Messages

121

Discussion / Re: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?

« on: November 25, 2007, 08:38:10 pm »

Recoil isn't magically more powerful just because you're in space. You only really have to consider it, too, if you do not have stable contact with something to cancel out the small impulse given to you by the bullet. Magnetic boots, artificial gravity ('though centrifuge gravity may throw off your aiming), or an EVA Chair will mean you have to worry about recoil only as much as you need to do on the ground.

Plus, flamethrowers are probably more effective in an artificial oxygen-rich environment like that on a space station. You're thinking if it's in a vacuum - at which point many things we take for granted go funny, too. Most weapons (especially lasers) will overheat much too quickly, as air isn't there to take away the waste heat. Although bullets will still fire (they contain oxidizer as well as gunpowder), the gun itself may jam if it relies on reaction gases to eject the spent cartridge, load the next round, (like most semiautomatics / gas-operated guns), because  of different pressures than what it was designed for.

Actually, most weapons that operate in a vacuum (excluding blades) need to be specially designed to operate in one.

122

Artwork / Re: Renders

« on: November 24, 2007, 07:49:00 pm »

I agree that it looks great, but obviously it has its quirks that can be fixed. You seemed to forget to give your particles at the end a direction, which you did in the earlier animation. I'd actually go so far to say that the number of ships coming out should be so low that you don't need particles - just animate the smaller ships by hand.

Are your changes to the carrier mostly finished? I'd also like a shot at doing a few animations, too.

123

Artwork / Re: Renders

« on: November 19, 2007, 09:43:29 pm »

I agree with everybody in that the new ships look great. If I had to nitpick the animation, it would be that the combined volume of the ships leaving the carrier are much greater than the carrier itself. Otherwise, excellent work!

Personally, I think the carrier needs plenty more greebles/nurnies or something to break it up visually and give it the kind of massive feel it needs - which is of course bad to do for gameplay reasons, but possibly essential for pre-rendered movies. Adding to that are the lack of any recognizable reference points to give it scale, too.

124

Artwork / Re: GUI Screens

« on: November 17, 2007, 04:06:33 am »

I've been looking into licensing, and GPL probably isn't the best to use for a template file system thingy such as this. I've made a new version with a very permissive license included.

https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/licensed/menu_creator.blend

I've used the Expact License (aka MIT License) which is compatible with the GPL.

Next up, for sure, is making a tutorial on making GUI menus with this template.

Edit: And now we have a tutorial. Currently it's on my user:talk page, and the images are linked from my photobucket account. I'm too tired right now to fix it up, and this tutorial is ugly and unrefined, but if you absolutely want to see it now go here:
http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Psawhn

I'm going to bed.

125

Artwork / Re: GUI Screens

« on: November 16, 2007, 08:40:04 am »

That must not be the case in every language. But i like the idea.

Ah, that's right. I wonder if wrapping the text works all right - there should be enough room for that.

Template:

a) Yes, this current tool is using gpl. I'm going to rerelease all my .blend files later with included licensing info to make things a bit more legally secure.

b) There's a breif tutorial on the opening page. It should be able to guide a person to render the 'default' menu, but doesn't go in-depth to modifying the layout at all. I'll start working on a wiki tutorial, for sure.

126

Artwork / GUI Screens

« on: November 16, 2007, 12:12:58 am »

I actually have an idea for creating GUI screens in Blender that could make the process a lot less painful.

In the meantime, though, here's a modified base buildings screen. I didn't like how the previous version squished everything and still made it hard to see anything on the left. (They are two separate images, like in the originals)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v388/Psawhn/UFO-AI/Menus/?action=view&current=buildings_ur.png
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v388/Psawhn/UFO-AI/Menus/?action=view&current=buildings_lr.png



None of the information in the box took up the entire width, so it is shrunk a bit and moved to the top-right.

I hope it covers up fewer of the buildings. If it still covers stuff up, I could probably move it underneath the building preview without too much hassle.


Edit:

Actually, it wasn't quite that hard to create a blender template menu creator thingy. Using the menu creator, it's much easier to create menus like this:


Link: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/menu_creator.blend

Instructions are opened when you open up the file. But as a reminder: you need to reload the bumpmap0001.png image after first rendering a new menu layout.

It currently doesn't have an easy way to make those pipe/wiring/greeble connectors, though. I might add something like that later on.

Edit#2: Went through and made a second generic test menu thingy:


Aligning the bright green lines is actually rather difficult - it might be much easier to do it in an outside image editor. Metal greeble things probably also need to be added after the fact, too.

