Share your archived Non-SW Custom OPT files

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Re: Share your archived Non-SW Custom OPT files

jmarso
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Post by jmarso » Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:30 pm

Here's one last one: the Pegasus. This one won't work in game yet because the mesh count is too high. I'm going to have to take the model back into Blender and see if I can join some segments and get the mesh count down to within the game's limits. I also haven't placed any hardpoints or anything like that. I have a nuGalactica model as well but for the life of me I can't get the texture files to map properly to it.
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Post by jmarso » Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:31 pm

Pegasus
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Driftwood
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Post by Driftwood » Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:49 pm

Also by the way Jmarso, I'm not sure if you are aware but you should open each mesh of a given model in edit mode within blender and select all, then using 2.82 (2.79 you delete doubles) hit alt+M (merge function) then click by distance. This will delete any extraneous "duplicate" vertices (vertices sharing 1:1 space). This can significantly reduce the vertex count of your model and increase performance with no loss in quality. Additionally if you have an overly detailed mesh that could do with significantly less faces you can run a decimate function on the mesh, there are three different options one uses degrees, one uses a ratio of 0-1 (ie reduce by .75 would be a 3/4 reduction. And several other settings within the three you will need to play with to get desired results (if viable for said mesh).

Doing all these things can significantly reduce the vertex, face, and tri count if done right to no visible detriment and save massively on performance.

Not sure if you're having issues with performance, but that hammerhead fighter looks like it has a high face/vertex count and I can't see the model stats on your screenshots in opt editor but just looking at them I could see them being overly detailed.

For instance, just getting rid of the extra vertices I just took a model from 400+ objects, 60k vertices, 120k faces, and however many multiple tris to 10k verts, 19k faces, 19k tris and 18 objects. Well within the realm of viability for a higher detailed shuttle sized transport, and I haven't even ran a decimate function on some of the "simpler" details to reduce the vertex count further.
Shame the model needs UV and textured.

Also, I prefer 2.79 over 2.82 simply because I'm more familiar with the function, and 2.82 entirely changed the interface and changed how materials and textures are applied (now you HAVE to use nodes which I'm less familiar with) rather than the simple assign and select files from a simpler interface function I'm more familiar with. Apparently this gives you a lot of easy "user friendly acces" to features in regards to rendering but I've not figured it out yet really so I'm kind of pissy right now, and of course you can't open 3dmax. Thankfully you can still access older versions. I do however think the latest version runs smoother and looks much nicer, but it's more UI intensive and figuring out what is what, and where your tools went is particularly annoying.
That said, I've only used 2.82 for a few hours, and I've spent the better part of a year and a half on 2.79 that I just got competent at using; back to square one.

Perhaps try opening your models in blender and see if you can reduce the vertex and face counts on a per mesh basis where appropriate and see how much more you can optimize them.

Point of reference you can load an equivalently "classed" (and detailed) XWA opt to your BSG (or whatever) opt, say a fighter and see what the vertex counts are. If the XWA one of similar detail is 1k vertices and yours is 3k vertices see if you can reduce the mesh details without sacrificing visual appearance to reduce it farther.
Hypothetically fighters base models should be relatively low detail since more will be rendered comparatively to a capital ship, things that will be used in smaller numbers should be lower detail whereas things that will be used once (station, super cap) could be significantly more detailed.
This is merely a rule of thumb, and there is some leniency. For instance the Sphyrna Corvette model Warb did that I converted is like 1.5k-3k vertices whereas an X-Wing model I'm working on (with advanced base model) is 12k vertices. Spyder's T-70 I think is 10-15k vertices and nobody notices (assuming they're not on a potato) performance drops.

That said there are some seemingly hard limits and I'm not 100% sure it's dependent more on your system or what the game itself can handle before your system stutters or the game crashes. Vertex counts seem stable in larger opts to around 30-40k vertices assuming there are only one or two in a region. I have successfully imported an opt around 100k+ vertices without any visual issues only to have the game crash in five minutes in due to the game just not being able to handle it; which is disappointing because it was a nicely detailed Eclipse Super Star Destroyer fan model that ran fine in EAW.
Fighters and transports seem okay between 1k and 20k vertices depending, I haven't pushed things much farther than that since I've set myself some pretty basic guidelines for performance optimization. Plus timewise there's nothing more disappointing than investing several hours into converting something over to have it fail to function properly.

Sorry about the wall of text, but these are a few things it's taken me about two years to figure out converting open source and abandonware models to work with and now be more efficient within the game engine. Contextually when I started the limits were much much lower too. And they really were all found by trial and error and a handful of google searches, perhaps there's a better way I haven't figured out but these methods seem effective. Hope it saves you some performance and time.

Photo editing wise I'd invest 60 bucks in picking paintshop pro 2020, I had X5 and had to upgrade because I can't find my installer anywhere and my involve is dead linked (bastards) but I've been using the program since 2017 and it's way more user friendly than GIMP, more functional than paint, and far cheaper than adobe photoshop. The amount of hours you'll put into texturing (or trying anyways) will be worth it.

