Custom Starscapes

[Death Shadow]

Well... topic really says it all. Are these regular .tga pictures? And where do I find them? Thanks!

[Snip3rNife]

Do you mean the skyboxes you see when you're in space?

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[Death Shadow]

yep

[Treewyrm]

It's a model actually with large texture(s) on it. Some starscapes are just simple spheres with texture on it and polygons facing in. Other starcrapes are more complex, have asteroid belts and planes with big stars/etc. You can check them with HardCMP by opening starcrape models. I suppose you can use cubic or any other form if you want. Though sphere produces best effect and less visible seams but a bit harder to paint for.

Generally those things are called "skyboxes", a term appeared around unreal engine and it's dynamic sky.

[Death Shadow]

ok thx. Any idea how i would get the texture into a program such as Paint Shop Pro or GIMP?

[Treewyrm]

ok thx. Any idea how i would get the texture into a program such as Paint Shop Pro or GIMP?

Mmm? Do you want to make new texture or what? Making new skybox textures depends on what effect you are trying to archive. For generic starscapes I suggest getting shots from extensive collection of Hubble pictures, even original Freelancer used them (like that "eye" galaxy in O-5 box and many others). Use GIMP or whatever suits you best to make panoramic texture.

There are more sophisticated programs made specifically for textures, like Texture Maker (previously known as I-Tex).

[Death Shadow]

yes, but how to I find the texture file inside the .cmp model?

[onca]

Generally those things are called "skyboxes", a term appeared around unreal engine and it's dynamic sky.

*BZZZZZT* ... the term "skybox" goes all the way back to Doom.

Anyway.

[Treewyrm]

*BZZZZZT* ... the term "skybox" goes all the way back to Doom.

OT: It was "skyplane" back then or "parallax background", because it was just a horizontally seamless texture. Skyboxes appeared much later, with Quake II and Unreal, Q2 had exactly box covered with textures while Unreal used separate part of map projected via camera point to player view, including everything that happened inside.

yes, but how to I find the texture file inside the .cmp model?

I'm currently trying to figure how to make new skyscape with the help from Denelo. Once I'll make my "skybox" I'll post how to do it.

Everything seems to be pretty easy, except that I can't find where do they keep transparency info... it made me think that the models use vertex channel for transparency... Can anyone confirm it?

[yurineova]

Ok, I'm late as usual, but let me give ya the low-down on how the universe REALLY works;

Your ship is floating in a giant bubble. This sphere moves with your ship, and only the inside is textured. Naturally, the model uses either a .TXM -Or- a .MAT file. Either file can be cracked for .tga/.dds files to be edited.

But be forewarned; Messing with a texture of this great size can cause massive lag on your machine, as more complex pictures and such slow down some machines. Just edit the beloved background of a certain system, and there ya go.

I highly suggest you use DDS format over TGA. DDS is smaller, and has better capabilities in complex detail without sacrificing too much memory.

If possible, PNG is always the best choice. Small and highly detailed.

If this helped, great. If not, sorry.

EDIT:

yes, but how to I find the texture file inside the .cmp model?

The Texture is NEVER in the CMP file. There are 3 different files;

CMP - Ships Model.
MAT -or- TXM - Texture compressed file. Use a decompresser like UTF EDIT to open it.
SUR - Hitbox, and possibly the wireframe for advanced targeting.

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