Question regarding Vonari ship textures

[TraderDan]

Finishing up my model for the borg cube to replace Vonari capital ships and the model is working in the model viewer but textures are not showing up in game. What naming convention should I use?

For a regular capital ship it would be as an example ship2.x or ship2.obj and the texture names would be ship2.png, ship2lights.png, ship2normal.png, ship2shader.png with a -low -medium -high -veryhigh proceeding each descriptor, ie "ship2normal-low"

Instinctualy since the model works and it's named ship2_v.obj I renamed the textures as ship2_v-low.png (with medium, high, veryhigh duplicates) and ship2_vlights, ship2_vnormal, ship2_vshader each with -low,medium,high,veryhigh duplicates as well. Unfortunately only stock Vonari textures are being recognized so I assume I'm naming them wrong, any suggestions?

[Vice]

Capital ships all share the same filename set, one group for Terran and Vonari and those names are available here: https://www.starwraith.com/evochronlega ... me.htm#206

In summary:
ship1_0-[detail].png = Base texture for capital ship hulls
ship1_0lights-[detail].png = Emissive map for lights for capital ships
ship1_0normal-[detail].png = Normal map for capital ship hulls
ship1_0shader-[detail].png = Specular map for capital ship hulls
vonari1-[detail].png = Base texture for Vonari capital ship and small ships
vonari1lights-[detail].png = Emissive map for Vonari capital ship and small ships
vonari1normal-[detail].png = Normal map for Vonari capital ship and small ships
vonari1shader-[detail].png = Specular map for Vonari capital ship and small ships

So for the Vonari capital ship (ship2_v.x with a '_v'), you'd use 'vonari1-low.png', 'vonari1-medium.png', and so on through '-veryhigh'. For the Terran 'ship2.x' and subsequent indexes up through 5, you'd use the 'ship1_0' set.

[TraderDan]

Thanks Vice I went with vonari1-detail naming convention and that seems to work, I believe that adds the same texture to every Vonari (fighters, bombers etc) ship not just the capital ship?

[Vice]

Yes, in the case of Vonari ships, they all share the same texture group (helps keep video memory reasonable by not having additional 4 X 2048 X 2048 texture groups times the number of types/classes). So you could use a similar design for the smaller Fighter/Interceptor/Bomber types or UV map them to use the same texture, but in different ways (ie different parts/patterns).

[TraderDan]

Ok sounds good, I guess the next logical step would to make other Vonari fighters into Borg spheres from the movie First Contact and the Voyager series etc.

[TraderDan]

Textures are complete, turns out using a cube projection for a Borg cube UV map was way easier (who woulda guessed? :-) than using individual UV unwraps for individual poly faces.

Working on gun and thruster placement next, which leads to the next questions:

1. Can you change the color of the thruster flares, ie Vonari are red by default - can it be changed to green for example?

2. What frame index do I use for a Vonari capital ship? Using frame index 103 is the only Vonari style ship that seems to work on the Evochron Thruster Utility but I think it's for a Vonari fighter craft. (Just double checked ship ID slot 103 is for a Vonari-C fighter)

Thanks in advance for all the help, really looking forward to putting together a solid mod that other EL players can enjoy. :-D

[Vice]

1. Can you change the color of the thruster flares, ie Vonari are red by default - can it be changed to green for example?

Yes, for the entire range of Vonari ships. Use these filenames in the '\ships' folder:

jet1red.png = Vonari engine exhaust horizontal
jet2red.png = Vonari engine exhaust vertical and inertial thrusters

2. What frame index do I use for a Vonari capital ship? Using frame index 103 is the only Vonari style ship that seems to work on the Evochron Thruster Utility but I think it's for a Vonari fighter craft. (Just double checked ship ID slot 103 is for a Vonari-C fighter)

103 is for the Vonari Carrier, or Vonari-C by label. 11, 12, and 13 are for the smaller fighter, interceptor, and bomber classes.

Thanks in advance for all the help, really looking forward to putting together a solid mod that other EL players can enjoy.

I look forward to checking it out. It'd be cool to see some screenshots too.

[Marvin]

Yup. Screenshots.

[TraderDan]

Ok definitely will post screenshots (I admit I've been lazy in that department).

I've been using slot 108 on the thruster utility to design and test the cube then once it was finished I realized I didn't know what ship ID a Vonari carrier was. Also in slot 108 I could find the thruster flares which I placed in the center of the cube (if I ended up being able to change them to green I was going to place them in strategic places on the mesh for visual flare). I also noticed that I could not find the turrets no matter where I looked or what values I used because I wanted to place them near the corners of the cube.

Switching to ID 103 in the utility brought up a Vonari-C ID but it placed blaster nozzles from a fighter frame on the model and it would not use my Borg textures,only try to use the stock Vonari texture from the regular game.

[Vice]

If you switch from 108 to 103, be sure to then include the custom textures for the alternate Vonari image indexes rather than the terran. So you'd use the 'vonari' filenames rather than the 'ship1_0' like so:

vonari1.png
vonari1normal.png
vonari1shader.png
vonari1lights.png

Without those custom images in place, the utility will just load the default vonari images for index 103.

