17
It'd be subject to the detail box code because of the high/low detail cockpit system I've used on the uglies, zeus and loki - that was going in anyway.

I was commenting that because the terran and vasudan pilots would be a part of that same mesh, you would only see them when you're close enough to be able to see them - it's not to do with what the fredder must do to switch pilots. :)


About the texture, are you talking about using a different texture for the vasudan and the terran pilots themselves?
If so, you'd need at least 3 textures for that - one for the cockpit interior, one invisible and one for the pilots (assuming you map them to the same map - it would be easier to do it with 2, bringing the total to 4). At any time in game you'll have 3 textures loaded, which - even for the invisible one, is a performance drain.

What mapping everything to the 2 versions of the one alpha mapped texture means is that only one will be loaded in-game, and the rendering pipeline only needs to use that one texture to draw the whole cockpit. :)


Ease of use is the same - the fredder would just replace VasCockpit_Vas with VasCockpit_Ter or something. He wouldn't need to invisible-ise the vasudan and then de-invisibl-ise the terran. (Yeah, I like making words up. ;) )
Twisted Infinities

18
I would have assumed that you could put the three mesh maps (ter, vas, cockpit) on the same map... Guess not. *shrugs* I dont really care how you do it so long as it works.

19
Oh I see what you mean now.
Make the terran, vasudan and cockpit separate objects all mapped to the same texture. Default the terran to invisible, and then invisible-ise the vasudan and draw the terran when needed. Misunderstood you - my bad. :)

Yeah that'd work, and in fact that was my first thought on how to handle it.
However, it's still going to need 2 texture changes during rendering over 3 subobjects, which even when one of those textures is 'invisible' is going to be more of a performance drain than a single texture over a single subobject. It also needs 2 texture replacements in Fred as opposed to the one.

Anyway, I'll stop yapping and get on it once the valkyrie is out the door.

Incidentally, are you planning to work on any further HTL stuff?
Twisted Infinities

20
Nope. I'm... more or less done with FS for now. Lost interest long ago. I stuck around for the models and the people... but most of the people werent worth sticking around for, as they showed themselves, and
I just lost the rest of the interest in it. Hence the dump...

25
I just wish there was some to report. :(

I've been doing the terran cockpit for weeks in my free time since the start of this Uni semester, and now it's at the state where I can't go further with it, I've resumed work on the Valkyrie. The Horus is next on the list.
Finished the Valk's UV map last night, but since I now need to texture it, it'll be quite a while before I get around to the Horus I'm afraid.

I have been getting better and faster at texturing recently though, so maybe it won't take as long as it has in the past. :)
Twisted Infinities

27
Curiosity never killed anyone, except the proverbial cat. That poor cat...
'Memory and imagination are but one thing, which for diverse considerations, have diverse names'
¦- F R E D E N T H U S I A S T -¦
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