New star and jump textures

ruckage · Post by **ruckage** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 8:09 pm

Here's a few new textures I was playing around, a stars texture and a new jump texture in 3 variations. I've also attached some screenshots so you can see how they look in game. For some reason my Stars. bmp was converted to png by imageshack so you will have to convert it to bmp in order to use it.

Place the stars.bmp in a folder named environment in your evochron directory and the jump texture in a folder named ships (rename your chosen jump texture to warp2.jpg.)

The stars texture might be a little ott for some (especially those who like their space to be pitch black) but I think it looks fairly good in game and a little artistic license doesn't hurt

, certainly makes it look quite different as you'll see from the screenshots. Click the images to view full size.

Default stars.

New stars.

Stars Texture (png - convert to bmp to use)

Shot at 2009-06-03

New Jump texture

jump2 textures (rename chosen texture to warp2.jpg)

Another warp texture - in lots of fruity flavours

[Edited on 6-4-2009 by ruckage]

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 8:16 pm

Very, Very Nice!

Post by **Vice** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:35 pm

Very nice, I especially like the warp textures. Did you design them yourself?

[Edited on 6-4-2009 by Vice]

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 6:21 am

Not too bust anyone's bubble, but I thought faster than light speed should show a red shift. Personally, I like Vice's original design, but I think it would look more realistic with a red shift.
My two cents worth...

warsign · Post by **warsign** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 6:24 am

Really good warp textures.
Like it.

ruckage · Post by **ruckage** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:20 am

Originally posted by Vice
Very nice, I especially like the warp textures. Did you design them yourself?]

Thanks

, and yes I designed them myself.

Originally posted by MMaggio
Not too bust anyone's bubble, but I thought faster than light speed should show a red shift. Personally, I like Vice's original design, but I think it would look more realistic with a red shift. My two cents worth...

Well if we're going to be pedantic

it isn't actually faster than light travel, I'm assuming the jumpdrive/gates are essentially like wormholes connecting 2 points in space so passing through you bridge the distance much faster than light would through normal space but you aren't actually going faster than light - light going through the same wormhole would still beat you

.

That said I've made a red version of the warp texture and added it to the original post if you want it.
I've also uploaded a second warp texture I designed and added that to the original post as well, this one comes in lots of colours. I also corrected a mistake I made - the jump texture should be named warp2.jpg.

verbosity · Post by **verbosity** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:57 am

it would be nice to be able to have different jump textures depending on how you jump ( jumpgates one type, wormholes another, jump drives a third, mantis a forth etc)

Really nice work though, I'm gonna have to try them out

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 11:58 am

Originally posted by verbosity
it would be nice to be able to have different jump textures depending on how you jump ( jumpgates one type, wormholes another, jump drives a third, mantis a forth etc)

Really nice work though, I'm gonna have to try them out

I like this Idea, would be great and realy, realy, realy cool!

DennyMala · Post by **DennyMala** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:44 pm

I think if Vice likes them and ruckage is the designer, a sort of agreement can be easily made so that all the design can be implemented in game and maybe used in different kind of jumps as Verbosity is suggesting..... maybe even randomizing the colour so that any kind of interfering factor can have a place in the phenomenon.

That would be awesome!

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:09 pm

I second the idea!

Post by **Vice** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:31 pm

I like the first series a lot and was thinking the blue could be used for the jump drive and one of the others for jump gates (that would keep the texture use limited to 2 256X256 images, only about 190K of extra memory). If that's something you'd be interested in Ruckage and would be willing to donate two of them, I can look into adding such an effect.

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:42 pm

I'm interested! I think it's a good way to go.
Adds some variety to the game! More "eye candy"!

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:03 pm

Looks good to me.

ruckage · Post by **ruckage** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 9:01 pm

Originally posted by Vice
I like the first series a lot and was thinking the blue could be used for the jump drive and one of the others for jump gates (that would keep the texture use limited to 2 256X256 images, only about 190K of extra memory). If that's something you'd be interested in Ruckage and would be willing to donate two of them, I can look into adding such an effect.

