OK, pm me when you are ready.

ok.. i am wily to test this... i am working on project on my own but need some relax from that and just paint would be good... i painted a test image just to show how i CAN do this..
This image is done on one hour so don’t judge me to hard.. the design is not thought thru at all and i just started from nothing thinking of nothing.. but maybe it can show something..? ^^

Possible ship parts... one hour work just for testing..


I think i can handle painting 4 ships a week in this "quality" and if there will be only too of them then i can make better than this.. i can make different types of metal to and lighting and so on..

just a random little imput, you dont usually fake lighting on skins, you let a bump map and normal maps do that kind of wee detail, faking lighting can wreak havok when the light doesnt line up with the 'cooked texture'

this is no heavy lighting and this would be a game with over 100 models in view at the same time.. then I don’t think you will think "ohh.. that ones lighting does not seems 100% ok.." often you don’t notes the lighting on that small details if you not playing a game maid in indoor areas like in doom3... try to apply this texture to a model (not that I think it matches that good on any model right now ;D ) and it will look like the scarves in the metal actually are small scarves... nothing more.. And the lighting on the "window" are maid just so that you don’t need a alpha map and don’t need 2 models with one transparent and no shadier to make it look like a window.. it is not perfect now.. But it can be used ... especially in a Strategy game... and if I get more time than one hour I can probably make something better than this…
I always fail lighting on my models when I don’t use normalmaping... it gives life to more details.. Often you can calculate from witch directions the light most often comes from and then even create small shadows... and if there for one reason is an light from beneath the model then it is often very "SHARP" (there is no reason to have an that special lighting if it is no reason to it and then you often wants the one who sees it to notes it) and then overruns all other light shadows painted on the skin.. and if there just is an explosion then the light comes and goes that quick that you don’t have the time to think of it.. But yah.. This skin is probably not perfect.. ^^ .. I will have to put it on to a model to see how it works... i never really maid a spaceship before.. and i think that i can get mush better on the way ...

A low polygon model like those often used to strategy games does not have that good lighting on its own because of the low polycount and then need some helps on some parts ..

dude im just saying, that they suck in programming and hat suck my di** is meant symbolic

It's going to take me a while to get everything together. Real life is busy at the moment. I am going to get the documentation all squared away first, that is what I am working on now. I decided I better get that done first with Handbooks for the members to be able to refer to. I am going to make the Handbook very detailed so be patient with me. I want everyone to know exactly what is going on. After I get that done, I will contact everyone and get the models rolling out.

EDIT: Hehe, I just found a very very old CD of my first attempts at this game from back in the dark ages. b3dgs (before 3dgs) even. Actually my first attempts at the game is what eventually lead my to 3dgs. This old code was based off of Andre' LaMothe's book "Tricks of the Windows GAme Programming Gurus." It took me a while to even figure out how I had the controls working. BAsically, each ship had a certain number of moves per turn. You would select the ship by left clicking on it, then A Icon of the ship would show up at bottom of screen, you would l-click on on this icon, then you could move the seleceted ship 1 adjacent hex at a time from the ship up to the number of moves the ship could make. When you were done moving the ship, you would r-click on the icon of it at the bottom of the screen to end it's movement for that turn (very important). Then you could end turn or select another ship, then l-click it's icon and do it all again for that ship. After you moved all your ships, you would l-click the TURN button and you could start moving all the ships again.

Edit: I just figured out something else, after the ship was selected on the map and you l-clicked the icon, you could then r-click on the ship on the map and it would should the weapons' fire-arcs, heh. Who knows what else was in there. I don't remember it all.

Man, that was a long time ago. The one thing I remember well about trying to make this game was how hard it was to make the hex system fit together right and the stategic map was a real nightmare too. Also, trying to get Dplay working wasn't fun either. I just happenned onto this old cd, .

Anyway, if you want to see why I started searching for engines, this would probably show you why. The mouse scrolling was really touchy for sure. It was also 2d. Yes, the good ole days. First Galactic Uprising Attempt

I think the first 3d engine I tried was 3dRAD, which wasn't what I was looking for, then I found 3DGS, which has been my mainstay since then. Other than some old Commodore64 games I wrote, this was my first attempt at game dev in the new millenium.

Loco