Ships Not Empty Inside

posted on February 1st, 2005, 12:21 pm

Well I think that a cube being made only of outer walls is just silly. Every ship should have sth inside, especciall those big ones - so after they are destroyed, and when they are being build it will look more realistic.

posted on February 1st, 2005, 3:54 pm

The problem then becomes polycount. if you start building the insde of a ship you might double or tripple the polycount which would cause serious slowdown.

posted on February 1st, 2005, 4:15 pm

what about just makinf small pichers aper as dubry from the ship. as like a sugested in a nuther idea.

posted on February 1st, 2005, 4:47 pm

not to mention the exponential increase in work for me

[ewm90]

posted on February 1st, 2005, 4:48 pm

Last edited by ewm90 on February 1st, 2005, 4:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

thats trow that a big facter to take in to acawnt. lol
thanks for all your hard work Optec.


what about out soresing it to uther pepal how can make lital small ship parts?

posted on February 1st, 2005, 5:49 pm

Hm, at least for Borg ships with their simple geometry this would be great. Even as much as a small cube inside of the big one, or similar, would help. That's not so much work, is it?

Only problem remaining is processing power. The upcoming version already has no chance running on my machine.
Not a problem for many of the users, though, I think. And nebulae and everything with additive blending does far worse things to performance, in my experience.

[KL0K]

posted on February 1st, 2005, 7:21 pm

Last edited by KL0K on February 1st, 2005, 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

it has nothin to do with the geometry of ships. but wit their complexity. learn how to mod for urself or even try gmax or other programs for buildin 3d-designs and ask that Question again "not so much work, is it?".. lol..

[Anonymous]

posted on February 1st, 2005, 11:15 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on February 1st, 2005, 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Remember when Janeway was transported to a cube during a Species 8472 conflict. As I remember it, it was quite open, a huge space. I think that it sould be left as it is. And poor Optec would be hard pressed to make more textures as he is already quite busy.

posted on February 2nd, 2005, 12:35 pm

KLOK, I don't think you got what I was trying to say. Geometry is important. Take an ingame Borg Cube, the probably best example for this topic. It's a cube. It has six sides, and lots of empty space in between.
Now let's blow up the cube (as is so often done in Armada). The sides explode quite nicely, but the empty space inside seems quite... well, empty. As if the Borg built a cube with nothing inside it. They wouldn't do that, would they now?

On the other hand, take a Galaxy Class vessel. Ah, certainly not a cube. She has a lot more than six sides, and while she's empty, too, her hull geometry is made up of a saucer, a neck, an engineering section, warp nacelles, etc.
If she blows up, parts of these will still be there, recognizable. No need to fill her with even more polys (in this version ).

So geometry is important, because the simpler the geometry, the emptier a ship can look.

Now how about the cube? Let's make a primitive cube in gmax. I'm sure even I've had enough experience to do that, don't I?
A cube, Eight vertices, twelve triangles, six sides. Slap a texture on it (easy enough, it won't even have to fit well, it will only be seen when the ship blows), make the whole thing about 2/3s the size of the current ingame cube, put it inside. So far, I could do that. And I don't know much about converting to .sod, but that should be possible, no?
And it would be enough to make the cube seem less empty.

posted on February 2nd, 2005, 1:47 pm

such a 12-polygone cube would result in 12 large triangles which will shift arround, wouldn't look that nice, too

posted on February 2nd, 2005, 3:07 pm

what about adding 2 small walls in side the ship that flote in side the ship

posted on February 2nd, 2005, 3:15 pm

How about making it so the derbis that comes from the cube not 'float' away from the centre of the explosion. It would all explode in the same area creating the (whats the word for it?) scence of a multi walled cube because if the derbis were close together than it would be a big jumble of derbis and no one would really be able to tell that it is really 'hollow'.

posted on February 2nd, 2005, 3:28 pm

i just think its nearly impossible. the whole animation for exploding ships must be rearranged plus the design of the ships, cause they gotta get decks and 'points' where they break if they get hit. like in ST:bridge commander or SFC.

its just too much work for now. and i dont even know if its possible to do with that engine or not without the sourcecode. i know that are just animations, but i dunno how deep these animations stuck in the code of the game.

the idea is great, but i still think that it is near to impossible. specially with so few ppl workin on it. cause i think its 'much' work then. if its possible it would be a nice feature for the final release. but that would take years i guess.

[Ozymandias]

posted on February 2nd, 2005, 4:09 pm

Last edited by Ozymandias on February 2nd, 2005, 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Perhaps what would be better is a new explosion texture, one with bits of debry in it. This would be less work than redesigning half the models and would look pretty cool too

[Fullphaser]

posted on February 3rd, 2005, 1:02 am

Last edited by Fullphaser on February 3rd, 2005, 1:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

I like the modification of the explosion sprite/something don't remember what it is but, making the sods bigger and better would than doubling poly counts ect. don't worry optec you have enough to do as it is making the game run slower won't help anyone except the rich, and if you are a true ST fan you shouln't have enough money to get a good computer, it all goes to buying all seven seasons of ST TNG and ST DS9