Bridge Commander Central
BC Forums => BC Modding => Topic started by: fox105 on November 30, 2010, 03:55:17 PM
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Hello everyone,
I'm looking for advise or help with this Banzai class assault shuttle, it was designed by Paul Cargile a while back. I've always thought that it was mean looking shuttle that would be fun to have in BC. Recently I had tried looking for it again, I came across Paul's friend Darren Sexton (CEO of SEXTON DESIGN Graphic Services).
They had a .3DS mesh of the Banzai and was more than happy to give it to me and the permision to use it. However, besides the minor texture difficulties I encountered, the file is simply too big for bridge commander (3.5 megabytes >_< ). I beleive the problem is it is divided into too many individual parts. I have looked through tutorials and stuff, but I couldn't find anything to really help cut down the number of individual 3d objects there were.
So, I'm looking for anyones advise or help, can this model be salvaged and converted for use? Or is it scrap and there is no saving it? Due to its filesize, I can't post either the .3DS or the. Nif format here, I would have to email it to anyone interested in looking at it.
In light of the upcoming Organized Christmas mod releses this year, I understand that this shuttle wouldn't receive help till next year. But I thought I would at least get some advise...
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Here's what it looks like currently, after I tried to fix the textures somewhat .This is in .nif format....
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Rest of the pics. It looks alright I think, I hope it doesn't have to be built from scratch again... :(
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Nice lookin
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very nice looking :)
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VERY very nice looking!
Can we get a few wireframe shots?
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I like this alot.
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Alright....wireframes....
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I'm not sure how this helps but here is a few more....anyone interested in helping? :help:
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Wireframe views help to determine if it has to be rebuilt or not based on how dense the mesh looks. It looks like it might have to be rebuilt for BC. That looks too dense...unless you weld a whole bunch of points together and remap it, but I wouldnt know how to do that. Im no modeler.
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Right,so much for the Banzai.... :facepalm:
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Right,so much for the Banzai.... :facepalm:
Not so fast! One rule of BC Modding NEVER give up! ;). What we're saying is you can cut polies where ever you may need to, or don't be afraid to start again from scratch, see what you can shave off in polygons and use textures to make up for it. What you've got looks great right now! You can use it for high quality renders!
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Thats the thing, I only assembled it, Darren Sexton gave the model to me when I asked permission to use the Banzais design. Spent several hours trying to texture and put it together, but it just has too many polygons and I'm not sure how to deal with it... :help:
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just how many polies are we talking?
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A grand total of 97629 ! equaling to 3.5 megabytes, I'm begining to think that the model was just meant to look pretty.... :lostit:
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haha BC has gotten 50K poly ships in it before but they don't damage well at all and are only good for well eye candy. lol
the highest poly count BC likes IIRC is like in the mid 20K
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If that were the case, why cant I get it to load?
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that depends, what exactly is your problem?
Unfortunately, "I can't get it to load" isn't a good enough answer for us to help you fix it. There are any number of problems that could cause issues that fit that description, not all of them are directly linked to the model itself.
What exactly does it do when you try to load it ingame? Where do you encounter the problem?
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You can easily cut down a lot of polys off of that. It doesn't even need that many to look pretty. That can easily get down to under 12 or even 10K polys.
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Well, do put it simply, when I select it in quick battle and the game tries to load it...
game exits, plain and simple. No error messages, no critical failures, no blue screen of death...its just exits. I use the same method to test it as I always have, simply replacing which model the ship.py file uses. I've tested several starfighter models using the same method.
All that I can say that is really different is the file size, The Banzai is 3.5megbytes....everything else is under 300 kilobytes..... also my gmax poly counter it at 97629........ :hithead:
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Hi, how did you convert it to a NIF? you will have to have the correct BC settings. Niftools has a BC preset.
Also 97629 is not under 10K it is 98K (rounded up).
I personally would if it were me remodel it and apply the same textures to the low poly model.
Don't give up I had to scrap my first ship JJprise mk1 and start again. But I got there in the end and so can you.
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Right, guess I'm tired and confused now, I'll see if I can take an axe to the thing.It came to me in .3DS format, using Gmax I converted it to .NIF. Gmax does have a BC setting for convertion, I mention before that I have converted starfighters and successfully run them in game. But they were at much smaller filesize.....
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That isn't under 10k bro... 10k = 10,000 your model is 97,000 so under 100k.
EDIT: I've been ninja'd
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Okay, I butched it down to just over 50K poly count, down to 1.8 meg and it still doesn't load.... :banghead: What is the largest recorded model filesize to be loaded into BC?
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What size are the texture maps? and how many are there? and for a shuttle even one as large as that, 50k is way over the top, I reckon I could build that in 7k(3500 polies), and it be clean. Not that im offering mind but you should look into it. And when you say 50k polies are you sure thats a poly count? because if its a poly count then 50k = around 100k Triangles, and thats the important item there. Triangle count.
Good luck.
