Tour of Duty Battle screens WIP

[Ace Antilles]

So with so many ships etc in XWA being complete or in the hands of experts there's still other areas that can be looked at.
With all the amazing work into the file editors we can replace images in the DAT files.

So I thought I would take a crack at some and I've been working on this.
It's a replacement for the Tour of Duty Battle screens that are in the Flight Simulator.

This is the original one:


This is a WIP I did of the first one the Family Business:


I've added the new XWAUCP opts into it and Super backdrop images too as best as possible.
It also uses the exact same Flight Simulator background. I think I've lined it up perfectly.
It's not totally perfect and still a WIP but it shows what can be done. Plus it uses the much improved XWAUP ships.

Obviously this can be spread out to all the mission screens too. With so many though that is a challenge by itself!
I wonder if it would even be a good community project?

So what do you guys think? Is it an area worth improving?

[Trevor]

Looking good so far.

Need more feathering on the engine glow and the galaxy has a black BG (I know original had too, but wasn't that improved in SBD3?)

Trev

[Ace Antilles]

Well the engine glows there aren't final, they are a crap cut job and it's one thing I will need to work on or get help with.
All of the images are transparent and put on top of the Simulator background.
So they can't have a black background or it would show on the purple.

I am wondering if it would be easier to ditch the simulator background and just go with a starfield image instead.
Would be a change from XWA but it's not mandatory to have the same image.

[keiranhalcyon7]

Looks like a pretty good proof of concept to me.

[Trevor]

All of the images are transparent and put on top of the Simulator background.
So they can't have a black background or it would show on the purple.

Oh, wow, so the sim BG is part of the image and not alpha?

Sorry, I didn't mean to add a black bg, I meant there is one that needs removed.

So, how did you get the images? Did you render each opt in xwa or a 3d modeling package then composite seperatly, or did you look for a lucky sot within xwa and then hand trace out the starfield?

Trev

[Ace Antilles]

No all the pics have a purple background with the Sim fake lights etc in the background.
So everything in the purple square is 1 picture being displayed.
Everything outside are all different images or animation. You can even change the arrows etc.
I'll have to play about with no background but would look blank.
I'm thinking to make a wiki on CBM sometime.

I need to work on the background but I get what you mean, cheers. That's the issue if it's purple background.
These pics were a simple screenshot from Opt Viewer and then turned into a PNG. Allows me to rotate and zoom about. Was simple but I have a few other options now.
I don't have any 3d software but General Trageton has given me a hand with some stuff.
There is an idea I may explore in game to take screenshots but that can be more time consuming than I personally have time for. Theres a lot of lighting differences and maybe not the same galaxies.
That's why I mentioned community project. Might have to open it up for people to help with and submit images?

DTM has kindly given me his super backdrop files for use of reference which can help.

[Vince T]

If you need, I think I have "blank" background images.

Background0.jpg

Background1.jpg

[Trevor]

Just for fun I tried semi-realistic lighting based roughly on the position of the sun in the image

battle1.png

Trev

[Ace Antilles]

If you need, I think I have "blank" background images.
Background0.jpg
Background1.jpg

Thanks GT. Something off with yours though. Did you use XWADat? That only does BMP and the new program will do PNG and mine are clearer.

Just for fun I tried semi-realistic lighting based roughly on the position of the sun in the image
battle1.png
Trev

That's really good Trev. How did you create it?
Too dark right now ofc but it shows what is possible. I mean I knocked mine together very roughly and there's lots of improvements that can be made.
Once I return to work I will probably have less time to work on some of it personally.

If you or anyone else feels like having a go at some images then feel free
Best resources are a high quality PNG for each ship in the angle in game picture. This can be then be resized into different places in the main image.
There are plenty of battles and missions that can be played around with

[Vince T]

Actually, the sun is above the whole scene, if you look ingame so the lighting would be somewhat ok

sun.jpg

[Ace Antilles]

Very true but can I point out that in the original and the one I made none of it was perfectly to scale or lit properly.
I thought I was the nitpicker here lol Artistic license by us can be used.
I mean we've all seen the images before and unlikely to look at them tons again. It doesn't need to be a Picasso

[Forceflow]

Very true but can I point out that in the original and the one I made none of it was perfectly to scale or lit properly.
I thought I was the nitpicker here lol Artistic license by us can be used.
I mean we've all seen the images before and unlikely to look at them tons again. It doesn't need to be a Picasso

Yeah... But you do know this is the XWAU, all we do is overkill

[Ace Antilles]

And that's how we like it lol

[Vince T]

Lol I was agreeing with you, Ace, not nitpicking
That the light comes from somewhere above supports the notion that the lighting in your pics was accurate

And yeah, what Force said

[Trevor]

Actually, the sun is above the whole scene, if you look ingame so the lighting would be somewhat ok

Oh, ok, 2 secs, ill fix

battle1.png

Hows that?

