Escape Velocity: Orion

@foreign-object-impact, on Jun 27 2006, 11:10 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

The picture is pretty small but I'm signing up for file den so I can have a larger version.

What's wrong with photobucket? That allows some pretty large pictures.

I suggest you save them as .png for it is a small file and is lossless and PhotoBucket won't shrink it. I discovered this the hard way. I was using .bmp <_< .

This is as big as I can get it even in .png form:

Anywho, I'm working on a space station at the moment and am in the process of adding a few more systems, I'm currently at 42. I've also been roughly outlining the various mission strings, too long to post here so here is just a line or two about them.

Terran Frieght - Equivalent of UNShipping or stellar corp, seems pretty benevolent to beginwith may expand into contraband and smuggling?
Rauther Salvage - A group of asteriod miners and people who explore derelicts and other pieces of junk, maybe stumble upon something special?
Earth Coalition - Equivalent of federation, fairly standard ships, fairly young and idealistic
Russian Republic/Federation/empire - cosmonauts, rivalry and hostility between them and the coalition, about the same standard of ships as federation, slightly tougher and slower, a large amount of corruption in the system
Aldrin Shipwrights - Equivalent of Sigma, independant company, mostly ships a few specialised outfits
Gagarin Dockyards - Competetor of Aldrin, engages in lots of industrial espionage and sabotage, has close ties with Russian empire
Pirates - self-explanetory, probably with other subgroups such as marauders and smugglers
Vigilantes/bounty hunters - citizens who take the law into their own hands

Most of these factions have smaller groups within them like special forces, e.g. roughnecks & bureau, or frontier patrol

A suggestion: don't show everything right now. If you want comments on the graphics, go either to the EV Image Gallery or to the Just Graphics board. If you put everything on here, we'll get the impression you're only working on graphics. And, you see, that is the greatest problems of TC developers: they never seem to get into writing the storyline(s). So once they've done the graphics, they lose interest, and the TC dies. It has happened many, many times.

So here's my suggestion.

Work on the storylines. Graphics are secondary. Don't post everything, or else we'll think there's nothing special in the making. But don't either stay silent during a year, or else we'll be sure it's vapourware.

Take it as you wish, but it's based on solid facts and statistics

On that note, I wish you all the best on your TC, may it reach the public some day.

Don't worry, I don't plan to reveal everything at the moment. Progress on missions, storylines and other aspects of the tc are also going on. I am just posting pictures of things I'm working on so there is some tangible evidence that things are happening.

Anywho I have decided to try something a little more adventurous on wings 3d and have come up with this:

Its not finished by a long way but what do you think of it so far.

Hehe, I think that having Soviet Russia is a very cool idea.

In Soviet Russia you don't haul cargo, cargo hauls you!

And I really like those window effects.

That suit is looking very nice FOI, The next step would be modelling a person into it, which would be a good challenge for you.

I was thinking that I'd use it for an outfit for extra staff or crew members. I'm working on hands and eventually a head for it but that's going to be alot more complicated.

We've also done another three or four missions for Terran Frieght.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I have been away for the last week on my Duke Of Edinborough Silver expedition in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. Has anyone else done Duke of Edinborough?

Anywho, I have made my first attempt at rendering a landscape on Wings 3d. Unfortunately Wings and my ancient computer cannot handle rendering it, even when left over night can anyone suggest a more powerfull rendering program? Here is the unrendered version, Wings struggles to change view on it.

Here is my first rendered landscape from Wings 3d, all I've done to clear it up is adding a proper light on corel paintshop pro, unfortunately my trial ends in a few days so I'll have to do as many as I can in that period of time.

Here is another landscape that is a work in progress:

We've decided to make DHL pivotal to the plot and make their ships omnipresent just like their vans

Anywho as usual feedback is greatly appreciated.

This post has been edited by Foreign Object Impact : 16 July 2006 - 03:13 PM

My brother and I can't agree on the following which do you think is a better option?

1. You start as a human and can choose any of the mission strings and join/leave them as you wish
2. You start as a random character which is a random race and you have follow that mission string

Since we cannot decide, we thought that we'd let you guys decide so tell us which one you think is better, and would be easier to do.

