64 stock ships rotated to 40 facings

[TheLastBrunnenG]

I just found this file on my hard drive and thought I'd share it here because it's too big to upload to Xelerus. A little over two years ago I took apart all the stock Transcendence 20-facing ship graphics using PhotoScape, rotated the resulting tiles 9 degrees in Paint Shop Pro 9, stitched them all back together using PhotoScape, then went back to PSP9 to make new masks. Not all of them worked well - some were off center, some had visible artifacts, and some looked too blocky or the lighting was visibly off. For the 60+ images that worked OK, I've ZIPped them all together and uploaded them. Of course they're not as good as redrawn and properly 3D-rotated models (compare my Molotok with Aeonic's excellent remake), but for quick mod work and testing they're at least functional.

Here's the link (12mb ZIP file): http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=066 ... 5233767628 . The file is organized into folders by tile size (32x32, 48x48, etc.).

Originally I was going to pair this with my All Stock Ships Playable mod so that all the stock ships could enjoy 40 facings (not just those based on Wolfen, Sapphire, and EI500) but the file size killed that idea.

Maybe one day I'll go back and re-attempt the ships that didn't make the first cut.

[Star Weaver]

Hey hey. Thanks for the file. I thought you might want to know, though, if you didn't, that George released an archive of most of the original models for the game. I beileve Playership Drones comes with rerendered copies of the ones that were easy to rerender. Some of george's files proved hard to work with and various people have been slowly rebuilding the ships to be workable, and not every ship is covered, so your work may still come in handy, though.

[TheLastBrunnenG]

All true. Hopefully this will help people who don't want to learn Blender, Milkshape, Maya, Sketchup, or whatever else is required to do proper 3D rotation and rendering.

[PM]

Every ship in the three Playership Drones ship expansions was rerendered. The only ship I cannot rerender is the Atonement, which is why it has 20 facings instead of 40. Some ships have different colors (e.g., Molotok isn't green, Charon ships are orange instead of gold), but nothing GIMP cannot fix.

To TheLastBrunnenG: Shall I, no... can I make a patch for Playership Drones that enables every ship in the game, essentially turning it into All Stock Ships Playable++? Even if I do this, your mod should still have the advantage of filesize and simplicity for those who do not want to mess with Playership Drones, or stick to 1.01.

[TheLastBrunnenG]

Absolutely, go ahead, patch away! I didn't realize that Playership Drones had 40-facing versions of everything. Ah, well, that's what I get for waiting 2+ years to release a mod. Isn't the first time that I had a mod finished or close to finished when a cleaner version appeared on Xelerus from someone else.

[WillyTheSquid]

Now that you are both in here -- is there a way to add a simple framework that makes unique, named wingmen (such as the ones in Brunnen's "New Wingmen" mod) dockable (and possibly pilotable) just like the PlayerShip Drones? Because I want to add more unique wingmen to the game, but right now they suffer for not being as flexible as the buyable droneships.

Also, PM, if I may make a request: is there a way to prevent accidentally docking with a droneship while looting/docking with wrecks or (enemy) stations? The drones stick so close that they continually get in the way whenever my ship turns. I don't really have any ideas yet as to how this would be accomplished, though. An alternate docking key?

[PM]

Now that you are both in here -- is there a way to add a simple framework that makes unique, named wingmen (such as the ones in Brunnen's "New Wingmen" mod) dockable (and possibly pilotable) just like the PlayerShip Drones? Because I want to add more unique wingmen to the game, but right now they suffer for not being as flexible as the buyable droneships.

I ignored wingmen because of Bobby's UGWingmen mod and because most stock wingmen leave when certain conditions are met. Is there something you need that WGWingmen cannot do?

Also, PM, if I may make a request: is there a way to prevent accidentally docking with a droneship while looting/docking with wrecks or (enemy) stations? The drones stick so close that they continually get in the way whenever my ship turns. I don't really have any ideas yet as to how this would be accomplished, though. An alternate docking key?

