Homeworld2 (2.0) [Update: SVN Public]

[Homdax]

Crazykushan, I doubt this can be release as a patch, at least not as a patch as we normally think of it. it will have to be released as a mod, and be installable as a mod.

Guys, when you have almost all done, get in touch with me, I can look in to an auto extracting script or maybe even a setup file for its distribution. Done similar stuff before.

[Ammon Ra]

Not to sound impatient, but, eta on version 1?

[Turambar]

it'll be a bit, we do need to do every ship, as well as work out a couple more technical problems.

[adamstrange]

Are you also going to do Torpedos,Platforms,Probes and Collectors ?

[Silver_Wolf#]

Adam their going to do them all(at least I've seen one Ion cannon platform thrown around earlier in the thread) so be patient. Hmm if said ship is completely made up of existing ships/components it could work but I didn't discover the shader and as such I can't tell for certain (logic dictates that it should but logic isn't that precise)

[Mantaray]

surely if its made out of parts of ships, it would be a different hod file requireing manual glorifying?
unless im missing the point

[JMScomp]

surely if its made out of parts of ships, it would be a different hod file requireing manual glorifying?
unless im missing the point

@mantaray He combines stock HODs to create his ships using HardEd. I'm not entirely sure about the process, but I think all contents of the HODs are merged together.

@adamstrange So the ships that you've already made will either have to be remade with these new ships, or their textures/materials simply replaced with the new ones. Which isn't hard with CFHOD, but I don't know how easy it would be to replace them using HardEd (or even if you can).

If you find that you can't replace the textures with HardEd, and can't get a copy of CFHOD running, and don't want to remake all of your ships, then PM me when the time comes and I'll swap the textures for you.

[Sky_walker]

Elu, I completely agree with you!

Turambar - Yes, they are there, but because of they are realistic you don't find them looking like here or here. You have to make realistic bump-maps, not the one which are damn bumpy, so bumpy that ships begun to look far uglier than they did in original Homeworld.
rule no.1 you seems to forget from time to time: Good bump-map is the one makes ship look better, not worse.

crazykushan - nope, there won't be any auto-patch. It'll be simple mod, might be with installer.
Homdax - yup, I made also such stuff, so there won't be any problem, but... question is do we need making installation more complicated when it could be just -unrar- / -unzip- ? Smaller and more user-friendly than installers (IHMO installer for mods isn't best idea)

Ammon Ra - unknown, far.

adamstrange - all besides torpedoes from your list

[CnlPepper]

Just a note on the shaders,so I stop seeing the same question over and over again:

The parallax shader (replaces matte.st) requires additional textures to work, as such it is not a drop in replacement for the original shaders. It doesn't magically work, you have to create the new textures require by the shader.

Any ships that used the original matte.st must be switched to another shader eg ship.st or have new textures made for them. Hence why a lot of the megaliths look wrong at the moment if you simply add the new shaders.

The normal ship shader (ship.st) is essentially just an upgrade of the original. It only uses the original textures for the most part, except for the addition of a gloss map using the red channel of the $glow texture. If you use the old textures with this shader it will work but the ship will have a very low gloss value, ie it will reflect the lights brightly over a wide angle. Filling in the red chanel with a red of ~110 will give you approximately the original HW2 glossiness.

[Turambar]

rule no.1 you seems to forget from time to time: Good bump-map is the one makes ship look better, not worse.

i think, for fun, i'm going to have my own take on the progenitor dreadnaught, to show how we do things a bit differently. the way you seem to be using your normal maps, why not just get a blank 128,128,255 color and use it over the whole ship? the point of the normal map is to catch the light and show off detail. with the dreadnaught, almost all of the detail that would do that is inside the panels with the mechanical bits. for the rest of the surface, i think i'd add a very slight surface texture on the bump map.

[Homdax]

Sky...I use WinRar to distribute a selfextractable package (with custom icon, info text, start-menu short cut, custom image) that copies in the files, wherever HW might be installed through user input, preferably in .BIG format, and automate the custom short cut creation. I don't use MSI if I can make it easier. It is not complicating anything, it is *only* making it easier for users. Especially those who might have problems sorting out the short cut parameters.

And believe me, as webmaster of the PDS site, I have both created an extensive tutorial for this and, despite the tutorial, answered questions about the short cut parameters several hundred of times over the years.