127

Sounds and Music / Re: Modified Gun Sounds

« on: November 15, 2007, 11:06:56 pm »

Actually, I just looked at the waveforms in Audacity, and there's definitely clipping going on. I'll upload some versions with less clipping soon.

And here they are:

https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/assaultrifle2_b.wav
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/bolter2_c.wav
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/boltercannonade_c.wav
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/microshotgun2_b.wav
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/riotshotgun2_b.wav
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/smg2_c.wav
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/sniperrifle2_b.wav

The assault rifle uses sniper.wav as a source file, which itself has clipping. There is no visible distortion (to my untrained eyes ) on any of this second batch of sounds, though.

128

Artwork / Re: Symbols for the geoscape

« on: November 15, 2007, 09:50:25 pm »

Ah, okay then. Google Earth Geoscape, anyone?

129

Artwork / Re: Symbols for the geoscape

« on: November 15, 2007, 08:51:32 pm »

I know the icons are supposed to represent a 'gritty' feel, but I've found it hard to see some of the icons on the geoscape - ship models in particular. Is it possible to show a brighter coloured circle around these to denote enemy/ally? It would be neat if more information, like fuel and health, were also represented by coloured arcs around these circles.

(Personally, I like abstracted icons better, but that's just me. )

Actually, I wonder how much benefit there is by using actual 3D models for the ships. Textured sprites might work just as well, considering only the top of the aircraft are ever seen.

130

Artwork / Re: Miscellaneous Models

« on: November 15, 2007, 08:39:47 pm »

yes they, do

all they need is a anm file (like e.g. the characters) that defines an animation name and the frames. you then just use the correct animation name in the misc_model parameter settings in gtkradiant

That's good. How about triggering animations upon an event, like death of the model?

131

Artwork / Re: Miscellaneous Models

« on: November 15, 2007, 07:30:53 pm »

Thanks for the compliments.

That disc thing there is just a placeholder - I had figured that particle effects would be used for the wormhole itself. If a single wormhole sprite doesn't cut it, there's always putting stuff around glowy bits, like lightning effects or halos, and the edges of the wormhole itself might react to the atmosphere, creating more fun particle effects. You can always make up reasons for more flashiness to draw a player's eye.

Do map models support animations? A few of the parts rotate, and the 'arms' can articulate a little. That in itself can help. Plus, I can maybe throw in death animations.

Speaking of which, I can probably save myself a lot of trouble making it breakable and explodeable if I keep it in mind from the start. What was in mind for that? What parts should break? Does shooting different parts destroy different areas?

132

Sounds and Music / Re: Modified Gun Sounds

« on: November 15, 2007, 07:00:39 pm »

I just used Audacity. I can't hear any distortion myself, though, and I have a pretty decent headset. If it's clipping you're hearing, I still have the .aup (source) files and can reduce the volume a bit.

133

Artwork / Re: Miscellaneous Models

« on: November 15, 2007, 07:20:30 am »

Here's a relatively quick blockup. It's 1077 faces, most of them quads, so about 2000 tris at most. It's still missing many power conduits, pipes, and I plan to put cables and wiring on alpha-textured planes. I also probably need to put greebles below the wormhole, on that platform thing. The disc in the middle is the size of the wormhole.



How is it for bulk and general style?

Currently it's modelled as if it were up against a wall and a ceiling. I could change it to not need either of those if necessary.

134

Sounds and Music / Modified Gun Sounds

« on: November 15, 2007, 05:03:01 am »

I was feeling that a lot of the gun sounds in the game lacked the "oomf" I felt they needed - the shotguns being the worst. That's not to knock Alex's work at all - it's excellent! These are more a matter of taste than anything else, and all the original work is Alex's anyways.

I used a combination of existing sounds from the game to make these modified versions. Most of it was just adding multiple versions of the same sound at different frequencies.
For the bolter rifle, I added a bit of a charge-up 'bzzt' from the electrolaser sounds.


Assault Rifle: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/assaultrifle2.wav
Bolter Rifle: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/bolter2_b.wav
Bolter Cannonade: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/boltcannonade_b.wav
Micro Shotgun: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/microshotgun2.wav
Riot Shotgun: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/riotshotgun2.wav
SMG: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/smg2_b.wav
Sniper Rifle: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/ufo_sounds/sniperrifle2.wav

135

Artwork / Re: Can you guys use this? (MPEG Titile Animation Clip)

« on: November 07, 2007, 05:30:02 pm »

This is the same version I found, and it consistently crashes gtkradiant whenever I try to use it. I have tried numerous different settings and methods to try to get around it. Even starting a blank map with a single brush and texture crashes the program when I try to export.