Not without removing conventional docking altogether. The alternative I can think of would be something similar to auton disassembly (featured in Auton Assembly Hangar). The interface for this would probably be even worse, probably more keypressing at least.

[TheLastBrunnenG]

You can always use Bobby's Upgradeable Wingman mod (http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=766). I haven't tried it under 1.08b, though I used to use it all the time. I even had a version of my New Wingmen mod which was UGW-compatible but I never released it - had problems with Juan Carlos which I couldn't fix. UGW also caused crashes for me, though it was mostly my fault - had something to do with a screen full of upgraded armed & armored Mule autons following me everywhere. UGW does (or did) work reliably for the stock wingmen.

[digdug]

Every ship in the three Playership Drones ship expansions was rerendered.

This is awesome.
Mind to share some suggestions/methods on how you rerendered the ships ?

The only ship I cannot rerender is the Atonement

I'm going to give it a try.

[PM]

To digdug: I don't know what to say. With TrueSpace, all that needs to be done is add frames/edit angles, select view from camera, then render. Most ships can be rendered this way, although the camera position for some (older) ships may need to be adjusted. Some ships, such as the Molotok or various pirate ships, may also need to be recolored with GIMP or some other image editor after rendering.

The Atonement is missing the Ocarus logo, and I cannot figure out how to apply the logo used by the Penitent to the Atonement. I loathe to rotate sprites for ships because the results... often violates the Xelerus standards "any added graphics not make anyone's eyes bleed" and "ship rotates cleanly and doesn't wobble or jitter as it spins." I found that out the hard way when I developed PSD2. If you render a fixed Atonement, can I use it for PSD5?

Another ship I cannot rerender is the Xenophobe fighter because one of the wings is stretched. Thankfully, the Xenophobe fighter is one of those 20 facings ships that does not need a rerender. Also, the Luminous drone may have missing parts and/or textures, but that is yet another 20 facings ship.

Later this year, I will work on stock ships with more than 40 facings, even if the AI cannot pilot them. Playing with the 72 facings Lindworm (patched for PSD5) has spoiled me!

If only George released an updated TransArt with fixed models.

[digdug]

If you render a fixed Atonement, can I use it for PSD5?

Of course! That's the main objective.

The long term objective is to update the graphics of all the ships and stations ingame (maybe take advantage of all the new features like parallax for stations).
As you can see from Xelerus, I started with large ships, larger is the ship, greater is the benefit of increasing frames.

I will also try the xenophobe fighter and Luminous drone.

It's going to take a while, as this is where I start from when I import to Bryce.

[Star Weaver]

To digdug: I don't know what to say. With TrueSpace, all that needs to be done is add frames/edit angles, select view from camera, then render. Most ships can be rendered this way, although the camera position for some (older) ships may need to be adjusted. Some ships, such as the Molotok or various pirate ships, may also need to be recolored with GIMP or some other image editor after rendering.

PM, I think you're the only person who's ever rerendered the sprites just using TrueSpace in the most straightforward manner. Digdug uses Bryce; SDW uses something else, Avan uses max (I know he dosen't RE-render, but he's done some style and material matching with the centauri newships for example.) Heck, I'd be using blender (tho that's more because the couple ships I want to rerender I also want to make multiple rematerialed versions of so it's more a case of keeping the original looking in sync with the new models.)

[Atarlost]

Heck, I'd be using blender (tho that's more because the couple ships I want to rerender I also want to make multiple rematerialed versions of so it's more a case of keeping the original looking in sync with the new models.)

Yeah, I had to rerender the Hurin because I couldn't get the textures for the new Huari stuff to look right in Blender.

[digdug]

OK, I re-rendered the Atonement with 40 facings.
http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=1153

[PM]

Thanks digdug, this Atonement will be in the next full update of PSD5.

Question: How do you make 8-bit masks? All my attempts result in strange colors whenever a ship or engine effect flies over something.