New from S7 Shipyards

[Shark7]

Large Star port:

[Shark7]

Sorry guys, but I just had to do it...the Resort Base...a giant, floating Roulette Wheel [:D]

[Shark7]

OK, now for some serious questions before I resume building the ultimate shipset of doom here.

1. Besides the lights and engines and orientation things, is there anything else I need to know concerning the .pngs themselves to get them into the game?

2. Will the scale at which I render the images have any bearing at all on how they are scaled in game? If so, then I will do a little re-rendering to get them proportional to each other.

[Setekh]

Transparent backgrounds.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Setekh

Transparent backgrounds.

While the previews here are .jpgs, the real images are already alpha-channeled, transparent .pngs. Forums here don't seem to like .pngs for some reason. [&:]

[Setekh]

I did wonder but thought I'd mention it anyway.

[WoodMan]

A quick question for you Shark, it looks like you are using white dots instead of yellow dots for the lights.  Is that just my eyes going funny or does this work?  I have had some problems with the yellow dots you see [:@]

As for your question, as far as I know thats all you need to know, your ships look really good btw, especially love the stations!

[Shark7]

The dots are pure yellow...I'm guessing they aren't converting over to .jpg images too well. In fact, the .pngs do look a lot sharper and more detailed than these.

[Igard]

It doesn't make any difference what size images you use. I generally go with 500x500, but say I put a 400x400 ship in the same shipset, it won't make any difference.

The game scales the ships according to a particular method. You probably read my post earlier today about scaling ships and bases of a certain shape? Square or circular ships are scaled smaller than long, cigar shaped ships. You might notice, for example, your construction ship will look slightly smaller than another ship of the same size.

Keep up the good work, Shark7.

[tornnight]

Dont forget a fighter and bomber for the expansion

[Haree78]

ORIGINAL: Igard

It doesn't make any difference what size images you use. I generally go with 500x500, but say I put a 400x400 ship in the same shipset, it won't make any difference.

I've found the size makes a difference but only to get things like engines working. If I have a 500x500 image for a ship which is actually scaled a lot smaller sometimes the engines refuse to work. I scale it down to 200x200 and redraw a line of pure blue and bang the engines are working.
I suspect this in game scaling is the cause of erroneous lights showing up. I just wish I knew what the native resolution was for each ship because they are sometimes different sizes in the different families for all the game ships.

[Shark7]

Going by the Customization Guide .pdf, the max size for ships is 200x200 pixels. I suspect that could be the cause of all problems.

[Igard]

I didn't think of that, it sounds like a good diagnosis of the problem.

I get some errors with random running lights every now and then, but I've found they're not too hard to fix and I don't usually use exhaust trails as most of my ships are from the Star Trek universe where they use impulse engines instead of thrusters.

So this probably allows me to use 500x500 without too many problems.

[Simulation01]

Very nice Shark7!

[Shark7]

Almost to the end...a few more stations:

First up, the Research Station

[Shark7]

Next the mining station:

[Shark7]

And the Gas Mining Station:

Tried to make the mining stations similar but different, I think I succeeded. [;)]

[Shark7]

Update: Especially with the release of RoTS, I do plan to finish up this shipset by this weekend, zip it up, and release it for use.

Right now, I am leaning toward making it redistributable, so that modders can feel free to use the images and just zip it all up in their mod package, if they desire to use them.

[tjhkkr]

I agree, this is good stuff! Neat ships!

[Shark7]

Few more previews while I finish this up...I have a couple more models to go (the mining ships) then its on to final polishing and packaging. Should have no problem getting this out Sunday night or Monday, so long as all testing goes to plan.

The Generic Base: