Hi I have an Idea
 

I have perfect pictures to create a "Hiigaran" shipset from the Homeworld 2 game.

Problem is I can't seem to get them to the right proportions and everything to get them in the game and still looking good. I was wondering if any of you would be so kind as to help me in this area either by making the ship set or by helping me figure out how to get the ships to still look good while at the same time fitting the size limits of the game.

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

What are the game sizes needed and where are the pics? I might be able to fiddle with them in my spare time.

btw: is the problem that the pics are tiny and get ugly when enlarged? or are they huge and loose too much detail in the reduction?

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ December 01, 2003, 11:32: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Well they are rather large as the screenshot manager doesn't let you decrease their size.
But when they get shrunk to the approropriate size the game makes em look really really bad even though in like MSN paint they look pretty good.

And I am currently grouping them all together in a .zip file and getting enough screenies to make a good full shipset so I'll have the download available (hopefully) by later today.

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Every ship size needs a 128x128 "portrait" and a 36x36 "mini".
You will allways lose some details when reducing to those sizes, but if resampled nicely they should look ok anyway.
Another important detail is that minis should show relative sizes between the ships, so the largest ones should use all 36 pixels of its mini while the smallest much less.

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

That is where I am having the real problems...I tried to make a dreadnought mini and a cruiser mini. I replaced the "cruiser" pic from the demo with my dreadnought and the light cruiser with my cruiser.

But the dreadnought actually came out smaller and less detailed then my cruiser did.

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

any chance of sending me one of the more difficult pics to test out? If I can do a good job on one of the more difficult ones then chances are the others will be ok too.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

P.S. my e-mail is in my profile. Just be sure to notify me here if you send it. I don't often check out my hotmail account.

P.P.S. I'm not sure I agree about the mini's needing to be of varying sizes, I would make all ships fit the largest possible area in the 36x36 pics, they are after all just a representation of the ship, accurate scale is not IMHO necessary in the mini pics. (Scale can be kept in the 128x128 size though, there is a bit more room to play there.)

[ December 01, 2003, 19:30: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Problem is they are all IMHO very difficult

Well since you don't often check ur e-mails I'll just give you all my download links http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif .

Here are the links: http://www11.brinkster.com/starhawk11/HiggaranFleet.zip

http://www11.brinkster.com/starhawk1...aranFleet2.zip

http://www11.brinkster.com/starhawk1...aranFleet3.zip

http://www11.brinkster.com/starhawk1...aranFleet4.zip


Sorry about the four links but Brinkster wont allow anything over 1 mb to be uploaded.

[ December 01, 2003, 21:29: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Starhawk, your links give me an error: <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can try, cropping the picture first, then resizing and then pasting into a blank 36x36 pic.

David, the 36x36 minis are what you see in the game most of the time. The game get's very confusing if you can't visually tell apart a dreadnought from an escort (or even worse, if the escort looks bigger).
On the other hand the game never shows two or more 128x128 portraits at once, so relative scales here is not so important.
BTW, and just in case, minis are top-views and portraits are perspectives.

[ December 01, 2003, 22:40: Message edited by: Andres ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Hmmm it works for everyone else I tested it with.

Ah well try it this way let's see if it works

http://www11.brinkster.com/starhawk11/HiggaranFleet

http://www11.brinkster.com/starhawk11/HiggaranFleet2

http://www11.brinkster.com/starhawk11/HiggaranFleet3

http://www11.brinkster.com/starhawk11/HiggaranFleet4

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Ok, I grabbed the files and did a few of the ships, where should I send them for you to look at the results.

Oh and I see the problem with reducing the ships, they are way too colorfull. The bright colors tend to obscure the details. Also, there seems to be no consistancy in the ship orientations, many of the pics I can't tell if the ship is comming or going away from the camera's pov. I have rotated the few ships I did to orient them vertically, (the overhead view ships. the perspective view I cannot rotate, I can only x-flip them if they are pointed in the opposite direction.

anyway, let me know where I can send the samples I'll let you decide.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

P.S. I also had trouble with the links, but found that if I right-click and "Save target as.." I managed to grab them. your site gave an error message saying that it does not allow remote linking to files.