Turrets won't apply for a Vonari carrier as it does not use them.

The gun barrels from a smaller ship is a bit puzzling. The utility wasn't originally designed to contend with capital class ships, so there may be some lingering structures linked to the sample model shown, but I'd expect the barrels to be hidden inside or something since the sizes are so different. It could also suggest possibly a different assigned index with a 'ship2_v.x' string value for the model filename. A review of the first two lines in the 'shipspecs.txt' file you're using might provide a clue. A mismatch there (say index 13 with a missing 0 in the middle) could also cause default textures to be used. For the barrels at least though, even if they show up on the utility preview, they'll be properly excluded once in the game.

[TraderDan]

That's kinda what I was thinking also, I hadn't thought of changing the textures names in the utility thats probably what I was doing wrong.

First 2 lines in shipspecs was ship1_0.obj and 108 and 103

Change texture images to vonari1 naming conventions
(Should I change the name of the mesh from ship1_0.obj to vonari1.obj or ship2_v.obj?)

Adjust flares and turrets

Change the finished shipspecs.txt and rename it to vonari1.txt and place it in the ships folder in the game?

[Vice]

I would recommend using 'ship2_v.obj' for the filename, just to keep things more in line with the game for easier transfer when the time comes.

Then when importing it into the game, just copy the 'ship2_v.obj' file over to the '\ships' game folder as-is. Then copy the texture images over to the same ships folder using the vonari image fileset names and add the '-low', '-medium', '-high', or '-veryhigh' tag to the detail setting you are currently using, or include image sets for every detail level if/when you're ready to share it with others so they can use any detail setting.

Then copy over the 'shipspecs.txt' file you are currently using over to the same '\ships' game folder and add the ship index value to the filename (so 'shipspecs103.txt').

[TraderDan]

Got it. Thanks Vice, I'll try that tonight.

And post some screenshots ;-)

[TraderDan]

Screenshots inbound: Resistance is Futile

*ha! finally figured out how to embed an image from google drive

Playing around with the scaling and considering that you can hire a small crew, the size for the player craft should range from a small fighter craft say the size of an F-16 to the larger frames like the starmaster being about the size of the USS Defiant from Star Trek DS9 or the NX Enterprise from the prequel Enterprise show, with a DS9 Runabout being somewhere in between.

With that sizing in mind the size for the Federation capital ships are about as accurate as I could make them. Using those sizes the Borg cube 'should' be about double the size as they are currently, however I've made these models just a hair under the game's 'hit box' meaning if they were any larger the game would still render them (and they look menacing) but the player could clip harmlessly through their geometry and weapons would be ineffectual against them. I doubt Vice would be interested in recoding the game to accommodate my (probably insane) desire to create scale Borg models in game. That being said even at their current size it's pretty scary when one sneaks up on you when you're just mining some asteroids or cataloging uncharted planets.

[Vice]

Very cool, I like the custom cockpit images also. Very 'shuttle' like.

[Marvin]

Impressive. Especially the number of different classes of UFP ships.

[TraderDan]

All the ones from the 1980's y'know the best ones? ;-)

Back in my day, before we discovered the 3rd demension - when there were only 8 bit sprites and polygons hadn't been invented I used to play Top Gun and another NES game called Star Voyager from my couch fort fantasizing about having the tools and tech we have today.

My friends and I would hang out riding our BMX bikes and I'd get that crazy look in my eye and say one day you'll be able to ride a bike or walk around a city in a virtual environment just like we are now - in 3D!

Of course they all laughed at me like I was from another planet.

[Marvin]

y'know the best ones?

[TraderDan]

Lol I just got the *Spock raised eyebrow* "Your affinity for recreating childhood tv science fiction ships is highly illogical"

[Marvin]

If "childhood" extends beyond high school graduation and into flipping burgers at McDonald's ... okay then.

[TraderDan]

@Vice

Once I changed the textures to vonari1 name designators they did in fact show the borg textures on ID slot 103 as you said. The turrets however dont seem to be showing, I'm wondering if it has something to do with how large the model is but they don't seem to show anywhere inside or outside the cube. Also of note I added two frames for jet1red.png and jet2red.png and placed them in the same directory as the ship model but the flares are still stock red, not green. I resized them to 128x128 same as the example. I noticed the example picture seems to be black and white in my photo viewer so I feel like maybe I'm missing something.

[TraderDan]

These are the two flare images I was considering:

*it seems these will show up in the game but not the utility but they display as a static image superimposed over a red thruster flare*

[Vice]

As mentioned earlier, turrets won't apply for a Vonari carrier since it does not use them. So you won't see such 'terran' structures appear on Vonari ships.

'jet1red' will be for the primary exhaust surface. 'jet2red' will be for thrusters, which won't really apply to the carrier entity. So the lens flare is probably the only other thing appearing which would still be red until changed. To change that, import an image named 'mex3red.png' and the flare will be change to the custom image. I've attached a sample green image you can use.

[TraderDan]

I must have missed the mention about turrets before, I guess I can stop looking for them :-)

With all these Star Trek mods I couldn't help but I'm interpret it as - "you humans put turrets on your starships - barbaric!"

Ok I'll give those flares a try thanks a bunch!