Alien Wormhole Device

[Psawhn]

I haven't done much at all to it. I added some thick cables connecting the upper and lower platforms, and also created a flat-plane with a bunch of cabling, using a texture with alpha.

I just noticed that the polygon count is rather high at 1200. Most of those are quads, so I estimate about 2400 triangles. How much should I lower this by? A lot of detail is hidden in those tiny arms which might not even be visible later on, so I should probably get rid of those.

I have some texturing questions, though.
Do textures with alpha need to be either on-off transparency, or can there be multiple shades of alpha. (Means I'd have to fiddle around with the texture in GIMP).
How many different textures should I aim for? I doubt I can fit all the textures I need onto one 256x256 image without looking quite pixellated, and even a single 512x512 might not be enough.
How much of blue alien materials, or green glowy radiators, should I use, or are those limited to the outside hull of vehicles?
Anything else in particular to keep in mind?

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[Mattn]

different textures only work if you made them model out of different tiles (seperated md2 files). One md2 file can only have one texture.

the alpha channel question is a good one - to be honest, i don't know. I don't think we have skins like this already. we have on/off, but not an alpha channel of 50% somewhere.

[Winter]

How much of blue alien materials, or green glowy radiators, should I use, or are those limited to the outside hull of vehicles?

The device will be partially made of alien materials, and can have some of the green glowy stuff in it, just don't overdo either of them. The main thing we want to see is lots of exposed electronics and power lines.

When this is finished, Psawhn, would you also be up for designing/modelling the Alien FTL Drive? For that we'd like a visible similarity to the wormhole device, since they're built on the same technology although of course their purposes are quite different.

Regards,
Winter

[Mattn]

also the "rocks" (or whatever it is) and the stair should not be included in the model we are using in the maps. That is, we need two versions. One with the ground (for e.g. ufopedia) and one without the ground (stairs + "rocks")

maybe it is a good idea to separate both parts completely?

[BTAxis]

Bump. Psawhn, do you intend to finish this?

[Psawhn]

Yep. Finishing it is one of my plans for this holiday. Last night I actually had an epiphany of sorts regarding it - it should be slightly broken up from the crash. (I didn't quite realize that earlier.)

I've also got the main components separated for organization, but I don't see why the lower halves won't be in the maps. Wouldn't it work to have the model there, then some invisible brushes to handle the pathing?

[BTAxis]

It'd be very cool if we could get this into 2.3. We intend for an alien base mission to be the final mission for the release, and this model would be in it.

[Mattn]

but please only the device, not the rocks or the stairs. they must be solid brushes in the game.

[BTAxis]

We could use the one with rocks and stairs for the UFOpaedia, right? Plus it would help recreate them in radiant.

[Psawhn]

I'm worried about the hassle trying to recreate the meshes and align the textures and stuff in GTKRadiant. Wouldn't it just be easier to make the solid brushes invisible, and have the md2 be what the player sees?

[Winter]

Yep. Finishing it is one of my plans for this holiday. Last night I actually had an epiphany of sorts regarding it - it should be slightly broken up from the crash. (I didn't quite realize that earlier.)

I've also got the main components separated for organization, but I don't see why the lower halves won't be in the maps. Wouldn't it work to have the model there, then some invisible brushes to handle the pathing?

What crash? These particular wormhole devices are for placing in alien bases, not UFOs.

Regards,
Winter

[Psawhn]

Ah, never mind. I got it in my head that this one was from the Carrier UFO.

[Mattn]

We could use the one with rocks and stairs for the UFOpaedia, right? Plus it would help recreate them in radiant.

but the model should be at least built out of two parts in this case.

[BTAxis]

You still haven't said WHY.

[Mattn]

because of the collision calculation in the maps.