Courier
Re: Courier
The UV-s are spot on in your model file. They line up perfectly with your texture. Or you mean the UV grid image you export from blender for reference?
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bobtheterrible
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2015 8:03 pm
Re: Courier
Damn... I mean, that is good news(!) but Im clearly doing something "wrong" with blender or I have simply forgotten how to do this. I can see the png in the UV view but I cannot see the unwrapped UV vertices - in the same vein Im struggling to get the texture displayed in the 3D view.
Its frustrating to have forgotten so much......
Thanks for taking the time to look at the model, its comforting to know that it is not borked!
Its frustrating to have forgotten so much......
Thanks for taking the time to look at the model, its comforting to know that it is not borked!
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bobtheterrible
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2015 8:03 pm
Re: Courier
Hi Everyone,
A quick update.
I have pushed a few additions to my Github repo:
I have reworked the main landing gear bays so that the gear retract back up into the pylons rather than into the cargo hold (robbing the hold of valuable space). The texture does not properly match this change but it is close enough for the moment seeing as I dont have the original .xcf anymore.
I have also added the various empties to thrusters and such.
Next, I want to animate the gear but:
a) I have forgotten how to do that (yeah, sorry)
b) Im still getting to grips with the changes in Blender 2.8
A quick update.
I have pushed a few additions to my Github repo:
I have reworked the main landing gear bays so that the gear retract back up into the pylons rather than into the cargo hold (robbing the hold of valuable space). The texture does not properly match this change but it is close enough for the moment seeing as I dont have the original .xcf anymore.
I have also added the various empties to thrusters and such.
Next, I want to animate the gear but:
a) I have forgotten how to do that (yeah, sorry)
b) Im still getting to grips with the changes in Blender 2.8
Re: Courier
Nice! Hang in there, the community is thrilled about the progress so far:
https://twitter.com/pioneerspacesim/sta ... 2505322501
https://twitter.com/pioneerspacesim/sta ... 2505322501
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bobtheterrible
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2015 8:03 pm
Re: Courier
More updates:
Have added animations to the landing gear. However, I have used the rotation keyframe and apparently borked the front landing gear doors (their rotation is pretty wonky). If someone could have a quick look at what the heck I have done to mess up the animation it would be appreciated :-s
Changes have been commit to my repo.
Bob
Have added animations to the landing gear. However, I have used the rotation keyframe and apparently borked the front landing gear doors (their rotation is pretty wonky). If someone could have a quick look at what the heck I have done to mess up the animation it would be appreciated :-s
Changes have been commit to my repo.
Bob
Re: Courier
Hi!
Nice progress, it looks really good!
The problem with the rotation is the evaluation order of the three axes. X comes first, then Y then Z. If you change the order to YXZ, you could make it work animating the Y axis, but I'm not sure if Pioneer supports that.
So you need to remove the keyframes, rotate the door 90° on it's local Z axis, so it would rotate around it's local X. Then rotate the mesh back in Edit mode -90° (Putting the 3D cursor at the object origin, and roating around it is the easiest. Then you only need to change/animate the X axis.
Nice progress, it looks really good!
The problem with the rotation is the evaluation order of the three axes. X comes first, then Y then Z. If you change the order to YXZ, you could make it work animating the Y axis, but I'm not sure if Pioneer supports that.
So you need to remove the keyframes, rotate the door 90° on it's local Z axis, so it would rotate around it's local X. Then rotate the mesh back in Edit mode -90° (Putting the 3D cursor at the object origin, and roating around it is the easiest. Then you only need to change/animate the X axis.
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bobtheterrible
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2015 8:03 pm
Re: Courier
Thanks Noz!!
Your suggestion appears to have worked!
I have pushed that change back to my repo. I have also:
Your suggestion appears to have worked!
I have pushed that change back to my repo. I have also:
- Added a normal png
- Added a specular dds
- Added a diff dds
- Updated the model and stats json (will definitely need balancing!)
- LODs
- General tidying up
- Whatever Noz tells me to do!!
Re: Courier
I think that's about it.
I'd suggest a more elaborate landing gear setup instead of just sinking it inside the hull, but that can come later.