[ December 01, 2003, 22:51: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Okay send it to starhawk11@hotmail.com

And yeah a few of those ships have odd design and a few of them are kind of hard to tell just from a top down view whether they are coming or going.

P.S. My site is a bunch of loons who make it a pain in the arse just to post a pic so I'm not suprised you had issues.

P.P.S sorry for the scrambled fashion they are in but that's the only way the Brinkster folks would let them zip.

[ December 01, 2003, 23:00: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

spaceports.com is a much better free web host than brinkster. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Ok, the first sample reductions have been sent.

Take special note of the P.S. statement.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

They're great...see everyime I tried to get them to reduce like that the ship would somehow end up blending with the environment.

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

So get a better graphics program than Paint? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

The longest part about working these pics is masking out the background. Once I get rid of that, things go well. Many of the pics have an orange background with various bright and darker parts. It's a bit of a pain, but I'll manage.

eventually all the pics will have a 128x128 and 36x36 Version. I'll send them to you as I complete various batches. (In my spare time)

Cheers!

[ December 02, 2003, 00:23: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Right, ships should be cut from all those clouds and placed over a black blank background.
Jpeg artifact may interfere, I think it would be easier if images were in a non distorting format.

[ December 02, 2003, 00:48: Message edited by: Andres ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

A magic wand tool like in Photoshop makes cutting out obnoxious backgrounds a bit simpler.

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Yeah problem is the MS paint doesn't let me cut backgrounds because if I black out one color the other colors would still be there.

It's a pain in the butt....and that's the main reason I couldn't get it done.

As to the orangish glow on the ships and the lighter and darker sections I kind of liked the effect it had on the mini's and portraits as it gives them a unique and realistic look http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

I've heard there's a tool to export 3d models from the game into 3ds format.
If you can export them send them by email and I can render them.
Maybe it would be easier this way.

[ December 02, 2003, 02:18: Message edited by: Andres ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Hmm never found that tool...where is it and what is it called?

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

I noticed that the company that made HW2 have released a free set of tools for modding WH2. Just go to their site, register and download them. I'm not sure if the tools for extracting the models is there, but there might be some 'viewers' for the various models in-game. Perhaps some cleaner views could be made.

just a thought.

I'll install the demo and see the game for myself, it looks like it might be fun.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

Aye it's fun alright and it has spectacular effects.

But the viewer only works for modding the ship you can't take a good screenshot with it because you'll get the whole window in the shot and when you try to edit it you get a highly pixelated image of the ship that isn't really worth keeping.

There is not an extractor that i can find so that part sucks rather poorly.

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

AAAaaaaaaaaah! I just spent a good two hours grabbing about ten more ships and weapon platforms from the HW demo and had just about finished, I went to save them and my computer crashed. Aaaaaaah! Darn HW demo, must have a memory leak. Or doesn't like having it's task switched.

Dang! and the Last batch was looking really good.

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

ah, I feel much better now, but I'll take a break.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

That sounds harsh...I hate it when that happens.

Sadly the demo doesn't have all of the ships so you'll need to find some way to make due with the screenshots I took.

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

This should teach you to hit the save button more often. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

My solution was to get a good 'Free' screen capture program..

GrabClipSave

works well, I grabbed all the ships in the demo, and will work on them in my spare time.

I'll have to make due with your grabs of the larger ships, but I just find that no two are at the same angle, and it makes for a bit of an eclectic look. (lacking of consistancy) The mini's seem ok, as they are all seen from over head, but te portraits are something else.

Oh well, I can only fix what I have access to, such is life.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ December 04, 2003, 10:25: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Re: Hi I have an Idea
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hitting the 'Save' button is what crashed my computer. (how do you fix that?) lol

but I have already grabbed all the ships in the demo, so the point is mute now.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif