Battle Scape Mode for 'Advance' Interceptor Mode

[moriarty]

"too much" detail should never be an issue I suspected you would be wanting to use it for other purposes as well. hey, maybe someone wants to do cool cutscenes or at least mission briefing screens showing the UFO in the appropriate terrain?

I could also imagine a version of the game where you can use captured UFOs as X-Com craft, so it would be nice to have some higher-quality top-down views for use in the basescape hangar screen...

[luke83]

Obviously animation is possible with Blender , but i have not even glanced over How to do that yet, so much to do , so little time

[Volutar]

Is it ment to be in game? if yes, it most probably doesn't have a chance to have "destructable" walls and tiles at all.

[luke83]

The only possible use "Ingame" at this point would be after we take images of it from the required angle to create a sprite sheet. Another option in game could be for new Splash screens for loading or backgrounds once Hi-res is supported , this would be  the ART options i mentioned earlier... Like all my stuff , the models will be FREE on my site as i build it, the only other Xcom models i have found online are the underwater tank from TTFD and that was on a Pay site  , i am new to 3D modelling and Openxcom will be use to build my skills.
 
  Really don't expect to much from me here , i am new to modelling and i don't have much time to preactise so i am sure others could do much better , this is working towards my Goals , OXC can Benefit from anything i make whilst learning. I know what a Bump mapping is but have no idea how to do it yet, i am only just learning how to unwrap models to apply textures currently.

 Just out of curiosity, if you ever wanted to move to 3d models in a Xcom style game but still have them destructible , would you not cut up objects like walls/Hulls into sections and use them the same we way we do now ( to build a wall you have 2+ sections of same models in wach grid , if one gets damaged , remove that object and replace with damaged version of itself)?  Just to be clear, this is not the intent of my modelling....


getting closer , colours are wrong , still looking for the right textures...

[moriarty]

just to get the scale of the craft and UFOs right, does anybody have a full list of the dimensions of those? or maybe screenshots of the mini-map layouts for comparison? EDIT: made some mini-map screenshots and attached them.

while the interceptor and firestorm don't have battlescape layouts, we can compare their sizes from the basescape hangar pictures. EDIT: attached

EDIT: for reference:
- the Skyranger is 13 tiles long. the ramp is simply lifted up to close the rear end, it becomes 1 tile shorter by that, so "in the air" the skyranger is 12 tiles long.
- the Lightning has a diameter of 7 tiles
- the Avenger is 14 tiles long with the ramp extended, 11 for just the hull (which would be the relevant length for aerial battles)
- the Interceptor, from looking at the basescape, should be about 8-9 tiles long
- the Firestorm, from looking at the basescape, should be about 6 tiles in diameter

- Small Scout - 3 tiles diameter
- Medium Scout - 7 tiles diameter
- Large Scout - 15 tiles end to end
- Harvester - 15 tiles diameter, height 3
- Abductor - 15 tiles end to end, height 2
- Terror Ship - 15 tiles diameter center section, height 2; total width 27 tiles
- Supply Ship - 25 tiles length, 15 tiles width, height 3
- Battleship - 25 tiles diameter, height 3


now what's the length of a tile again?
EDIT: apparently, there's a lot of discussion about the length of a tile... from what I read and see, I think I will assume that a tile was designed to be 1 yard long by those crazy brits that made the game and will therefore simply substitute that with 1 meter, because I hate weird fractional conversions (1 yard = 0,9144 meters).

looking over those sizes, I would say that the human craft are undersized. A modern fighter jet is around 17-19 meters long, while the x-com interceptor craft is at 8-9 meters using the above calculations.

[luke83]

I am in the process of fixing the  Ratio of that current UFO, i am working on 1 blender unit = 1 tile (roughly , i am just counting the Grid behind the model), one we have a few models it should be easy to import them all into 1 blender file and scale them all down to whatever size you want...

[moriarty]

I've added some info to that post of mine above... looking at it again, I think the human craft are undersized. A modern fighter plane is 17-19 meters in length, while the x-com interceptor craft is only 8-9 meters, about half that size.

My guess is that the original game design was once again limited by the engine: the craft would have to be twice the current size, making them too big for the battlescape. so they simply opted to make them fit the battlescape, screw the actual dimensions.


as for the "skyscape" dogfight replacement, I guess it doesn't really matter. the relative sizes are pretty clear from the material we have, and I would go for the following tile sizes for the sprites:

1x1 tile: all human craft, small scout, medium scout
2x2 tiles: large scout, abductor, harvester
3x3 tiles: supply ship, terror ship, battleship

actually, the supply ship and terror ship would perfectly fit a 3x2 tile size, but I wouldn't want to be the one who has to figure out the mechanics for turning non-square units on the battlescape, especially facing diagonally

using 3x3 tile units is something new for x-com. we will have to come up with something clever for creating and organizing those sprites...

[luke83]

Human Cruiser will need to be 2x2 , i am looking forward to modelling this   You cant say No ever, its on the BOX art, they just forgot to put it in game

[Warboy1982]

i'd suggest that a battleship can accurately be described in a 2x2 area, and everything else can be scaled accordingly.

[moriarty]

@luke: "human cruiser" - I think that box art is actually supposed to be the avenger. 

@warboy: if we put the battleship at 2x2, the interceptor is going to be like five pixels long, and the small scout is going to be a single pixel  . no way. if 3x3 sprites are technically impossible, we will just have to live with the sprites being not to scale

[Warboy1982]

nothing is impossible, it's just that they won't work properly without adjustment to the code.

[luke83]

@luke: "human cruiser" - I think that box art is actually supposed to be the avenger. 

Hey , i have seen the avenger , that's not it, i want a Cruiser    If it makes you feel any better , i will build the aliens a HIVE ship also

[pmprog]

I don't see any problems with the sprites not accurately representing the scale.

I assume LOF data will need to be created too.

[moriarty]

I guess we'll make the 1x1 sprites for a start, then try a 2x2 sprite, and then try to figure out how to make a 3x3 sprite. it will be using a whole lot of tile sprites, but the drawing order should be pretty straightforward, I guess.

luke, maybe we should create a "damaged" version of each craft involved, don't you think? when a craft or UFO has reached 50% damage, the "damaged" sprite is used instead? or maybe we could use the shader instead to tint the craft red. that would certainly be a lot easier

[pmprog]

or maybe we could use the shader instead to tint the craft red. that would certainly be a lot easier

Are the shaders available outside of the OpenGL implementation?