[Sastrei]

I agree with turambar, sky_walker. While some of the vgr ships do have exaggerated bump maps, at least there is something for the player to see. I took a look at Balcora and it's really difficult to see any difference.

Besides, it's worth it for now, since the whole vgr fleets been done for a week. I can just dilly dally now while I see how to get the most out of the normal maps.

Oh and personally, I like the hammered metal/war-beaten look that the vgr ships take on with their new maps.

As to the installer. Yes please! Working with the BSG team, I've discovered just how difficult it is for people to understand how to copy a folder. Easiest for them just to double click an exe.

-Stefan-

[Turambar]

well i'm really not sure i like the lumpy vaygr, myself. doesnt take too much effort to run a map through crazybump and call it done.

if you're going to do battle-scarred, do it on purpose.

[Aemilius]

Another question... Will you include that dark map seen on the video? It would be great...

[Turambar]

so, the rough skin

yes, no, or tone it down.

[Homdax]

Sastrei, I take that as an order that I will comply with. Don't bother about BIG file, if need be I can wrap it up myself.

Great work guys! Cant really say that enough.

[TON_Viper]

Another question... Will you include that dark map seen on the video? It would be great...

I made a dark map for the Babylon 5 mod inspired by the same idea. It's on the SVN if you want to try it.

@Turambar - I say maybe tone it down a little. As it is now it reminds me a bit too much of a concrete block.

[sinhosie]

Turambar

It needs to be toned down...

[CnlPepper]

I agree, toned down. Considering the size of the ship the features of any rough, say concrete-like surface would be very fine. If you shrink the noise map to a 3rd of its size and reduce the height it would probably look better.

[Turambar]

ok, what would cause a texture that i changed on a ship to appear pure white in-game?

[Aemilius]

I made a dark map for the Babylon 5 mod inspired by the same idea. It's on the SVN if you want to try it.

Okay, what's the SVN?

[Turambar]

the main texture, which is the side of the dreadnought works just fine.
the secondary texture (which is 512x128 and covers the top, trim, and the fins) refuses to use the matte shader for some reason. also, when i replace the glow/shine/gloss texture with one that i make, the entire thing becomes bright white.

any help with those problems?

[TON_Viper]

Okay, what's the SVN?

You can find the info here: http://www.thegamingunion.co.uk/foru...ad.php?t=15122

[Sastrei]

Some new screens.

http://www.maj.com/gallery/sastrei/G...te/ss00104.jpg
http://www.maj.com/gallery/sastrei/G...te/ss00097.jpg
http://www.maj.com/gallery/sastrei/G...te/ss00107.jpg
http://www.maj.com/gallery/sastrei/G...te/ss00088.jpg

Turambar, make sure your mipmaps and texture sizes all match the original. Other than that...not sure. :-.

-Stefan-

[Sajuuk333]

alpha channels OR a video card!

[sinhosie]

Sweet Sastrei...

[Avathar]

looks very good, its that i can make out the hw2 ships otherwise i would say it isnt.

[L@pt0p Guy]

comes out white the whole texture ya?
look at the second page of this thread for my pic
compare the two.

also i suggest
try modding the bentus textures like i did. i have the same problem. try to see if you can find anything similar with the two ship textures that could help you findout whats wrong.


but if you ask me i think its because the texture proportions is so extreme. like the width is 4x the height. (bentus is even worse if memory serves)

from my experience any thing where the width and height is the same or 2x bigger than the other works fine. but any more than that it goes horribly wrong.

[Ruppetus]

You Guys are amazing.
Cannot wait for this to be finished.

[Sky_walker]

Turambar, read this! I posted it so that there wouldn't be 2 people doing that same thing. Not 'just like that for fun'.

Any way, here is official Progenitor Dreadnaught, still under construction, but looks like Turambar forced me to post it.

Show large image

what is under construction

For primary texture:
gloss map needs some work (very few, but still), and custom normal map is half-done. Also Diffuse and Spec maps needs a bit of basic work.
For secondary texture:
all done

And please, don't do such things Turambar, imagine that ppl put their work here, not for you to post stuff you clearly know that is under construction. Thanks.


Sastrei - very nice screens
Oh, and ok, you tested it, so if you find it bit too flat then I'll get back to it today So... expect remastered Balcora and Sajuuk

Another question... Will you include that dark map seen on the video? It would be great...

