Hello! I am new!

[pgimeno]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forums too though some people already know me from IRC. I'm not much of a social person so I hope this short introduction suffices. Apologies in advance for the wall of text that follows.

Back to the topic. I love the idea of having android operators in some places. Evarchart's draft android would make a nice law enforcement android, IMO. Awesome work.

Re blinking animations, maybe but wouldn't it look a bit poor if that's all it can move?

Since I saw Pioneer from the first time, I have been thinking that it would be awesome to have 3D models of heads, changing SecondLife-style parameters at random. They could then be animated in many ways, and the animations reused for all faces, and could introduce random variations or combinations of them. But I can't volunteer to bell that cat which is why I haven't mentioned it before. But the viewer code is GPL, hmmm...

On the profile editor:

I was also wondering about a profile picture editor, so we can choose race/head shapes/features and augmentations etc? Would that be a possibility?

I would love to have that. A simple collection of sliders that go through each variation of each element would probably be a simple and good enough starting point. I hate when after so many clicks, I manage to get a face for myself that doesn't look so ugly, and then an incompatible save file format change renders the save file with that face invalid. But again, I'm just dreaming, not offering myself.

Anyway, the main reason for posting was this:

I just found this, those faces look familiar :D

http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaete ... ichter.htm

If that helps inspiring you, this post might further help. It's from the Second Life community forums. Unfortunately the images are now gone but at least I managed to grab a copy before that happened (not of the PSD mentioned though).

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Gene ... e/4#M53213 (original without pictures)
http://www.formauri.es/personal/pgimeno ... tml#201704 (copy I cached in my host)

A final note:

I hope you guys are knuckling-down on your homework to get good grades! ;)
I am no doubt a lot older than you are (I am nearly 40)

I was 17 by the time Elite came to the Spectrum, so go figure. Turns out I'm older than you ;)

[Evarchart]

You made me lol heartily!! Thankyou pgimeno!

I agree, full 3D profile images will be the way to go. I would love to see my artwork in this game (maybe for a limited time until a 3D artist can provide what is needed for the full effect) but full 3D would be ideal.

[impaktor]

I would love to see my artwork in this game

As soon as you feel that you have enough to replace what we currently have, we will make that happen, once it has passed review.* (I think using the current backgrounds will work for now.)

After that, you can work on "version 2" if you want to, so we upgrade the art in increments. That way you get the sweet satisfaction of seeing your work in the game, and we get the sweet satisfaction of using your art.

* review just means that we let people (read: nozmajner ;)) give opinions during a few days. I don't know how familiar you are with github, but if you're not, then someone here (me for instance) can upload it ("a pull request") and do that part of the work, so you don't have to worry about learning git or github since that can be a real soul killer.

Here are previous pull requests, now closed/merged, if you are interested: github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/pulls

[FluffyFreak]

This is a full time job! I should have taken a month off work for this but even then I think it won't be enough time. :D

Hah! This is a marathon not a sprint ;)
I really cannot remember when I first started participating on Pioneer, but I think it must be more than 3 years now.

Aside from posting and minor fixes I'm, personally, being a bit quiet having just burnt myself out sprinting on some things and then running into a mountain of problems. So my advice is to just always keep doing bits and pieces as and when it's *fun*, then taking it easy when it's not. There's no obligation to anyone but yourself, and you should go easy on yourself! :D

I should dish this advice out to everyone really! We'd like more people around for the long haul.

[Evarchart]

@Impaktor, Thanks for letting me know how the process goes, I have never heard of github until I joined this forum, any help would be supremely appreciated. I can always email over bits and pieces maybe?

@Fluffyfreak, hehe, you're not kidding! It's a fun process though. Maybe you could have a pinned post with your advice in there for newcomers? I have only been a member for a few days but I have seen from replies and such that you must have had a few people come and go from this team, which is obviously a shame as good talent is hard to find and keeping that talent focused and motivated and enthusiastic is a fine art, especially through slower times. The concept art for the ships is mindblowing, as are the ships themselves (I would still love to re-texture the Eagle), stuff like that keeps me motivated.

This leads me to a point I was thinking about earlier, Pioneer started out as a homage to Frontier and F.F.E but I have since seen people state it is not a remake and that's why there are several ships in here that aren't in Frontier which makes me wonder if I can mod the comm screen? At present I don't know how it is assembled in game. I just thought we could make it look a little nicer although I know this is a massive change and some may not agree at all. I mean, I get why some wouldn't want me faffing around with a perfectly fine comms screen but I get these ideas and have to spit them out :)

[impaktor]

This leads me to a point I was thinking about earlier, Pioneer started out as a homage to Frontier and F.F.E but I have since seen people state it is not a remake and that's why there are several ships in here that aren't in Frontier

It started out as a Frontier clone. Due to copyright (all Elite/FFE ships have been removed, all Elite/FFE system names have changed, etc.) and artistic freedom, it has since then diverged, to actually "look good" rather than to "look as FFE", for instance the trading screens etc. are way better now than a year ago. No ship from Frontier is left in the game.

which makes me wonder if I can mod the comm screen?

Redoing this is next on the to-do list, since there's no real value in having a comms that looks like FFE, rather than one that actually looks good and works better, and I think the "core" code monkeys (robn/jpab/FluffyFreak) started working on it, or almost got started. Somewhere here on the forum there is a bunch of mockups/sketches by nozmajner on how the new comms should look, I think, so this is something that is in the works (but slightly dormant at the moment).

I have never heard of github until I joined this forum, any help would be supremely appreciated. I can always email over bits and pieces maybe?

Sure, email, or public upload to some site somewhere.

PS. Luomu, lwho, and laarmen are code monkeys as well. The project pretty much depends on theses monkeys + the awesome art by nozmajner, and contributions from the rest of the community of course.

[Evarchart]

I'll have a search for that thread and have a look at them, more out of interest really. You could do something really nice with it.
Ah, that's fascinating to know that you're becoming your own game more than a straight clone, with the way nozmajner works and his style I think that's the best way as your game will look like no other out there. There are so many generic ship designs, yes they look nice etc (I saw several videos of Star Citizen's hangar bay whish showcase 3 ships and while they look nice I have seen them a million times before) but none look as unique as nozmajners.
I am just finding this whole game fascinating really.

[impaktor]

I'll have a search for that thread and have a look at them, more out of interest really.

Maybe I was thinking about the cockpit-post, I don't know.

I am just finding this whole game fascinating really.

Quite a few things are broken in the game, like: trading (unbalanced), factions, combat. Glad you haven't found them irritating. ;)

[Evarchart]

Ahh, I saw the cock-pit posts, those could be quite cool, nice and immersive (a lot of work!!).

I won't lie, I have yet to be engaged in combat, I am more of a traveller in games like this, I'll just buzz off and see where I end up..you'd normally find me in an asteroid field somewhere admiring the views although I am yet to do that in this game.
I've always wished for space derelicts in these types of games, so salvage plays a part etc. You could create some awesome derelicts and stories around them (massive ideas I know, but they might enrich the exploration somewhat).

I found this game completely by accident just the other day and decided to have a poke around to see what it's all about, then I spotted you guys needed help and deep down I am a tinkerer in games like this. I love to change assets where I can. When I saw the facegen art I knew I had to have a blast at that. I watched a video review by a Scott Mansley, very respectful review of the game, but wow did he laugh when the comms opened up and the faces popped up...I must admit, I did chuckle. Maybe we should have a beauty contest thread using the current facegen? :P

It's all fun though :)

[bszlrd]

@Evachart: thanks. :) I'm trying to make something unique, (but not solely for the sake of uniqueness) and somewhat believable, at least for a space opera setting. Also one of my aim is to avoid overly photorealistic aspirations and explore a bit of cartooniness, which could complement well with the level of phisical realism of the game. And cartoony/painterly faces are fitting well with this in my opinion. Most people tend to fixate on photorealism, and forget just how much aesthetic possibilites are there when you break away. (The diversity of Indies are quite refreshing for example).
And to draw inspiration from a lot of sources that are seemingly far from space. (Although concept artist use these constantly, but it seems to me that a lot of this tends to disapear by the hands of higher ups. At leas for big names)

About cockpits: they are sure a lot of work, but it will worth it in the end in my opinion. I'm building the Varada tiny ship with that in mind, and already have a sketchy cockpit for it, that's why the progress with the textures is slow. I want to use it as a hatching ground for various prefabs which hopefully make cockpit building easier and faster in the long run (at least for MCS ships...)

Derelicts would be nice, but I'd like to have a good baseline of ships before diverging to that direction. Also I have plans to create a good selection of rocks for asteroid belts, so a nice selection of asset will motivate a developer implementing them ;).
But a more important ting for me right now is to create a decent looking modular spacestation which can be used to create a selwction of slightly different stations. And I also want to make the ground buildings prettier with a larger selection. Even new sets eventually,

A very lot of things to do, which makes me happy, and sad when I don't have the time to work on them due to other stuff.

Also it seems to me that you have an older version of the game, or one of the bigger mods that still have the FFE ships.
We don't yet built up to the same amount, but I do want to with time. :)

If you want to play around with the existing ship's textures, feel free. I don't have much routine to create surface interest on the ships, so a hand is always appreciated. (I tend to dislike blabling of doodads and greebles and stuff though :D)

I can help you with pull requests, if you need, I already have access. Not that I'm an expert on that, but I managed to pick it up, at least on the level we art contributors need. Which is like adding and replacing stuff in the directory structure, then firing up a pull request. :).