I think 1) would be better, just for the reason that there is no way to ensure that the player wouldn't be forced to be the same pilot again. It'd be tedious if players had to start new pilots until they'd found a string they hadn't been in before.

Also, the 4 landscapes above look pretty good for first attempts. I particularly like the two buildings on the dirt. Perhaps you could change that to be more mineral-ey by adding a bit of other rock colors here and there.

Of all the alien hill landscapes (that's what they look like to me) I like the first, because it seems like it doesn't seem to extraordinary, which makes for a somewhat believable landscape (despite the fact that everything is all gray). The only thing I would change is the color (it could easily by various shades of gray, instead of just one color or even various shades of green, or yellow, or red, etc.), and the light. It blocks the horizon-line, and makes it seems like the light is on the planet (which could be cool if you made it seem like it was some sort of mechanical light source).

I like the idea of keeping DHL around, but what about UPS perhaps, instead? Their vans don't have such gaudy colors as DHL... just a thought.

This post has been edited by Razzle Storm : 19 July 2006 - 07:15 AM

You could probably use the free Terragen download. Google it, it's easier than using wings for landscapes.

@foreign-object-impact, on Jul 19 2006, 03:51 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

My brother and I can't agree on the following which do you think is a better option?...

What's the problem with: "3) You select which race/storyline you want to have using the character selector, and then need to follow that storyline"? This seems like exactly what that resource was designed for.

In a choice between only the two options you give, I'd go for #1, which gives more choices to the player.

Edwards

Well after much argueing (sp?) with my brother, I have managed to convince him to do all of the missions you could do as a human first and see what sort of a reaction that gets when we release a trial version and then decide from people's reactions about the other races.

@foreign-object-impact, on Jun 27 2006, 08:10 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

Thanks I may just have to steal that from you, I'm going to have to work on lighting for my other ships now. Anywho, I've done some more work on that ship I posted earlier and here's the result. The picture is pretty small but I'm signing up for file den so I can have a larger version.

That Ship in black and white looked good but now that its in couler i think you should cut down a bit on the coulering or else your game is going to end up looking like a flying carnival.{no offense}

I don't think it looks like a flying carnival at all.

Hullo again. Here is something else that I'm working on at the moment:

This is eventually going to be a ship, but it might be part of the new title screen. We're considering having the view from inside the ship looking through the cabin out onto a star or something. Bear in mind the final version will be alot more detailed than this. Because you can't see it very clearly in that pic, here is a bigger version of the chairs.

@Newbie 101, yeah I put in the Soviet Blockade Runner, and it stuck out quite a bit with the others so I'm toning the colours down a bit, but I don't think it should be too much of a problem on this ship. No offence taken though

@JacaByte, thanks I think the colours really complement each other on that ship though

As usual, Comments, suggestions, critiscisms, ideas, and feedback welcome

EDIT: One other thing I've been trying to do in wings but failed at is trying to use an image as a texture or material for various faces on my ship, any help would be greatly appreciated

This post has been edited by Foreign Object Impact : 31 July 2006 - 01:38 PM

@foreign-object-impact, on Jun 26 2006, 12:18 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

Thanks One of the other ideas that I have for tc is that the humans are not split into the Federation and rebels, but the Earth Coalition, and the Old Soviet Republic. Like the space race between NASA and the Russian cosmonauts but continuing on a greater scale.

Here is a design idea for the Soviet shuttle. Tell me what you guys think of it.

Great idea, but Is there going to be another "cheaper" version of the soviet shuttle? It looks great but with all those windows, it looks like a small luxury hotel room. :laugh:

@jacabyte, on Jul 31 2006, 12:01 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

I don't think it looks like a flying carnival at all.

Well First of all i dont see why Nasa would go to all the trouble of painting their ships that much unless it was a solid couler with a strip or two. and second if all the ships in the game are coulered that much, ya it may start to look like a carnivel.

{Hey it could all just be me, i could be couler blind or somthing...}