Topic: Born of Frustration???

[DestinyCalling]

Ok, this goes out to anyone that will read it..... I love all the work you guys are doing and have spend a long time (no adsl) downloading various ships n stuf but fella's, heres the beef...... Resizing....RESIZING, constructing and other stuff....

First off, why is it that no program whatsoever has any support for MOD files.... argh!!!!  Now I know what you're thinking. "What about Lightwave or 3D Studio max or even Milkshape??". Well I'll be quick with this, too expensive, TOO EXPENSIVE and you cant import break files into milkshape.... PODDLE.

Get this though, an Idea....  I have just spent the best part of a day converting all those lovely 24-bit textures down to 8-bit, why I hear you ask.... I decided to download Khaliban's superb 1701-A, there is only one problem with it, its just too damn big.... 1024 textures are fine but the model weighs in at a painfull 24meg when used in the game.... 24MEG, THATS NEARLY HALF MY VIDEO CARD MEMORY.... so here's what I did. I imported the texture files into Photo Paint and converted them to 8-Bit, the model still is 7 meg but at least it doesn't slow down th game whenever it shows a little damage......

To Khaliban, I apologise... The model is fabulous but too weighty for my meagre system....

So what am I to do..... I wont be forking out £2000 (I'm in england you see) 3d Studio or Lightwave...... You cant use Truespace, Milkshape, CorelDream 3D (a golden oldy) or even "Simply 3D".... So I guess I will be giving up. In fact to be honest thats not too bad an idea since I cant actually use 3D packages, brain does not compute... Though when I'm done designing the Phoenix (3 perspectives I can do), you're all welcome to have a go at modelling it......

Right, thats my fume over.... oh, and I still cant add Dreadnoughts in Shipedit V3.00 or v3.99...    

[DestinyCalling]

Bump.....

Even though nobody will tell what it means.... !!!!!!  

[Khaliban]

I'd drop the texture size if I could, but i don't think the program supports jpg.   I could run some tests.  I don't wnat the model to kill anyone's system.

[DestinyCalling]

PLEASE, DONT GET ME WRONG........ I dont want you changing ANYTHING!!! Just because I have an old creaky PC, that doesn't mean everyone does....

Besides which, all I did was convert 16million colours into 256..... and you only get a microscopic drop in quality that you tell notice ingame..... They're still bitmaps, just 256colour ones.....

Hope you dont mind..... Keep up the good work!!!!  

[Khaliban]

Well, I modified the mod a little.  I reduced the illumination maps to 8-bit, and I added texture only LODs.  The madel is the same, but now it has three sets of textures.  The LOD3 textures are also 8-bit.  At that distance, you can't tell.  LOD1 eats up about 16Mb, LOD2 about 5Mb, and LOD3 about 2Mb.  It's a partial improvement until the LOD models are done, but it'll help.
Download here: http://www.3ddownloads.com/?directory=/strategy-gaming/sfc/Khaliban/
The Fca2 file again.  I deleted the original.  The new version also has an update to the nacelles, but you have to look close to see it.