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Ufo:am Reference Documents


Fnurg

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yeah, documenting 1,2 gigs of data takes time, and since i brought it out i better help sort it up :rolleyes:

when i get a day free ill put together a 3dmodel viewer, but i dont think that will happen until the spring of 2008. and by then the biomass will have caught me already. got so much to do... :tank:

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LOL!

i know the feeling. I was thinking of having a look at the 3d model files as well. Ive noticed that some are ascii txt files and the others are binary but contain exactly the same structure. Should be fairly easy to create a little tool to convert the files into obj or something else and then load em up in an opengl viewer or something.

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i started writing a bit last night about the things are still missing in the spec, some basic things for the game for example, such as fonts and music styles and so forth, ive only started to look on the 3dmodel format, i think im gonna ask a friend to do this, if i get him hooked i might me able to pursade him to write a 3ds max exporter
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Hehe. its nothing great. I was currently thinking of starting off with wavefront obj files because their structure is dead easy, but to export all the models i'll need to put in 3dsmax support to handle all the bones and pivots and such.

 

currently got the obj handling and opengl rendering in place, just a matter of reading in the binary and ascii ufo model files now (eeek!)

 

thanks for that tip about flexporter. looks very interesting indeed!

 

you'd better still get your mate to write one as well. im not sure how far i'll be able to get with this project (first time coding 3d stuff)

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Im using a trial version of leadview. www.leadtools.com

 

It aint brilliant, but it outputs the tgas in exactly the same format that UFO uses.

 

Dont forget you'll have to edit a model file to apply the texture. I'd really love to know how you get on with it :rolleyes:

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Hell! I only want to put in some new Inventory art! ATM my plasma grenade is using the Incendiary grenade art for the inventory, but I was thinking of possibly using a pic of the plasma grenade from Fallout... Nothing "technical", I'll leave all the difficult 3d stuff to people who actually know stuff! I'm about as artistic as your stereotypical accountant, my graphical abilities plateau out at stick men...
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haha. you made a plasma grenade as well. seems like a popular weapon :rolleyes:

 

thanks for the info on the tga files mipu. that might just be the reason why my graphics dont show up ingame. going to test that now. god i pray it works :tank:

wonder why leadview said it was 32 bit.

 

im exactly the same way Llama8. No artistic talent whatsoever. I just altered the colour of an incendary grenade to blue. hehe

 

EDIT: nope, didnt work. Double checked the textures. I notice that some are 24bit and other are 32bit.

The 2d textures in the game require an alpha channel (hence the 32bits), whereas skins in the game dont need the alpha channel (thus 24bit).

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well i hope it isn't so, but in FREELANCER it is the way that the programmers have *.tga files for ingame textures, which are in fact Direct Draw Surfaces (DDS).

 

 

Remember this game like most others is based on DirectX.

 

If thats so we might have to save the files for textures in DDS Format.

 

Dunno if i have the time to verify this in the next days.

 

For reference see https://freelancer.mipu.de/freelancer-12.html.

 

sorry, only in german

 

cu mipu

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Fnurg,

May I point something else out regarding your excellent ref. docs (which you may well know already but haven't had time to update yet)?

Research Tree:

Elements is actually/also referenced from the r&d file itself (listoftech & listoftechno).

Equivalent, some events (like Witnessing Psi in action) are required for certain techs. However it is possible for an item (like a psi stinger) to be used instead of the event.

 

 

Creatures:

Conspicuity, how easily seen this creature is.

Threshold, how poor the creatures senses are (chompers have a low threshold & are good at spotting your men, same for Reticulans).

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Mipu :

Well, i've had a look around a few of the tga files with a hexeditor. All had the "TRUEVISION X-FILE" header (located a the very bottom of the file) and not the DDS header. so i think its safe to assume that they are all straight-forward tga files. Well, as far as i know anyway :rolleyes:

 

LLama :

Yea, updates are very slow at the moment. So little time :D

Thanks very much for the updates. I had no idea what Conspicuity and Threshold did (havent had time to test a lot of these out).

Uploading the changes now :tank:

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