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Topic: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?  (Read 4244 times)

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Offline Norsehound

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Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« on: December 10, 2010, 05:25:23 am »
Hi all

I've always been fascinated with the top-down wire-frame graphics used for the damage control and system readout panels in all of the Starfleet Command games. Even if they aren't perfect I still like them.... so much that I've gone to painstaking lengths with screencaps and mirroring of gutted ship profiles just to get at the clean graphic without any systems!

But I wondered if there was an easier way. Is it possible to extract and read out the assets responsible for the top-down UI assets for all the ships and objects ingame? Or are they hard-coded and so far beyond reach?
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Offline FoaS_XC

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2010, 05:50:41 am »
Marstone is working on the Sprites.q3 file or whatever it is called. There will be a time in the future when we can add and remove those graphic elements (as well as buttons and what not), assuming marstone continues. For the time being, however, they are out of reach.
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Offline Norsehound

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2010, 06:48:16 am »
So, still hardcoded. Rats.

Thanks FoAS :)
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Offline marstone

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2010, 12:43:55 pm »
Quote from: Norsehound on December 10, 2010, 06:48:16 am
So, still hardcoded. Rats.

Thanks FoAS :)

Norsehound, take a look here.
(actually, look at attachment below  ;))
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Offline marstone

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2010, 12:46:49 pm »
Quote from: FoaS_XC on December 10, 2010, 05:50:41 am
assuming marstone continues.

Yes, still diddling with it, but my development machine is still messed up.  We have it running, but crippled at the moment.
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Offline FoaS_XC

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2010, 02:27:32 pm »
Anything we can do for ya?
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"When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life."

Offline marstone

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2010, 04:24:31 pm »
Quote from: FoaS_XC on December 11, 2010, 02:27:32 pm
Anything we can do for ya?
well, not really.  Unless you have a spare 700 watt or so power supply or computer laying around.

Will have to limp through with our machine short a few drives as my powersupply can't put out anough power. 
At least until at least February, hope to maybe have alittle cash then to get a machine that runs better.  Mine is over seven years old now.  It is tired.
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Offline marstone

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #7 on: December 12, 2010, 12:52:07 am »
oops, looked in that image archive.  It only has four images.  Thought I had more, the size should have tipped me off, wasn't thinking.  Here is a larger one.

ui images.zip
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Offline FoaS_XC

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #8 on: December 12, 2010, 11:03:59 am »
my question is how does the q3 file name them?
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"When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life."

Offline ShadowDiver

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2010, 11:39:22 am »
Quote from: marstone on December 11, 2010, 04:24:31 pm
Quote from: FoaS_XC on December 11, 2010, 02:27:32 pm
Anything we can do for ya?
well, not really.  Unless you have a spare 700 watt or so power supply or computer laying around.

Will have to limp through with our machine short a few drives as my powersupply can't put out anough power. 
At least until at least February, hope to maybe have alittle cash then to get a machine that runs better.  Mine is over seven years old now.  It is tired.



Umm...

I  will send you a PM...
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Offline marstone

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2010, 12:22:17 pm »
The Q3 doesn't actually name the images. There is a chain of assets that end up "pointing" to the image by the offset into the Q3 file where they are stored.

It would go like this. When I added the Kzinti CL (the UI ship you made for me that one night). I set up an asset, named say ZCL_HORIZONTAL. This asset holds the location on the screen of the image and a reference to an image asset (uses asset number as a reference instead of names for this type). Then you make the image asset that holds the information about the image. It could hold a name for the image, but not always as it isn't actually used. It also holds the offset to the image and the size.

So long story short. They have names in the Q3 (they all end with bmp even tho they are not in a bmp format). Not all have names (normally when they have a set of images only the first has a name), and the names are not used internally.
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Offline FoaS_XC

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2010, 12:26:25 pm »
oh, so the first "locator" asset is what the game/shiplist uses to point to? IE: if i were to add a UI and have the locator asset called "TCA" then in the shiplist, if i were to enter TCA on a ui field, it "should" work?

doesnt much matter, just kinda thinking out loud
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Robinomicon
"When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life."

Offline marstone

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #12 on: December 12, 2010, 01:14:25 pm »
Yep. The game take the ship ui name from the shiplist and appends endings to it to access the different ui parts. It is all refernced through the top level assets (first ones in a tree) that are referenced by name.
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Offline Norsehound

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Re: Top-down Starship UI graphics...where to get?
« Reply #13 on: December 29, 2010, 01:10:45 pm »
Wow, thanks Marstone!

Seems like all the graphics here are from the in-game UI. Per-chance has anyone located the same line drawings for the ship viewer? Those are the largest of the line drawings i've seen, and I don't think they're blowups of what's in here.
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