Sounds good to me, those images are actually 512x512 but will scale down well I think, let me know what colours you'd like (I can do some different colour variations if you have specific colours in mind) and I'll sort out some 256x256 images for you.

Post by **Vice** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 9:47 pm

No problem, I can scale them as needed also. I think the blue already looks really good for the jump drive and maybe the varied colored one for jump gates. I may try adding them into the game engine later today to see how they look.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 2:29 am

Coooooooooooooooooooooool

Accountant · Post by **Accountant** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:50 am

Nice jump textures! The first type in blue and multicolored are my favorite. The star texture is a bit bright for my taste, but still well done! You have a talent for design, and EL will definitely benefit from the new textures.

-Accountant

EDIT:
Vice, not sure how easy/feasible this is, but is it possible to add a fade-in and fade-out to the jump textures? Especially when the ship exits the jump, the sudden disappearance of the jump texture is very noticeable.

I tried adding a fade-out to black on the top and bottom of the texture, but the texture is tiled so that approach didn't work.

[Edited on 6-5-2009 by Accountant]

Post by **Vice** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:37 am

Yeah, that's an effect I want to include also. One method that would work is texture animation, but that takes a memory hit and isn't very smooth, depending on the number of frames. The other option is to reduce alpha blending. Still looking into options on this, but it is on my list.

ruckage · Post by **ruckage** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:19 pm

Warp tansitions would definately be a great addition, I have an idea of a way to achieve it but not sure how easy it would be for you to implement. I guess at the moment the texture is wrapped onto a cylinder and then the texture is moved to create the impression of the rotation and forward movement - the cylinder itself is actually stationary - relative to the player. It looks as well as if the texture is stretched across the whole length of the cylinder but is tiled twice around the circumference - is that correct?

For the transition out of warp, how about having a separate transition texture that you apply at this point and instead of changing the texture coordinates physically move the cylinder past the player, the same could also be done for the entry but would maybe require a bit more fiddling to get the effect right -probably the use of 2 cylinders, a lead in cylinder with the 'transition in' texture and the second cylinder with the tiled texture used during the actual jump. Not sure if that all makes sense but hopefully you get the idea.

I've made some transition textures in case they are of use - they should hopefully give the appearance of the energy dissipating rather than simply fading to black.

Post by **Vice** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:05 pm

Yes, that basically described the setup. The idea is good, it would come down to timing the appearance/disappearance of the effect with the correct stage of the texture (I wish I could just run it out to complete black based on speed, but I'm limited to 'scrolling' it within certain UV confines). I've got the textures up and running in the game now, with a few added lines to give the same kind of 'tunnel bars' effect it had before and it looks good. I may try some fading ideas later also. Thanks!

ruckage · Post by **ruckage** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:07 am

Hi Vice, since you mentioned tunnel bars I figured I'd do my own interpretation. Rather than completely straight bars I thought they would look good a bit more irregular so i've come up with the textures below. I tried it out in game and I personally like the effect (though obviously I'm a little biased

) You need to see it in action really to appreciate it but there is a screenshot below anyway.

Post by **Vice** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:12 am

Very nice, I'll give it a try after I get back from getting something to eat. How do they look on the jump gates? That was where the pulsing bars also helped give a solid sense of motion/movement. I think the variation would look really cool.

ruckage · Post by **ruckage** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:20 am

Yeah, I think it looks good on the actual gates. I tried to get a screenshot but you can't really tell from a still image.

ruckage · Post by **ruckage** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:43 am

One more minor change - I've just adjusted the levels a bit to give more contrast. Quite subtle but makes a big difference in game. You can compare it with the previous textures and see which you prefer, I think the extra contrast definately improves the look of the gates as the movement is more apparent.

[Edited on 6-7-2009 by ruckage]

Nyu · Post by **Nyu** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 6:57 pm

Hey guys, relatively new to the forums. Was just wondering if
anyone could re-up these warp textures as they are all down,
hope its not just my connection :\\

Thanks!