No, this mod won't include any new maps, ships, weapons, game mods, or whatever.
This map was added only for tests, but I guess if you want it it could be released in separate .big

[Sastrei]

Sky_walker, do try to be a bit more constructive in your critiques, please. I admire your dedication to the project, and your helpfulness, but I keep seeing snide indirect comments and some general rudeness, such as your last comment towards Turambar.

It doesn't hurt to have two people approach something differently to see which one looks better. This is for the community after all.

-Stefan-

p.s. - I apologize if my tone comes off as "haughty"

[Inferny]

Perhaps post a list of all models that are going to be updated, and then people's names beside them, on a first come-first served basis, would save a lot of troubles (I would hope a list like this already exists somewhere to manage which models have been upgraded/ are being upgraded).

[Sastrei]

Good idea Inferny. I've added one to the SVN, with what I could remember of who had what.

-Stefan-

[Ammon Ra]

Don't forget asteroids & debris.
Also, are dust-clouds compatible with these updated shaders?

Speaking of which, bump-mapped engine/weapon trails? xD

Yes, i'm being completely silly and irrational.

[Turambar]

again, sky_walker, what has changed?

only thing that looks different is that it's using the new shader.

the point in me doing the dreadnaught is that we have different ways of doing things, and i wanted to have common grounds for comparison.

about how Turambar's dreadnaught is different

also, thanks Laptop Guy, that did the trick.

[Sky_walker]

Sastrei - my critiques was about 2 ppl not doing the same things. This way we will never finish that mod And adding list to SVN won't change anything, as even now Turambar knew that I'm on this, yet he made what he did.
Oh... and that list on SVN isn't very helpful too few info there. Better keep it going we have way now and don't start walking on other's stuff, this way all will be fine, smooth, and with no any further problems
Turambar - You see what you want to see. End of discussion. This doesn't lead to anything.
Ok guys, end of this topic as this doesn't lead to anything constructive. Focus on making ships (which aren't reserved) instead of chatting.

Uki, new topic,
Ammon Ra's stuff: On Sastrei's list there are no all ships, but rather info that I make keeper stuff, and he does Vaygr - nothing new. But yes, we will make asteroids and debris
Also: Some stuff can't be made using new shaders. In this we have all FXes and weapons projectiles (like torpedoes).

Still IHMO we could try making special effects as weapon shots, glows from Ions, and so on in higher resolution, this could make them looking nicer and is relatively easy to do. On the other hand it can make game use lot of GPU power on things that aren't see often & difference would be visible only in maximum zoom-in. So all depends on what PCs this mod is going to aim. If it would be uber-high spec one then there would be no problem.
What do you think guys? Good idea?

[matariel]

hmmm anybody notice a strange LOD problem with the new shaders? objects seem to disappear from view at a much closer distance than with the old shaders; specifically asteroids and the such.

I'll edit in some pics soon.

Strange yeah? As well, I assume the url for this mod's svn has not been made public as of yet?

I'm getting curious about seeing the new normal mapped ships in action

edit: oh I see, ok after a little testing I see what the issue is. Basically I'm comparing hw2 with B5WWE running on top of it to hw2 without B5WWE running on top of it. What happened is that B5WWE lets you zoom out further than vanilla hw2; lod distance is actually still the same just the camera is able to zoom out further which fooled me.

[Sky_walker]

Nope SVN isn't and most likely won't be public till release.

Hm... I don't see any issue with objects disappearing from closer distance. o_O

[BrettMan]

This looks fantastic guys. Can't wait to download this.

[Sastrei]

matariel - What are your system specs? I occasionally notice my ships autolodding at a lower distance and wonder if it isn't HW2 going wonky trying to compensate for the increased performance cost of the normal-mapped ships.

sky_walker - Of course it's not very helpful yet, the list has what *I* could remember of who has what ship. You're supposed to add to it. Same goes for Turambar and Supernova. This will also let it double as a source for the credits list, eventually.

-Stefan-

[matariel]

I have an 8800 gtx 768mb with a core 2 quad 2.8 ghz and 2 gigs ram; plenty of horsepower.

But yeah I found out the problem was actually the camera's ability to zoom out further fooling me; if anything, it would be nice if the b5wwe team adjusted the global lod distance parameters to compensate for the camera's ability to zoom out further.

[Sky_walker]

Could be some wrong impression because of more visible change of ship when it uses new shaders to not-using them model?

