I would be happy to help performance test them in DL. All I need are the .x models with the .png files, and I can set it up from there.

I have a rather average system - Pentium D 2.8, 3GB ram, Nvidia 6800GS...
It runs the game pretty well, and I would like to see if those great models bog it down.

Sounds good! Thanks. I will put something together for you.

-Brian

Cool. Thanks.

I certainly can help with that too, i'd be very interested to see how they perform on a gig abundant all with many 1000's of ships. I'll test them in the latest DA patch..and TA if you like.

Awaiting with much anticipation...
  

Spleeze, how are things going?

I would like to help, and I think that others do also.

You have the most outstanding models available, and I hope you will not waste all the effort you have put into them.

I am waiting for an update, as is Neilo.
Please, give us something to work with.

I really love your work, and would like to do my part in making it available to everyone else.

I could not agree more. These models are outstanding and if i can help get these out to the masses i would love to do so.

Keep in touch mate, we'll do all the testing for you.

Good to hear guys!

I have my GalTrek stuff archived at home. Next time I am home, I will grab the stuff and work on putting it into some form that I can release here for you guys to play around with.

Stand by!

-Brian

  

Standing by!

Awesome!!

Awaiting orders, Captain!

So then...

Spleeze...

How soon do you think we can get started?

Alright here are three ships in directX .X format, along with textures. I have also included the free DXviewer.exe so that you can try viewing the X files yourself outside of the game.

Now, I couldn't tell before packing up these ships whether I have added mount points to them or not. Usually I stick "mini-mount" points around the key areas of the ships, like phasors, etc, so that you could mount weapons there without them really seeing them on the hull. Also, I usually stick a bunch or normal mount points on the underbelly of ships (towards the stern) so you can consolidate all of your equipment out of sight. Here you would typically mount your sensors, etc.

The three ships included here are:

-Arkroyal
-Defiant
-Shuttle

The arkroyal and defiant open up fine with textures in DXviewer, but for some reason the Shuttle does not. I am pretty sure that the shuttle is ready for in-game use, but I could be wrong. So try them all and let me know which have texture trouble.

Also, try zooming out your views and tell me if the models look good around the edges when zoomed out. I was starting to see some seriously ugly aliasing artifacts when some of the models were zoomed out. Hopefully this is no longer the case.

I have a lot of hulls built out, but not many with mount points unfortunately. So, if all goes well with these hulls, I might release them ALL in as a test, and you guys can tell me which lack mount points, and which are not showing textures. Getting the textures to display right can sometimes be a REAL pain.

Anyway, let me know. If you have any questions, just post. We can use this thread as our testing thread for now. Also, I'd love to see some in-game pictures of your tests while when you post.

www.splicedigital.com/galtrek/GalTrek_Alpha1_2008_01_30.zip

-Brian

Very cool. The Arkroyal and Defiant look great. But as you said, no textures on the shuttle.

I did notice that the Arkroyal and Defiant each had a single png which was named for the ship. But the shuttle has 19 png's, none of which are called 'shuttle...'.

They look great in DXViewer, and I'll get them loaded in the game later today to try them out.

The multiple texture files on the shuttle actually should be fine. I do not believe that multiple files for multiple regions should cause a problem. I had it running that way in galciv before.

Need to figure out what the issue is though.

-Brian

Well so far in the game the shuttle textures have shown up differently both times I checked it, and neither were correct. I'll post a screenshot when I get the chance.

The Arkroyal only has one hardpoint, right at the front of the saucer section.

And the lighting shows up a lot darker in the game than in DXViewer. I had to turn up the ambient lighting in the game quite a bit to see much detail on the underside.

Can you do higher res textures? They look pretty blocky.

The shuttle textures change whenever I change between hulls. It seems to load whatever texture the last hull viewed used. If I click a Vulcan hull then go back to the shuttle, the shuttle will have a red texture.

On the Defiant there are hardpoints only on one half of the ship.

Sorry guys was off the boards for a bit...I'll DL them now and give them a whirl.

One thing that is odd about your shot of the defiant is that it is showing some in-game specular highlighting (shininess). This -SHOULD- have been disabled by my work, so the models should appear "unlit". That is, if a model faces a star in-game, then it will NOT be lit by that star like other models in GalCiv. Actually those shots might be from DXViewer. I'd like to see some actual in-game shots when you get a chance.

Thanks!

-Brian

Those were all in-game shots. DXViewer does not show the hardpoints, and the shuttle just shows up as untextured near-black unless it is in the game.

And they all show the specular highlights, the others were just at an angle that didn't show so much.

Oh ya, that was stupid of me. Hm. Now why is GalCiv showing specular highlights...

-Brian

Here is a battle-viewer shot:





They play well. No slowdowns in framerates as far as I can tell.

I'll post one of the ArcRoyal when I can get to that point in this game.

But, you need to redo the textures for the shuttle. GalCiv2 does not like how you did them.

I have not forgotten about this guys...i have had a death in the family in the past week so my board and game activity is low atm...be back into it soon.

@neilo:


@Moose: Thanks for the screen man.

-Brian

Hey guys update ???.......any???

Nasty

Bump