(03-21-2021, 09:54 AM)Toaster Wrote: Can - for future reference - a clear reason be given as to why there won't be several variants of this ship?
Freelancer has no technical provisions for swappable materials, on the fly or otherwise. Material references are hardcoded into mesh buffer data upon exporting model, a part of the format structure that cannot be changed. Each 'reskin' effectively produces completely independent ship archetype and necessitates separate model files. This creates additional asset management burden, as any simple change, such as changing stats, would require changing all additional archetypes, changing hardpoints would require changing all models and so on. Maintenance cost increase is unreasonable for what little gain a 'reskin' would provide. To warrant having separate archetype and model the differences must be much more substantial (visible difference in geometry and possibly stats too).
In short it's limitations of both of mesh data structures (3d model) and archetype data structures (game logic object).
Some other games have this and even user-swappable colors and materials, in case of those it is a feature that had to be decided early on and engine had to be made with that in mind, however if a game had no such feature planned the engine, like in case of Freelancer, simply can't accommodate. It may become available later when Schmackbolzen finishes his OpenGL wrapper for Freelancer, right now however it's too early to say what kind of additional modifications would be required to provide this feature.
I have to say, i dont like it.
Textures looks carton-ish and it dont look like real space ship, feel like it wuld fit in anime more like in freelancer universe.
Reminds me on gumball thing space ship from Kingdom Hearts 1
(03-21-2021, 10:47 AM)Skorak Wrote: Duplicated files, duplicated entries etc.
Not true, there is an method for copying ship stats within ini files.
(03-21-2021, 10:52 AM)Treewyrm Wrote: changing hardpoints would require changing all models and so on
You could do achieve the same effect with some .mat files that are unique to the ship. Not an optimal solution, but combined with above would allow for ship variants with relative ease.
(03-21-2021, 10:47 AM)Skorak Wrote: Duplicated files, duplicated entries etc.
Not true, there is an method for copying ship stats within ini files.
I'd rather avoid using archetype inheritance, it's not reliable in Freelancer.
(03-21-2021, 12:45 PM)Laz Wrote:
(03-21-2021, 10:52 AM)Treewyrm Wrote: changing hardpoints would require changing all models and so on
You could do achieve the same effect with some .mat files that are unique to the ship. Not an optimal solution, but combined with above would allow for ship variants with relative ease.
Ultimately each variant would have to be separate .cmp/.3db, each would have to have own mesh buffer even if the only difference are material references, and that's not a way to go.
Blame me for the confusion. I should have stated right away, that there will be only one color variant. I am sorry. I was undecisive what colors to use, that's why I posted 5 versions. I will go with my gut feelings I stick with the second version and maybe with the yellow tint toned down a bit. Also thank for the criticism guys, bad and good alike.