About second thing - yup, got it. We'll see. Hopefully we won't need additional paper work to fill And for the list of credits SVN log can work well (well, besides Turambar's stuff).

[Kapyrna]

As far as specs, I have a 2.4gHz quad, 8600GT 512mb, and 4gb memory. I don't expect to use that to the fullest, and I would think optimizing the mod for a 2.0gHz processor and something like a x600 GPU will give us the best balance between prettiness and power required.

Esentially, which component will have the heaviest load with these modifications?

[matariel]

here I'll show you:

without b5wwe:


with b5wwe:


I think it's plainly obvious which one lets you zoom out further, anyway its fine; its a minor problem for homeworld 2.0 but probably something to think about for b5wwe

as well I agree with kapyrna, plus how much would you have to change in order to start seriously lagging gamer rigs these days?

[Sastrei]

Ah, okay. We had the same problem on BSG and I had to correct the fadeout distance for the colonial fleet.

I assumed the fault was with HW2 either way, but I just wanted to check. I've got a GeForce 9600GT, so no danger of running out of horsepower either.

Stick a bunch of glow-casting navlights on a ship, that'll kill even a modern comp. O.O

-Stefan-

[matariel]

sounds like bad shader codebase to me

And if you guys don't mind i'm gonna go ahead and normal map some of the ghenna asteroids. Hope its ok?

[Sky_walker]

Hm... matariel, you had copied some of B5 mod files which make you possible to unzoom so far. I just checked it and in current Homeworld2 2.0 version outzoom is proper, unchanged compared to vanilla HW2.

[L@pt0p Guy]

:Turambar
no probs
anything to help out this amazing project

[Supernova]

The shaders do not modify the zoom distance. This is an 'issue' (see feature.) of the B5 code base not the HW2.0.

Sky_Walker I'm a bit disappointed with your attitude to be honest, and I'm not terribly impressed by your work thus far. The dreadnought looks almost identical to vanilla, as does Bentus and Balcora, I think I prefer Turambar's dreadnought. I found your response to Turambar's dreadnought illustration a bit juvenile as well, and found your 'remember the normal maps should make ships look better not worst' comment a bit poor in taste. Turambar was simply showing that you can have large features with the normal map and still make the ships look good. It wasn't a personal attack, it was a constructive criticism where he showed you that there is another possibility.

I also don't agree with CnlPepper about removing the shading/spec from the color map. Here try this, remove the shading, then multiply an AO Pass and what do you end up with? The old diffuse map with shading, so don't worry about the original maps, they are well made and look great, just worry about the normal/gloss maps please.

Sky_Walker, please, be less critical of others work and more constructive not simply "I don't like this it should be this way," this is still my project and to be honest I much prefer Turambar's approach. If you have further comments please take them to private messages.



-----------------------------



Ok, as to everyone else. I haven't had a chance to look, but as far as I can tell only the ships and possibly asteroids can use the new shaders. The missiles seem be forced in to using ship.st so unless we want lods at long ranged to still be running the 350 line parallax shader (...this would probably get real ugly real fast...) missiles cannot be updated. Weapon effects cannot use the new shaders, then again I'm not sure why they'd need to? I have a cool idea that I may try tonight when I have access to my main machine in regards to weapons, though it may turn in to a slide show...

Anyways back on subject, dustclouds and features like that can't be updated with the new shaders. Basically the only things that can be are ships.

Oh and we may include a more polished version of the dark map at some point.

Sorry for not posting anything recently, I'm in the middle of moving residences so I don't always have the ability to work on the project or respond to messages.

[Sky_walker]

Sure boss Will do
My issue was mostly about other ships (so I went offtopic at some point... bleah) not about Progenitor stuff, but yep, looks like you are right, just re-checked it - compared ship from vannila HW and new, and... yea, looks like Progenitor stuff needs far more 'bumpy' normal maps than other ships. This adds some issues with paralax mapping, but currently am sorting things out on Progenitor dread (made some progress with it, so it's far closer to complete than on that screen which was "half-done" in matter of normal-map, as I said.
So yes, I have to agree that for Progenitor stuff "large features with the normal map" are good things
Sorry Turambar if you felt bad because of me.
I was just poking about abuses of normal maps, and de-facto you was right about increasing intensity of normals. Thanks to you I'll make my stuff better, so thank you very much
/me goes between the shadows and falls asleep