3D artist

Post by **zeusqc** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 1:01 am

Hi! I'm new here but playing the original game since arround 2001... just discovered your site and I happen to be a decent 3D artist that could offer his services for free if I think the project is serious enough.
If you wish to see my last reel, go there;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9dgygykbFU

Did not get the chance to work much on my folio this summer as I had to pay the bills and work hard ;-)

Anyway, thanks to everyone who worked on the game and fixed the bugs etc, you guys are great!

-Denis

Post by **Dr_Breen** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 5:47 am

wow impressive 3d modeling.
looks like i still have to exercise a bit.

Post by **Flocke** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 6:50 am

Looks great! I'm sure people would love to see some work from you in BotF.
Sadly it's still the old graphics engine of 1999 working in BotF and although the code for it has been found, so it could be replaced, it's nothing to be expected in the next few months.
So if you'd like to help improving BotF, you're currently resticted to low level modelling without of special effects or have to render images or videos.

There are also two active fan projects that aim to create a followup. One is named BotE, but doesn't have a 3D combat (and isn't based upon Star Trek anymore) and the otherone is named Supremacy and might take another few years to get ready.
They are both to be found here: http://star-trek-games.com/
You should at least know about them.

I'd say keep here, cause here's the only real BotF-Community and there are still many ways to improve that great game. For example you could render some new structures for the dominion in UDMIII, I believe they are still using the ferengi ones. Those structures also could be shared with other mods and projects.

cheers

Post by **zeusqc** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 10:08 pm

If someone can give me a polycount for the ships and/or buildings plus the size of their textures, I'm pretty sure I could improve anything that needs to be

As far as dominion buildings, I must say my knowledge about them is limited, if not inexistant... if someone can give me a link or something I could probably work something out

Btw I am a french canadian so please excuse any present and futur mistakes in my texts

Post by **matress_of_evil** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 4:50 pm

Wow, that's some impressive artwork you've got there. I especially liked the cathedral and the aliens. The damaged corridors looked good as well, even if they didn't have any textures.

I'm one of the staff members for the site that Flocke mentioned, star-trek-games.com. We're always on the lookout for people that would be willing to help our project, and someone with your talent would certainly be able to help us.

As Flocke said, we're trying to make a followup game for BOTF. I'm most closely involved with Supremacy, although we share our resources with the Birth of the Empires (BotE) team, to reduce the amount of work that needs to be done on each game. We also share our forums with them.

Our forums are located Here if you want to check them out. As with most forums, you'll need to sign up for an account if you want to participate in any discussions, but we don't require you to create an account if you want to download anything.

Supremacy is being developed by Mstrobel, and he's released a working version of Supremacy on our forums. You can find the download post Here. Unfortunately the game lacks an AI, the diplomacy is basic to say the least, and the Intel screen is only a place holder, but I think we've come a long way considering the volunteer-based nature and limited resources of our project. We're aiming to have the AI ready in about a year.

We're actively looking to produce a combat system for Supremacy as well (Which will be shared with the BotE team), and have a working version which is available for download from This Post. It is being developed as a separate, stand-alone program that will later be merged into Supremacy and BotE by CdrWolfe, and is still very early in development. It suffers from a couple of bugs, but Wolfe is currently rewriting the combat system to work with the latest developments in XNA. He had to stop development for about a year whilst he undertook his university studies.

In terms of game content, such as models and artwork, we have a number of people working for the team on a voluntary basis. The models that will eventually be used in the combat system are being managed by Kenneth_of_Borg; his work method is a bit unorthodox, but he gathered as many different models as he could (With permission), regardless of their quality or origin or even whether they were actually from Trek, to fill the shiplist with, so we could be sure the combat system could handle the models. He has now gathered enough models (We have over 400 of them), and is working to improve or replace them with better or more appropriate models. I maintain a thread with renders of all 400+ models as they currently stand Here. (Warning, there's 400+ images to load on that page)

There are many other pieces of artwork involved with the game though. For example, we need images for the Special Structures, and Random Events amongst others. So as you can see, we need a lot of help producing artwork for the game.

As we are a fan-based project, we cannot offer any pay/compensation for any work undertaken. We do however include the names of all contributors in a credits list that comes with Supremacy. Any and all work that is submitted is gratefully received, and is then uploaded to our Sharepoint Site where the content can be managed and maintained by all involved with the project.

We maintain a discussion forum specifically with all of the jobs that are open to anyone that wants to contribute. Most of the above threads can be found within the Jobs forum, which is located Here. Other types of jobs that are open include translation work, composing music, and recording voice acting, to name a few.

