Filling the Skies

[Legacy_cyberglum]

               That's awesome work Chrysoli. As already stated the those emitters look really good. Really well done configuring that ship docking. I suspect, even though you've stated you've spent enough time on this already, I bet you're still fiddling with it '>

I finally got around to packing up the new flyers I'd been working on.

The flying Speeders hak has been updated and contains the following:

-8 Speeders from the original release
-16 new larger flying ships, including the following:
Lambda class Shuttle
Sentinel class Shuttle (new model d/l free from the web, also includes the non-animated version placeable)
Ministry class Shuttle
Y-wing
Z-95 Headhunter
A-wing
Blacksun Ship
Slave 1
BSG Viper
Wraith Fighter (new model d/l free from the web, also includes the non-animated version placeable)
Rusty Cargo Hauler
Dropship
Chico's Trader
Chico's Fighter

Various flight patterns have been used. I've not finished any land and take off animations yet, but once I finish working on the fantasy airships I'm working on I might go back and update the hak.

nwvault.ign.com/View.php

Enjoy!

'Glum
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guest_Chrysoli_*]

               Cyberglum - I just had a chance to download and run your latest mod. Those are looking real nice! Question (not at all versed in my sci-fi here, so I may not know what I am looking at on this one ship '> - but it looks like one of the models is off orientation by 90 degrees - it looks like it's nose is pointed towards the ground.

I love that little *spy-bot* thing - or whatever it is - that is floating around the center of town - that's slick!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guest_Chrysoli_*]

               Thanks all. This took a lot longer to update then I hoped, but it's been updated today on the vault.

http://nwvault.ign.c....Detail&id=8028

There is a ton of information in the read_me that's not on the vault page itself, so I do suggest anyone using these files read that. In many hours of testing, I've discovered a lot of screen drawing idiosyncrasies, that are dependent on the players actions, and you might want to be aware of before using these placeables.

I'm very pleased with how everything turned out - but am not sure I'd want to tackle something like this again. Though I confess, there are still two concepts really gnawing at me.

1. Invisible dock tiles (well, all the ship parts removed from tiles, just the water and underwater remain) with the visible tile woks, using invisible placeable blockers placed or unplaced depending on ship location, with placeable doors for player boarding and entering a ship interior after arrival. I had this almost working, then after about the 20'th or so test, the mod crashed. Crashed and would not even open in the toolset. Since then, I think this was an unrelated issue, but all that was backed out for this update. Maybe down-the-road?

Oh, the placeable gangplanks made for this concept are in this update. These gangplanks are matches for the tile group the ship is matched to, and would appear where the tile gangplank was in the visible version of the tile group, after the ship had docked. There's also some functions in the ship include script related to this concept - now commented out.

2. Forest tops group placeables, animated to move below the floating airship tile group. This may not be practical at all, due to possible file size, but it might be worth a try anyway - to see. Perhaps with correct fog setting to minimize the detail needed below ... this really interests me.

Kalbaern, your point is well taken about the travel speeds and I've tried to address that with speed variants of most models. I've discovered the slower you make these things go - the bigger the file becomes - fast!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kalbaern]

               Thanks for the updates and responses. Don't worry over the ships movements speeds if making them slower is going to strain folks computers. Maintaining "playability" is aways the better option and even as is, I know I'll use them myself. I'm just an Ol' Sea Dog that appreciates slower pondering ships is all. '> Keep up the great work.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

Chrysoli wrote...
I've discovered the slower you make these things go - the bigger the file becomes - fast!

That bit caught my eye.  This is almost certainly because your keys are baked out at one key per frame.  It's likely that you don't need that fine level of animation, though, especially since you're animating an inorganic object.  If you look here and scroll down till you hit "Important 3ds Max & Gmax Scripts [Updated! 04/13/2010]" you'll see "Key Reducer" highlighted in blue and a link to download his toolpack.

Just copy "NeoDexKey Reducer1.0.ms" into your GMAX scripts directory, where you can run it with menu item MaxScript-> Run Script menu item in GMAX or simply drag and drop the script into the GMAX window while it's running.  Add objects, muck around with the threshold and click Do the Job!" button and it can help you clean up redundant animations.

You can also just a much less intelligent (probably) key bake routine in the NWMax Bake Anims itself, just by changing the "Sample Interval" before baking.  The higher the Sample Interval, the more deadspace there will be between animation keyframes.  With a more intelligent key reducer by BlinkBoy you can choose to only lay down keys whose changes are higher than a threshold that you set.  Still requires tweaking but almost always yields better results and "better" in this case means smaller filesize without looking noticably different.

You might also find a nice mix, like doing position keys as at a preset interval and rotation keys at a threshold interval gets you closer to something you're happy with.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 20 avril 2011 - 09:39 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_cyberglum]

               The new release is great Chrysoli, I'm really impressed with the work you've done on this - from the animations to the scripting - just awesome. I feel quite ashamed looking at the attention you give compared to my own stuff.

If I may I'd like to adapt the airship docking for my own models. I've got animations activating/deactivating off of floor triggers, which give a nice background animation of a procession of ships docking and un-docking from the same platform.

Anyway, 11 days off of work - so hopefully be able to finish this airship set project,
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_cyberglum]

               Working of a new airship model, inspired by the Ebberon campaign ships. I'm pretty pleased with it so far.

social.bioware.com/756604/albums/1130135/114906
               
               

               

                     Modifié par cyberglum, 23 avril 2011 - 01:05 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Very nice work!