Tie Interceptor finished and textured :)

Well, here's the finished product. What does everyone think?



I think I've finally got the Lightwave surfacing process down.
Coming up next: a regular Tie Fighter.

Oh, and here's an in game screenshot.


mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (coming 2004)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

Hey, pretty good! the model seems very detailed, can you tell me what polygon count / texture size it has?
I'm actually tweaking the new cutter (you can see 2 works in progress on the other topic) so i'm interested..

Good work

Griffon(75)

Looks good! I'm looking forward to working with it.

We'll need a null at each of the 4 gun positions on the "wing tips" so we can make the bolts fire from there.

I'm guessing the bolts should be green?

Do you have any sound files we can use for the engine and bolts?

What about engine flare? (I don't remember ever seeing anything like that in the movies or other games)

Have Gun, Will Travel

Thanks guys.

The model is broken down into 3 parts. 2 reusable (for other Tie ships) and the wings. The parts, counts, etc are:

• Main hull - 291 polys - 2 textures.
• Wing struts - 202 polys - 2 textures.
• Wings - 352 polys - 3 textures.

Most of the complex details are in the textures (a little Photoshop magic). Compare the finished, untextured model in this thread...

www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1472&whichpage=2

...with the textured one here, and notice where the detail was added. The meshes are the same. The texture sizes are unusually large right now because I, ahem... [], forgot to change their resolution before packing them into pso's. It should only take about five minutes to do anyway. And none of them will be larger than 512. However, I must say that the large textures it currently has have had no adverse effects on the game.

I've got 4 nulls at the main gun points on the wing tips and two in the original gun positions under the window. I don't have any sound files these days, but I do have a list of resources from when I used to do animation. I'll check them out. I've also put two small red engine flares on the engines. The movie Tie Fighters had these, but they were very hard to see unless you were looking for them. I've made the flares quite a bit larger than the movie versions (see pic below). I figure since this is an interceptor it must have more powerful engines. According the so called "history" in the reference book I'm using; "...it is faster than any other fighter in production," and "...can literally fly circles around X-wing starfighters." I would however like to link the flares to the throttle animation, if Shane would be kind enough to tell to me how. I've looked very closely at the setup files, but I can't find any parameter changes in the key frames. It may just be the parenting of the lights to the animation chanel itself that does the work, but I don't know the name to use for the animation chanel null.

As for flying it, I've hooked the avatar to the standard Storm Petrel INI. And man, is it sweeeet. It's so small that, if you're good, you can literally dodge incoming fire! And missiles don't stand a chance. Which is good, because with no shields one missile is all it takes. It should make for an awsome challenge in MP. Getting hit, of course, will knock you around some. But the light mass makes a fast recovery pretty easy. I'm really looking forward to seeing what MajorTom does with these new ships.

btw - MajorTom, you probably didn't see my post in the old thread. Where do you want me to send these?

Tie Interceptor engine flares.


mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (coming 2004)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

Originally posted by Second Chance

I'm really looking forward to seeing what MajorTom does with these new ships.

Me to

Sorry, I didn't see the question where to send it.

my adress is:
mailto:mjrtom@FoilTheSpambotSt-online.de]mjrtom@FoilTheSpambotSt-online.de

(remove "FoilTheSpamBotS")

About the flight model:
I would like to give the Tie a flight model (handling charachteristics) simular to the Executer class Interceptor in EOC. Not because of the name simularity but because of my imagination how the Tie would handle.

We have a pilotable Executer class in the what_rocksv2 mod called the Sea Gull. The way it handles is distinctly different than the other ships. The way it turns is... hard to explain, you'll have to fly it to see what I mean.
(btw. the name Sea Gull is based on it's flight charachteristics and not the bomb load it carries)

The collision hull of the large_corporate_interceptor is huge compared to a storm petrel! It seems logical to assume: the reason for the difference in handling charachteristics is the position of the drive null in relation to the center of mass (gravity) of the collision hull (we know the engine uses the collision hull for mass calculations)

The Tie is a very little ship so if we use a scaled down collision hull I dunno if the engine will recognize enough offset on the center of gravity to have an influence on the flight model.

Do the models really have to be that little? Why not scale them up so we can use the engine functions more effectivly? The main thing would be, imo, the models should keep their size relationships to each other.

Edit: that would also alleviate the problem with getting knocked around to a certain degree. As far as dodging incoming fire goes there are other means to achieve that /Edit



Have Gun, Will Travel

Sounds good, but the Tie's got it's own collision hull. You don't have to use it of course. Or, I could always move the rotation point on the model.

Which engine functions are you talking about? The game engine or the ship engine? I'm not following you.

Oh, and getting knocked around isn't a problem. It's fun! You can recover really fast, so it's just more of a challenge than a nuisance.

I'll make the model however you want, but please just try it out first. Use your flight specs and see how you like it. I've been having just a totally bitchin' time with it in Instant Action.

The files are on the way. I've sent you:

• avatar files
• an avatar setup lws scene
• a systems setup lws scene
• a collision hull
• a blank INI with the null point included

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (coming 2004)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.