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Post by Ace Antilles » Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:09 pm

jmarso wrote:
Thu Apr 16, 2020 11:38 pm
Hey, post a list of what you've got!!
That's the problem I don't know as it's 20 years old mess.

I've added though the old Cylon Basestar beta that was created in 1999 by Steele. It's not finished though.
Cylon_Base_star_beta.zip
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Driftwood
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Post by Driftwood » Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:24 pm

Here's a bunch of entirely random old opts ranging from I think Wing Commander, BSG, Trek, and I dunno.

Everything should have a readme and credits, but I had to do some deep digging for these so no promises.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NuD0n ... kyEOkz2t1d

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Oldcode
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Post by Oldcode » Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:31 pm

Hey there,

Here is the TOS Battlestar Galactica ship set.

It includes...
TOS Battlestar
TOS Cylon Baseship
TOS Cylon Raider
TOS Viper Mk1

http://www.mediafire.com/file/5xe150mjw ... t.rar/file

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Post by Vince T » Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:59 pm

@Jmarso, you'll be happy to know I've decided to un-retire some of the Dhilani fighters with the launch of my new website, which will, hopefully go along with the release of the upgraded VSD.
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Post by jmarso » Sat Apr 18, 2020 5:14 am

Anyone who wants copies of them, just PM me an email address and I'll zip em up and send 'em.

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Post by Darksaber » Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:34 am

Sorry we don't do emails, upload them like the other guys to Mediafire, Google Drive or Dropbox there are plenty of free file hosting websites, please google and read about them
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Post by jmarso » Sat Apr 18, 2020 4:05 pm

Well, it was meant to be sort of a trading post where people could list what they had and users could PM files back and forth for personal use. I didn't want to start a new thread to put screenshots in, so I put them here.

The problem I have with posting these online is that even though the models were free downloads from various sites, the modeling and most of the texturing isn't my work and I don't want it to be mistaken as such. So as I mentioned in the OP, if any of you want copies of these opt files, PM me an email address and I'll zip them up and send them to you.

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Post by Darksaber » Sat Apr 18, 2020 5:42 pm

If you include a text file with each craft giving credit to the person who originally made the craft there wouldn't be any mistake, if you not willing to share these craft in a normal way i.e. a file hosting site what is the point in this topic.

Plus what if people don't wish to share there email with you, or want large files coming through there email, the simplest solution would be a file hosting site, everyone remains anonymous and they can download these files at there own leisure. Also we don't know who you are, I'm not saying you are, but its possible your some creepy little scam artist just waitng to pull a fast one!
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Driftwood
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Post by Driftwood » Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:10 pm

Generally speaking most authors are pretty up front about how you can use their stuff. If it's on a 3d file sharing site usually the site has a licensing structure that the author can utilize if they don't have their own usage "policy". Or they simply state use it how you like, just credit them as the original author. Most people also don't share things online for free if they don't expect other people to use it. Most authors that aren't proactively trying to make money off of their files are satisfied with credit, unless they have an agreement with a third party for asset exclusivity that would preclude you redistributing it. Some merely want you to ask first.

Most of my stuff is derived from other people's works such as Warb_Null, The_Farseer, Barraganap, YVAW team, ect. All of them have a free useage w/ credit to original author. That is however a general rule of the EAW modding community by large though. Some I just used and credited, some I asked to use their stuff because it wasn't explicitly stated either way what their use policy was.

I generally follow the format of:
Model: Warb_Null
Additional modelling: Driftwood
Textures: Warb_Null
Additional textures: Driftwood, DTM, DS
Opt: Driftwood
Additional Opting: DTM, DS.

This covers the basis of either people proactively contributing on it, or merely allowing use of certain assets pulled from something of theirs.

So far I've had no issues using other people's assets, and even some of the more proprietary ones will let you if you ask nicely and give appropriate credit.

If there's nothing explicit stating you can't use it, just credit the original author and don't worry about it. If there is something explicit regarding "how" you may use/redistribute, then usually the best thing is to either follow "the rules" or contact the author to try to circumvent the rules with permission as is prudent; if you're still determined then there's really nothing they can do about personal use with no redistribution.

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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:19 pm

jmarso wrote:
Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:31 pm
Pegasus
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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:00 am

Driftwood wrote:
Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:49 pm

Sorry about the wall of text, but these are a few things it's taken me about two years to figure out converting open source and abandonware models to work with and now be more efficient within the game engine. Contextually when I started the limits were much much lower too. And they really were all found by trial and error and a handful of google searches, perhaps there's a better way I haven't figured out but these methods seem effective. Hope it saves you some performance and time.

Photo editing wise I'd invest 60 bucks in picking paintshop pro 2020, I had X5 and had to upgrade because I can't find my installer anywhere and my involve is dead linked (bastards) but I've been using the program since 2017 and it's way more user friendly than GIMP, more functional than paint, and far cheaper than adobe photoshop. The amount of hours you'll put into texturing (or trying anyways) will be worth it.
Thanks man, it may not seem like much to you but there were a whole lot of tips in there I knew nothing about. Those tricks to reduce the face and vertex counts may make some of the 'problem' models workable as well.

