Pioneer dev forum

Hi all Im Pablo from Spain, living in Dubai,

I would like to develop some spaceships and if possible incorporate them into the game. I would like to know how to convert the models into something usable by the application.

is there any kind limitation in the graphic engine? normal mapping, bump opacity, reflection maps are allowed? What´s the usable limit of poligons?

Hi Pablo and welcome!

Please have a look at the wiki, and play around with the source for the models available here in their full format (in Blender for instance).

Hi
The prefered format is collada. Object animations do work with linear interpolation, but armatures aren't available. You put billboard lights and engine exhaust in with empties. Transformations are Matrix.
If you are working in Blender, then +Y will be forward, -X left and +Z up. I guess it should be the same in other software too, but haven't checked yet. Make sure that all rotations and more importantly, scales are applied before exporting. Also it's useful if there aren't any parentings in the model too, sometimes they create a mess.
No normal or bump maps or reflections unfortunately, only diffuse, specular and glow available. Also there's a pattern system for custom colors (and alpha support for that).

The poly count for a small-mid sized ship is about 10k tris, but you will find ships on all points of that spectrum and it's a rule of thumb anyway. The Malabar is about 20k on the top LOD for example, but that's the upper part of the medium class.

Here's the wiki article about the model system. Also you can import any model from the games data/model/ directory to see how they are set up.

Our visual guide is not fully fleshed, but should be an interesting read anyway.

Also, if you have any questions about the workflow, ask away. Especially so we can update the docs if needed.