starfury shipsets

Puke · #1 August 6th, 2003, 11:32 PM

i have not been around the forum much lately, but i remember talk about starfury from a while back.

the SF shipsets will be the same format as those to be used in SE5, and i seem to remember that people were already modding SF/SE5 shipsets. are there any previews of these? are there any examples of what SF mods will look like, or is that all still under NDA?

Fyron · #2 August 6th, 2003, 11:35 PM

Captain Kwok · #3 August 7th, 2003, 12:15 AM

Without violating the NDA, I can tell you this:

Starfury ships are .x files with bitmap textures. .x files are directX files...there are a few editors that can make those (meshX comes to mind). Doga can export .x files, and 3d studiomax files can be convert to .x using some converter (3dsconv?) from the Microsoft website.

Poly counts around 500-1500 work best, higher rates will slow the game down for the avg user.

Phoenix-D · #4 August 7th, 2003, 01:07 AM

Another- free- program that will do .x:

http://www.wings3d.com/

Doga probably won't work for Starfury- any good-looking ship will have a polygon count that is FAR too high. DOGA isn't particually efficent that way.

Katchoo · #5 August 7th, 2003, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Doga probably won't work for Starfury- any good-looking ship will have a polygon count that is FAR too high. DOGA isn't particually efficent that way.

Well, as far as DoGa goes, excessive detailing will be the one thing you'd have to control. The Light Cruiser for my Psycho Trapper set comes in at 2905 polygons. If i remove the individual windows I can probably bring the polygon count down to a more acceptable number for Starfury & SEV. The Destroyer, as it is, is just over 1000 polygons, so no worries there (hopefully).

Does anyone know the Class Structure of Ships in Starfury? Will Ships be broken down like they are in SEIV (eg destroyer->lightcruiser->cruiser etc...) or will there be more randomness and little to no class naming? Will the stock Ships be viewable within a *.X editor for size comparisons against our own creations?

Captain Kwok · #6 August 7th, 2003, 02:18 AM

The MeshX program can reduce the poly counts of your Doga ships. 3d Studio Max can also do this as well, but for their .3ds format before you'd convert it to a .x file.

The stock ships are viewable and can be modified in a program that can work with .x, and very nicely done as you can see in most screenshots.

There are fewer ship sizes than se4, but the size ratio is about the same between the ones that are in the game.

That's about as much detail I can say here...

Magnum357 · #7 August 7th, 2003, 03:18 AM

You guys can try Milkshape too. I use MS a lot and it can export to .x format aswell, but I haven't messed with .x files much so I don't know much about them. Just know it can be done with MS and that is a fairly cheap program.

Rollo · #8 August 7th, 2003, 09:05 AM

The best freeware tool I know of to do ships for Starfury is Anim8or: http://www.anim8or.com/main/index.html

I have done several models with Anim8or and put them in Starfury. Here is one example.

Doga would not be my tool of choice.

Rollo

Chronon · #9 August 7th, 2003, 03:34 PM

Does anyone know if Moray/Povray will work? I looked through the help information, but didn't see anything about .x files (Mulder and Scully weren't part of the design team for SF, were they?

)

Captain Kwok · #10 August 7th, 2003, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Chronon:
Does anyone know if Moray/Povray will work? I looked through the help information, but didn't see anything about .x files (Mulder and Scully weren't part of the design team for SF, were they? )

I haven't been able to find a converter that can transfer moray/pov-ray files to .3ds or .x format...