Malabar transport

[Tichy]

Looks good and very big! I like the texture very much. Are the squares on its side windows? If so, is it possible to have them lit with different patterns and in different situations (off when on the sunny side of a planet, some of them randomly on when in outer space, all of them on when landed)?

[bszlrd]

Yupp, windows. It might be possible to make some of the windows light up with glow texture, if I recall correctly, they don't affect lit textures much, but I have to check that to be sure. It won't be truely random this way though. They will be coated with shiny reflective coating anyway.

[FluffyFreak]

YOu could do windows that are lit or not depending on some external paramter, but it'd take more work and require a new shader to be written.
Something akin to Interior Mapping: http://www.humus.name/index.php?page=3D&ID=80

Not sure how that'd go down with everyone who has to turn off the eclipse code...

[robn]

Not sure how that'd go down with everyone who has to turn off the eclipse code...

Work on the assumption that we'll have multiple "shader quality" settings, and anyone with crap GPUs will have to stick to the lower settings.

[Tichy]

Interior Mapping is really cool!! O_O
But, IMO, it's a litte too much. I don't know if we need such detail... maybe for the cockpit but, in this case it could be done like in the ships made by Gernot and will work for everyone (says the gyu that can't use the eclipse code ;-P ...well, maybe when mesa 10 will be out... I don't know. ).

[bszlrd]

I don't really want to make transparent cockpits with detailed interior right now. It's quite some work to do it properly, and it won't be visible most of the time. Some kind of simulated (imitated really) reflection on the windows would be more the thing I'd put there.

Maybe at a later time.

[Tichy]

To be honest, I prefer cockpits that looks solid, instead of big fragile windows. A mirror-like surface, imho, will be good. :)
I imagine that only ships designed to work a lot on the planets' surface have large windows, while ships made to work mostly in outer space will have very small windows (or no windows at all) and all will be done through VR or projections.

[bszlrd]

Windows are great as a cue for scale, that's why I want most civilian ships to have them no matter if they are space only, or atmo capable. Most military combat ships won't have them, and they would use VR in a gimballed cockpit. That's the reason for that rounded shape in the center of the Kanara. The military version will have a larger sensor dome in the place of the cockpit, and the pilot will sit in the center. Like in this older drawing:

Sans separate nacelles.

[bszlrd]

Another bit of update on the Malabar, some progress on textures, and added actual geometry for the windows on the side (19k tris overall, but the subtle paralax effect worth it).
It now has a pattern and a 2K texture.The mod file is updated if somebody wants to try it out. (Don't overload her, it's quite hard to take off with it if topped up)

[Tichy]

Wow! It looks really massive. :)
Beautyful. I like the texture and every detail of it.