I may look into paintshop. I've been learning my way around GIMP but it's a slow grind. My first experience with Blender is 8.2, and I'm finally making some progress with it so I'm not going to try and regress. The node / material system isn't too bad once you get used to it, and the Principled BSDF shader they've put into this latest version is one-stop for a lot of texturing stuff, just using sliders.

Anyway, I've learned a crapload in the past few weeks. Watching internet tutorial videos, it never ceases to amaze me how fast some people are with this software and how they can just make it sing. Crawl, walk, run I guess.

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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:34 am

Darksaber wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:34 am
Sorry we don't do emails, upload them like the other guys to Mediafire, Google Drive or Dropbox there are plenty of free file hosting websites, please google and read about them
I've used mediafire in the past but it's been a while. I'll see if I can dredge up the author / permission info and then bundle them all up and post them. I'll post a link when it's done.

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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:38 am

Got this Chig Fighter working, but it's a WIP. There is some weird effect going on- when I shoot it, I get screen splashes like I'm being hit. When I disabled it, I got the crackling ion effect in my own cockpit. Very weird.


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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:40 am

Low poly model of the Cheyenne dropship from Aliens. Got some cool markings on it but the base texture doesn't look so good.
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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:42 am

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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:43 am

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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:43 am

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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 4:25 am

General_Trageton wrote:
Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:59 pm
@Jmarso, you'll be happy to know I've decided to un-retire some of the Dhilani fighters with the launch of my new website, which will, hopefully go along with the release of the upgraded VSD.
Sweet! Is the new site up and running yet or is it all still a WIP?

I really like all your designs, but especially the Dhilani ones. They look 'alien' enough to be great villains, if that makes any sense. :P

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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 4:31 am

Driftwood wrote:
Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:49 pm
Also by the way Jmarso, I'm not sure if you are aware but you should open each mesh of a given model in edit mode within blender and select all, then using 2.82 (2.79 you delete doubles) hit alt+M (merge function) then click by distance. This will delete any extraneous "duplicate" vertices (vertices sharing 1:1 space). This can significantly reduce the vertex count of your model and increase performance with no loss in quality. Additionally if you have an overly detailed mesh that could do with significantly less faces you can run a decimate function on the mesh, there are three different options one uses degrees, one uses a ratio of 0-1 (ie reduce by .75 would be a 3/4 reduction. And several other settings within the three you will need to play with to get desired results (if viable for said mesh).

Doing all these things can significantly reduce the vertex, face, and tri count if done right to no visible detriment and save massively on performance.

I'm chuckling right now because I'm thinking about all the re-work I've got to do on those hammerheads. Just tried a quick and dirty attempt at your suggestion above and it works like a CHAMP! I can decimate the hell out of that sucker before it starts to look overly deformed.

I'll bet the Chig fighter is where it REALLY pays dividends, though. That model is a frakkin' mess.

I had the hammerhead down to two opts based off the same model- a Navy version that was more fighter (110 base speed w/concussion missiles), and the Marine version that was a strike fighter. (100 base speed with torpedoes).

The thing that sucks when you change a model is that you have to re-convert it to opt and redo all the hard points, although it goes quicker with the old version as a reference for copy/paste of hardpoint coordinates and such.

EDIT: Aaand, literally knocked the vertex / face / tri count on the Hammerhead models down to 20% of where it started with no significant loss in shape. In fact, I think it looks a lot better in-game. Went from 40K vertices down to slightly less than 8k. Until today I didn't realize that a fighter with that high a vertex count would probably bode ill for the game, but I would have figured it out the hard way when I made a mission with a few flights of hard-chargin' hammerheads all going at once.
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Post by Vince T » Sun Apr 19, 2020 8:44 am

jmarso wrote:
Sun Apr 19, 2020 4:25 am
General_Trageton wrote:
Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:59 pm
@Jmarso, you'll be happy to know I've decided to un-retire some of the Dhilani fighters with the launch of my new website, which will, hopefully go along with the release of the upgraded VSD.
Sweet! Is the new site up and running yet or is it all still a WIP?

I really like all your designs, but especially the Dhilani ones. They look 'alien' enough to be great villains, if that makes any sense. :P
Still WIP. With the new site I'm basically merging the contents of VXHQ, the old Blue Phantom Project Site and the Blue Phantom Wiki. I will open it with the release of the VSD, which I believe should be sometime within the next month or so, to give you a rough ETA.
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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:05 pm

General_Trageton wrote:
Sun Apr 19, 2020 8:44 am


Still WIP. With the new site I'm basically merging the contents of VXHQ, the old Blue Phantom Project Site and the Blue Phantom Wiki. I will open it with the release of the VSD, which I believe should be sometime within the next month or so, to give you a rough ETA.
Sweet!

If there is going to be a spot on your new site for non-SW / miscellaneous opt files, I can give you all these oddballs I've cooked up to put in your downloads section, once I've confirmed permissions from the original model authors. It used to be nice to have sites to find game resources for making non-SW related XWA mods and such.

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Post by jmarso » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:28 pm

Thanks to JeremyaFr's plain-English translation of an error message in the texture thread of the editing forum, we can add this baby to the list:
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