Previews from the impatient

Discuss and distribute tools and methods for modding. Moderator - Grognak
PrinceStolos
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby PrinceStolos » Sat May 10, 2014 2:59 am

Nice work, Rockman. I've been tampering with Remastered's art design in weapons from the sM Polish Kit and some from CE. Nothing quite worth showing yet, but I like to think I've made a fair bit of progress.

Personally, I think the gray design for the UI would best match with the original UI design in FTL, but I'm not complaining on any of them, I think they all look alright.
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R4V3-0N
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby R4V3-0N » Sat May 10, 2014 3:08 am

You can't simply make a tutorial...

It will differ hugely in some cases on what software you use...

Also it is all about personal preference and talents. Someone should maybe make a basic starter vid on how to do some things, but besides that. well...

Anyway, Good job Sleeper Service.
The ai race look awesome, just how will it fit with the lore? Like is it just a random faction that will be in every sector attacking everything or?..
R4V3-0N, a dreamer.
hilariouslijah
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby hilariouslijah » Sat May 10, 2014 3:47 am

From what I have seen of the AI faction they exist in some awful sector which stuffs your Life Support and eats away at your hull with acid clouds :ugeek:. And I redo my question: Sleeper Service, what program do you use to make your absolutely wonderful ship hulls?
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R4V3-0N
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby R4V3-0N » Sat May 10, 2014 4:21 am

I'm not Sleeper Service but I know he uses (or for some parts at least) GIMP 2. It's a free editing software most people use for ships due to it being good and free.
R4V3-0N, a dreamer.
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Sleeper Service
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby Sleeper Service » Sat May 10, 2014 11:25 am

Yep, Gimp seems more than sufficient to splice ship IMO. Some other tools might be better suited if you draw them up from scratch, which I never do (the AI ships are spliced from the metal parts of the crystal ships entirely ;) ) Some people also pointed out that modeling ships in 3d with sketch up can be and then taking a top down screenshot of them can be a very effective way to created decent ship hulls. This probably would involve some further processing with image processing software, but the great advantage is that you can have real light sources in sketch up, so the lighting and shadows on the ship hill will be perfect from the start. I never got into that procedure, but it seems very valid for me. On the other hand, it seems guys like taxi service can draw up perfect shadowing by hand. I wonder how you are doing this and which tools/functions you use?
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R4V3-0N
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby R4V3-0N » Sat May 10, 2014 12:33 pm

It is hard to do a 'perfect shadow' considering that this is space we're talking about and realisticly speaking there are light sources from every direction.

or you can leave it at light at all in some areas.

I do not know, but this is one reason why some vanilla ships seem to have there shadow opposite direction then other ships.

BUT shadow makes the ship have some contrast and look better.

A way to be a good splicer, is to make your work look like original or unrecognizable, for example this thing I've been working on.

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One way to use it is use parts that is not very recognizable, editing key parts of some areas, slicing from ships that isn't very popular to splice and added other parts to it or drawn on parts and editing to make it look completely different.
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Sleeper Service
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby Sleeper Service » Sat May 10, 2014 1:03 pm

R4V3-0N wrote:It is hard to do a 'perfect shadow' considering that this is space we're talking about and realisticly speaking there are light sources from every direction.

I was referring to the way vanilla handles shadows as the "perfect" result here. in vanilla FTL, shadows provide a lot of contrast and depth and flow naturally. They are usually dropped from a single light source that appears to be positioned in front of the ship, to the right:
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R4V3-0N wrote:I do not know, but this is one reason why some vanilla ships seem to have there shadow opposite direction then other ships.

Yeah but most enemy and player ships obey the above rule. Including your sexy piece of awesomeness you made there :) . I think the stealth cruiser might be the only exception to the rule, it appears to be lighted from the left side instead of from the right side.
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R4V3-0N
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby R4V3-0N » Sat May 10, 2014 5:28 pm

I was planning to hold the Type C away for the mod, but I think I'll share it. ;)

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hilariouslijah
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby hilariouslijah » Sun May 11, 2014 1:58 am

Thanks Sleeper and R4 :D. I have GIMP but never realized that it was good for splicing :x. Thanks again!
P.S: That ship you have there is truly awesome...... :shock:
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Russian Rockman
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Re: Previews from the impatient

Postby Russian Rockman » Sun May 11, 2014 3:36 am

hilariouslijah wrote:Ok, first question: Russian Rockman, could I use that Kestrel loading bar for Flight of the Damned?


Go ahead!!!, anyone can use that if they want in any way they want. I think that should have been the loading bar since the beginning. ;) I love the Kestrel, it's so classic.

You should be able to download it from my dropbox, but tell me if you have any problems.


PrinceStolos wrote:Nice work, Rockman. I've been tampering with Remastered's art design in weapons from the sM Polish Kit and some from CE. Nothing quite worth showing yet, but I like to think I've made a fair bit of progress.

Personally, I think the gray design for the UI would best match with the original UI design in FTL, but I'm not complaining on any of them, I think they all look alright.


Thanks, I made all of those up in literally like 15 minutes when I saw this thread had just been created. I do think the grey matches pretty well with the vanilla white, but I also like the Teal. A grey kind of background way meant to be for the Lanius. I had this idea that you could switch out what colors you were using depending on the ship you're currently doing a run with. Also, those colors are meant to be used with BPAB because of it's brighter backgrounds, in regular vanilla the grey might not show up as well.

Anyway, I realized when trying to decide on a color that everyone has a different preference so I thought "Why not just make a whole bunch of different variants?" If anyone wants a specific color scheme I just need about 4 colors, one for the letters, one for the outline of the letters, one for the standard filler, and a lighter version of the filler to create the slight gleam Remastered had.



I have gotten all of the Remastered stuff %100 working for AE, albeit with my own personal tweaks to it. I don't use any of the weapons, drones, warnings, or ship recolors from Remastered though since I use CE and they wouldn't match otherwise. Plus I like the vanilla style, I wanted a happy medium between the Remastered stuff and vanilla.

I have actually gone one step further and completely redone every single menu, button, and other such things with my new font and color. (Thanks to slowriderxcorps giving me every thing he had done in that area and giving me the extra push to continue that) I don't have much time to do anything anymore so it might be a couple months until I'm completely done, but I am about %80 done I'd say.