If any of these areas pique your interest, please feel free to register on the forums, or to contact me directly

Post by **Flocke** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:01 am

zeusqc wrote:If someone can give me a polycount for the ships and/or buildings plus the size of their textures, I'm pretty sure I could improve anything that needs to be

According to viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... &start=125 and viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... &start=190 the vertexcount should keep less than 2000, better around 1000. And for the textures, using hardware acceleration you're restricted to 256x256 texels. The software mode supports 512x512 and maybe above. As far I know it's possible to use multiple textures on one ship.
As I said, with the current 3D battle engine you're very restricted, but if you just use your models to render some images or new intro and outro videos, you can model whatever you want.

As far as dominion buildings, I must say my knowledge about them is limited, if not inexistant... if someone can give me a link or something I could probably work something out

I don't know about any dominion buildings. I think that's the problem with them, there's not much known about. Maybe some experts can help, else you'd have to imagine something by yourself.

Best talk to thunderchero, cause he's currently maintaining the UDM3 mod.

Post by **Dr_Breen** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 10:33 am

we've never seen a dominion homeworld so there's no canon dominion structures except the few ones that are already in udm 3

as flocke said you can use several textures per ship (up to 3) and as most ppl use hardware acceleration we all use to make 256x256 textures. however there is a restriction about them:
viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=753

Post by **thunderchero** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 10:37 am

Dr_Breen wrote:as flocke said you can use several textures per ship (up to 3) and as most ppl use hardware acceleration we all use to make 256x256 textures. however there is a restriction about them:
viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=753

I have some models using up to 6 256x256 textures now

thunderchero

Post by **Dr_Breen** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:47 am

yeah thats possible of course...but don't you have to use texture names, that were actually reserved for other models?

so if you have 40 % of your models using 6 textures then the remaining 60% could only use 1 texture then.

Post by **thunderchero** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 12:09 pm

no, the total amount of textures are unlimited as far as I know. And can have different prefix than model used.
palette is limited to 127 (this is tricky part)
but the 6 textures used for each model uses same palette (3 models in UDM). And thanks again for your palette tutorial

You might also want to look at this error post I made.

viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=15276#15276

I still think this error was from too many vertexs on same palette being used by more than 1 model with high poly count. once palette was seperated to 1 palette per ship error was gone?

thunderchero

Post by **Dr_Breen** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:29 pm

ah ok i really missed that part in here where somebody figured out that we can use more than 3 textures

Post by **thunderchero** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:21 am

took a while to find but was when site was lost I created first ones (april 2008) with 4 textures. I just recently tried with more textures.

viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=33#33

thunderchero

Post by **thunderchero** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:03 pm

Welcome to the forum zeusqc,

Sorry it took me so long to reply to your offer. Your work look very impressive.

My current projects are;

UDM3.0.1 this mod is in final stages for final release.

UDMIV no plans have even been started other than after about 1 year break project will begin. And will be looking for coauthor for this project.

UCW 2.0 This project is in early stages base files only and could use updated interface files for all races, more ship models for each klingon race. As well as other major races and minors ships

1.0.3 This mod is mainly for bug fixes, But I do offer ship pack option that could use some new ferengi models?

general work that could be used by all mods would be new opening videos and race intro and new images for alt.res (win/loss images). These are short antimated videos that last 30 sec to little over 1 min. a good example of what would be nice to have is one joker created for romulans. Found on this post

Race intro

Other smaller projects could be just touching up current textures used by ship models

Once again thanks for offer,

You may contact me on forum, PM, e-mail

thunderchero

Post by **zeusqc** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 11:58 pm

I'd be willing to begin with ferengy ships to get the hang of it, and also working on intros since those are not limited in any way with polygons, textures and so on, so I could give it a try and add moving backgrounds, special effects etc.
That way I'm practicing both low and high poly models at the same time!
I will need a sound bank of star trek do make the vids so if you know of a good one... it would be great!
I would prob. begin with the Cards one since it is my fav. race.

I'll write a script and get back at you for approval, the video might take a while since I will aim at making 3D models of a few cardassians to anime them.
Might try to ask someone to rig the characters to save some time...

Post by **matress_of_evil** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:01 pm

Sound effects are easy, i've got a folder full of sound effects from Armada, BOTF, Legacy, and Starfleet Command 2 that i've gathered for exactly this sort of thing. I've renamed all of the files so it's easier to tell what they are. They're all a mix of .wav's and .mp3's though. If you need them converted into a single filetype, just let me know.

http://www.mediafire.com/?g1wynkjqzyy