Matrix Games Forums

Given our Customization Guide, any of you skilled enough and determined enough to attempt
some of the standard MODS I would like to see? Obviously : StarWars, Star Trek, B5, BSG ....

I know there's talent out there. There always is....

[:)]

well, i have no graphics skills whatsoever, but i'm a programmer, so...i would still have to go through the customization guide, but i have some experience in 2d game programming, so i don't think it would be hard to learn.
that said, if any mod team (existing or in the process of being put together) needs my services, just send me a pm.

Yes, already been mucking about with Paint.net prog and the Gratuitous space battles ships. They actually look rather good. Paint.net is very good and free. It reads .dds file extensions and the you can then save them to .png files. I am going to wait until DW comes out to see what sort of sizes each type of ship needs to be. ie. a battleship = 200x200 pixels while a destroyer may be 120x120 pixels for example.
Also, the customization manual is a bit vague on the engines. Do you draw a blue line any length in the direction the engine exhaust will travel and how does the exhaust know which way it should be facing?  Am I making any sense!?!?!?!!??!!
 
How about letting us pre-order and allowing pre-orders to be able to d/l the manual?

Theres Okim amongst others lurking around, who has a proven track record in modding.

ORIGINAL: Epsilon

Theres Okim amongst others lurking around, who has a proven track record in modding.

yep, Okim has made some pretty good mods

The customization guide said you place one pixel of certain value to mark location of engine. So I presume if you throw in long line of pixels you end up having 5-10 engines depending on the lenght of your line Simply put, place one pixel per spot where you want engine to be located in. I don't know however if the engine exhaust effect comes on top or below the ship, so I suggest you make placing of engines and such as last step before importing them in game

ORIGINAL: Hussar712

ORIGINAL: Epsilon

Theres Okim amongst others lurking around, who has a proven track record in modding.

yep, Okim has made some pretty good mods

Wow. Thanks. It is good to know that i have some kind of a good reputation )))

Actually i already have some ideas of new ship graphics, some of them mainly will be taken from human ships in ACM for SOTS (here is an example).

BTW, i haven`t found any mention of weapon, explosion and other particle effects in manual. I suppose they are also easily moddable?

Here are 3 ships from GSB that I have converted from .dds files, reduced to 200x200 and saved as .png files.
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n129/maccca0_0/AllianceSharkCruiser.png
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n129/maccca0_0/AllianceWaspFrigate.png
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n129/maccca0_0/TribeUtopiaCruiser.png

ORIGINAL: Okim

ORIGINAL: Hussar712

ORIGINAL: Epsilon

Theres Okim amongst others lurking around, who has a proven track record in modding.

yep, Okim has made some pretty good mods

Wow. Thanks. It is good to know that i have some kind of a good reputation )))

Actually i already have some ideas of new ship graphics, some of them mainly will be taken from human ships in ACM for SOTS (here is an example).

BTW, i haven`t found any mention of weapon, explosion and other particle effects in manual. I suppose they are also easily moddable?

Don't forget your excellent work on the ACM for UFO Aftershock mod!

Don't forget your excellent work on the ACM for UFO Aftershock mod!

There is an update coming soon so check mod`s thread the next week

btw: Distant Worlds is super easy to mod. I think the only limit is your imagination. 

ORIGINAL: drillerman
battleship = 200 px destroyer = 120 px.

That's about right. Ships run from about 60 px to 350 px (for the largest station).

ORIGINAL: drillerman
Also, the customization manual is a bit vague on the engines. Do you draw a blue line any length in the direction the engine exhaust will travel and how does the exhaust know which way it should be facing? Am I making any sense!?!?!?!!??!!

They ALWAYS point up. ergo: The exhaust always points down. The blue lines go horizontally... so it's all very easy.

How do we map 'fire points' for ships? I noticed that ships don`t fire from the origin (central) point of its image.

The blue lines go horizontally...

So i was actually right )

Hi PixelPusher, so your the guy doing the ships!
A question: With regards the engines, are you saying that if you put a blue pixel/pixels(depends how much exhaust you want) anywhere on the ship the exhaust will always go down, ie. from top to bottom of screen?
Thanks

ORIGINAL: Okim

ORIGINAL: Hussar712

ORIGINAL: Epsilon

Theres Okim amongst others lurking around, who has a proven track record in modding.

yep, Okim has made some pretty good mods

Wow. Thanks. It is good to know that i have some kind of a good reputation )))

Actually i already have some ideas of new ship graphics, some of them mainly will be taken from human ships in ACM for SOTS (here is an example).

BTW, i haven`t found any mention of weapon, explosion and other particle effects in manual. I suppose they are also easily moddable?

With some races sharing ships it would be awesome to human ships looking like this.Hurry up.[;)]

I probably should have put an example in the guide for the engine exhaust, a picture speaks a thousand words, and all that. But for now I'll give you an example here [:)]

The forum only lets me upload JPEG images, so it's a bit fuzzy, and I've blown up the size for you to see. But the blue lines at the bottom of the image indicate where the exhaust will be drawn for the ship. Of course the exhaust rotates, etc with the ship.

There are actually no weapon points on the images - ships do fire from the center. Think you were looking too hard Okim [:'(]

One other thing: the size of the ships and bases as drawn on the screen is based on the actual size of the ship or base in the game, i.e. the size of all their components. So the size of the source image is not really relevant - the drawing scales the images to the appropriate size so that everything appears relatively bigger or smaller compared to each other, i.e. large space ports are much bigger than tiny frigates.

Hope that all makes sense...

ORIGINAL: pixelpusher

btw: Distant Worlds is super easy to mod. I think the only limit is your imagination. 

Oh crap. That lets me out. My imagination is nonexistant. [:'(]

I've been messing around with paint.NET this afternoon, working up some ships designs... I'm hooked. But does anyone know if there are any tutorials around on this type of art?

doing some 2D game development, i have been looking for that myself. however, there are rarely any pixelart tutorials, and if you find some, they are usually pretty basic. i guess a lot about creating sprites is about having a talent for art. which i absolutely don't have :-/