I kinda want to aim for a bit more detail and elaboration in the future, but that won't happen anytime soon, so it should be good to go.
I want to incorporate the decal workflow to ship creation, and hopefully it will be supported at engine level, so we don't even need to bake anything down to a single texture. But that's a lot of work. Check out the pioneer_looks repository on my github, there's some preliminary work on it, mostly detail decals yet, and I worked on some engine prefabs as well for OPLI. Eventually all ships could benefit from that library, and we can up the overall visual quality of our models a notch or two. And getting experience in a current workflow is an added benefit. But it all is rather much work, so don't hold your breath, butdon't hesitate if you want to participate!
I'd suggest a more elaborate landing gear setup instead of just sinking it inside the hull, but that can come later.
I kinda want to aim for a bit more detail and elaboration in the future, but that won't happen anytime soon, so it should be good to go.
I want to incorporate the decal workflow to ship creation, and hopefully it will be supported at engine level, so we don't even need to bake anything down to a single texture. But that's a lot of work. Check out the pioneer_looks repository on my github, there's some preliminary work on it, mostly detail decals yet, and I worked on some engine prefabs as well for OPLI. Eventually all ships could benefit from that library, and we can up the overall visual quality of our models a notch or two. And getting experience in a current workflow is an added benefit. But it all is rather much work, so don't hold your breath, butdon't hesitate if you want to participate!
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bobtheterrible
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2015 8:03 pm
Re: Courier
Hey Noz,
Yeah, I wanted to do something "clever" with the landing gear but decided to focus on getting it to a playable state first.
I had a quick look at your library and it all looks interesting - will take me some time to figure it all out tho (seems to be looking for brushes in my home directory that clearly do not exist!). Multiple layers would be very useful especially for overlying different paint-jobs
Do you have a rough road map as to what needs doing to get that library into production? Im no software engineer/artist but I could probably manage some small tasks if you need an extra pair of hands.
Bob
Yeah, I wanted to do something "clever" with the landing gear but decided to focus on getting it to a playable state first.
I had a quick look at your library and it all looks interesting - will take me some time to figure it all out tho (seems to be looking for brushes in my home directory that clearly do not exist!). Multiple layers would be very useful especially for overlying different paint-jobs
Do you have a rough road map as to what needs doing to get that library into production? Im no software engineer/artist but I could probably manage some small tasks if you need an extra pair of hands.
Bob
Re: Courier
Lot of design and ground work needs to be done for it to be usable.
There's an OPLI decal library already, which I even used for the OPLI engine prefabs. But I want to create lots more decals, with some faction-specific stuff. (Yes, sadly the decal machine addon is a bit odd in that regard, and insist on putting all the decals into it's instalation directory. But hopefully we can figure out a workaround for that)
Then I have to finish up those mask-driven materials I'm cooking, (See the Sinonatrix in the repo).
Then figuring out the modeling and baking workflow. Mostly the baking/shading part is the big question, but I want to advance our modeling and design game as well.
And I want to create a library of reusable assets, like engines, nacelles, cockpits, docking collars, weapons, animated landing gears and such to aid all that. (And to anticipate and inspire swapable equipment in the future).
And to document the usage of all those.
One of my main motivation behind all this, apart from making Pioneer prettier is to up my own game in asset creation to a current workflow, to learn all that.
There's an OPLI decal library already, which I even used for the OPLI engine prefabs. But I want to create lots more decals, with some faction-specific stuff. (Yes, sadly the decal machine addon is a bit odd in that regard, and insist on putting all the decals into it's instalation directory. But hopefully we can figure out a workaround for that)
Then I have to finish up those mask-driven materials I'm cooking, (See the Sinonatrix in the repo).
Then figuring out the modeling and baking workflow. Mostly the baking/shading part is the big question, but I want to advance our modeling and design game as well.
And I want to create a library of reusable assets, like engines, nacelles, cockpits, docking collars, weapons, animated landing gears and such to aid all that. (And to anticipate and inspire swapable equipment in the future).
And to document the usage of all those.
One of my main motivation behind all this, apart from making Pioneer prettier is to up my own game in asset creation to a current workflow, to learn all that.