of the ship are george's stuff, but they weren't visible on the original renders



Colors are slightly off on this one due to to .gif compression.

[shanejfilomena]

.........WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would say " sexy" on the Ringers station and sentinel but they have language barriers that translate that to " I am a cannibal" so I can't say that

[Djohaal]

Some more:


Penitent shrine, I took the liberty of adding that glowing sphere on the top.


Gaian processor.


Classical corporate enclave.

Just as some side-fun, all corporate stations have these prongs under them, which contain a reactor and radiators. Bad design? I wonder how can they take so much fire without exploding.



And last but not least, the dwarg behemoth. Armor is too shiny and blue, going to adjust later.

[Atarlost]

I'm very disappointed in the Ringer station. I'd thought it was an O'neil cylinder.

[shanejfilomena]

My bad: I apologize. I got very caught up in the ideal of the economy and how your art, while interesting, might also be a little too ..
"bold"......
[quote="Djohaal"
I took the liberty of adding that glowing sphere on the top.
[/quote]

this is nice for Art but it is a station, like the rest, everything HAS TO have a functional, economically viable place in the construction.
besides making things look like a Latte by Brenda..( she prides herself on the ...'artistic presentation' : do not ask for a napkin) ,
I like the Corporate Enclave: the sat unit on top can go ....maybe straight rods for reception .
+
and the Shrine....again: economics. you seen those ships they have? they are not the Mercedes the local priest drive.
And the Sisters have nothing official for transport . so I don't know if the economy of the Cult could tolerate the artistic addition.
+
soooooo, what you have done here is a good item for fiction and extensions.....IF the art can be worked into a system economics where they can tolerate it.....such as the dwarg : a nice ship has to = resources....everything has to have a backbone ( sort of )
so this is good. I can play with this idea but I think a greater mind can make it work better.