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The textures equal to about 450 kb....as for the polygon count, well as I mentioned before, I didn't build this model, and that I suspect the high poly count is because it came in too many freaking parts: Upper hull, lower hull, impolse vent, reactor grill, windows, extra vents, targeting sensors, torpedo launcher, landing gear, pulse phaser cannon, forward phaser arrays, navlights....... and so on..... :lostit:
I've been trying to figure out a way to combine all the freaking pieces into a single model, no luck there, attempting to reduce the poly count by optimizing gets it down to a 50K poly with irreparable texture damage...
Also to be clear, I'm not a modeler, all I have is Gmax, Paint shop Pro and Nifscope. I doubt I'm qualified to make a decent Banzai model from scratch. :hithead:
As it is, I can't do anything with it...I'll try to upload it in th public mesh section of BC: Files when I have free time...thanks for your advise guys, but I can't hack it... :facepalm:
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Yea MarkyD does awesome little ships :yay: He'd be a good match up with this one. I hope it gets done, looks like it ought to be canon.
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Yea MarkyD does awesome little ships :yay: He'd be a good match up with this one. I hope it gets done, looks like it ought to be canon.
Thanks mate :)
Also to be clear, I'm not a modeler, all I have is Gmax, Paint shop Pro and Nifscope. I doubt I'm qualified to make a decent Banzai model from scratch. :hithead:
As it is, I can't do anything with it...I'll try to upload it in th public mesh section of BC: Files when I have free time...thanks for your advise guys, but I can't hack it... :facepalm:
The reason the textures go screwy mate, is because the optimise is throwing the UV coords all over the place, it would definately need to be remapped after it was optimised. you would then need to clean the hell out of hit to get rid of mesh errors and then start to play with your smoothing groups. To be frank it is far too much effort and it's easier and much more fun and educational to build it from scratch.
When I mentioned texture size mate i meant the resolution, sorry I should have been more clear. Send me the mesh in an email to: akami@hotmail.co.uk and I will use it as a ref to build it for you in less than 7k. I will only do this if there is enough requests for the ship.
So how bad does everyone want this?
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I like it, you and do good work, we are blessed witth a number of Great moddlers Here in this community.
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I'd love to see this shuttle!
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we dont have enough small assault shuttles do it marky u can do it
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Well, its on its way to Marky,
Hopefully we can get enough support for the shuttle, and that marky will have enough freetime for it. He's still working on his Danube runabout last I check.
Also I want to thank everyone supporting this not so little assault shuttle. Its bigger than a runabout... :D
To Marky: I'm aware that optimising messes up the UV and texture, but I was desperate just to get the bugger to load.
The answer to your question, my largest texture map is 512X 512 equal to around 500kb. But thats nothing...
The largest file size ship I have found so far is CyAn1d3s Gen2 Constitution (1.0) at http://bridgecommander.filefront.com/file/CyAn1d3s_Gen2_Constitution;116862
The model file itself was 1.18 meg and the texture map was 2048X2048 at up to 16megabytes a piece, the total of all the texture maps was a whooping 200 megabytes.....
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the filesize itself doesn't matter, it is merely a function of the poly count and texture size as well as the complexity of the model.
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So how bad does everyone want this?
To quote one rather insane and genetic engineered fake Admiral from DS9..."That's a stupid question!" :D
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:funny
*cookied*
oh, and yes please marky :D
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:funny
*cookied*
oh, and yes please marky :D
Wow no kplzthnxbai??? :P *runs for the hills*
Wouldn't mind having it either...looks quite nifty :D
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This is one of the nicest looking designs out there... I say a definite must have.... you have my vote :yay:
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Ok guys, and thanks for the praise. I will have this done, but will make the mesh more detailed than it is currently, more technical and less flowy if you know what I mean. I now have the original mesh to ensure I get the main shape correct, textures I was thinking more defiant type ones? tough looking plating etc, think it would look nice. Again as always it will be under 10K triangles so like the runabout it will sit at 5.5k polies.
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That's great news to come back to, Hooray for Marky! :yay:
The Banzai now has a chance to jump from design board to Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards :D
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Thanks mate,
I was looking back at the first page, at the original sketches and at that size comparrison and it seems way off to me. On Paul Cargile's orig sketches he said the banzai shuttle is 15.2m long and 8.2m wide. Then in the comparrison for scale image it shows that it dwarfs the runabout.
The runabout is supposed to be 23.1m long and 13.7m wide so the banzai shuttle is actually smaller than the runabout which would make sense when you look at the size of the cockpit. If we are going for the larger scale (Blackfoot) Varient, the cockpit will need to be re designed to be alot smaller otherwise it will look silly. I will throw that out there to get a feel for what you guys think.
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I suppose its a bit wierd for it to dwaft a runabout, I think we should keep to Paul's original design. Sounds like the Delta flyer size, just make it a bit larger than the Delta Flyer. Then we can keep the current cockpit design, but thats my opinion :D
EDIT: The model we have is missing the impulse drives Paul design, think it should be fixed?
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Well, impulse engines pretty much mandatory for starfleet vessels afterall so yes lol. Can't go anywhere fast without them at subwarp.