That's really good Trev. How did you create it?
Too dark right now ofc but it shows what is possible. I mean I knocked mine together very roughly and there's lots of improvements that can be made.

I made in an8 by extracting the models with Jeremy's Opt editor, then looked at your image, and moved some lights into position, enabled AmbientOcludder and rendered using ART (An8 ray Tracer)

The reason its dark was I thought the only light source was the molten planet below, but image above has a sun now.

Taking images direct from Opt editor will have 0 shading, your best bet is to either use a 3d modeler or screencap in xwa (preferably with blue's ddraw)

Trev

[Ace Antilles]

Actually, the sun is above the whole scene, if you look ingame so the lighting would be somewhat ok

Oh, ok, 2 secs, ill fix
Hows that?
I made in an8 by extracting the models with Jeremy's Opt editor, then looked at your image, and moved some lights into position, enabled AmbientOcludder and rendered using ART (An8 ray Tracer)
The reason its dark was I thought the only light source was the molten planet below, but image above has a sun now.

Taking images direct from Opt editor will have 0 shading, your best bet is to either use a 3d modeler or screencap in xwa (preferably with blue's ddraw)
Trev

Yeah I don't have a 3D program or lighting expertise etc. I might have to look into those but lots of other stuff on the go.
Great work btw. Really wish I had some peoples skills but I'm impressing myself a little lately lol
Don't forget though the entire image is 510 wide x 260 high. So things need resizing to fit that. Which isn't hard to do.
Don't look at my image so much more the original with artist license for interpretation. That's my down fall I'm not thinking outside the box to make it cooler.

I did a really quick and dirty cut of your image into mine. Feel free to try and do the base too lol

Test Pic.png

[Vince T]

Personally I think those shadows are way too dark. Half the darkness and you're fine.

[Trevor]

Personally I think those shadows are way too dark. Half the darkness and you're fine.

Where is your other light source?

The only 2 light sources are the star(white/blue) and the planet(red orange). Ambient in space is practically 0 but I exaggerated that to 0.5 (to have some shading within the shadows)

I know its art, but my specialty is realistic images (I.e. I try to sell kitchens with images that look like someone went into the future and snapped a photo of their new kitchen rather than some "plastic model")



I guess I should include the home too, 2secs

Ok, how is this?

battle1.png

This is a more realistic image showing the stark contrast in space

battle1-2.png

Ive left the composition down to Ace (since original had the transport in front of the base slightly) but should be easy since all has alpha

Trev

[Ace Antilles]

It's all very cool but I think people are being too literal.
Being realistic is cool but I don't think it will work. If you look at the original pic there is no correlation between light sources as far as I can see.
Nor is it totally to scale. I can't see how it's possible to include all the elements, planets etc and have a matching light source and look cool at the same time.

I think the elements just need to be good pics of the ships, probably from in game like you have which can be resized and as needed.
As long as they look quite good with some shadows maybe then it should work. If it's too dark for example and you can't see things properly then it's no fun.

[Vince T]

Realism has no place in Star Wars games. End of discussion

You keep up the good work Ace. Don't let realism cloud your judgement

[Ace Antilles]

Realism has no place in Star Wars games. End of discussion

You keep up the good work Ace. Don't let realism cloud your judgement

Have you seen how dangerous a real lightsaber is just to hold? lol
https://youtu.be/_efVoeiSKP0
Don't worry I don't have any good judgement to cloud

[Vince T]

If you find that scary, try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRAyIXgWBWc

[keiranhalcyon7]

Consistency in the light angles is good, but Star Wars (most space sci-fi, actually) typically has an unrealistically high amount of ambient light in the shadows, comparable to terrestrial daylight conditions. One of the XWVM guys in particular could talk your ear off on the subject.

[Forceflow]

Quick and dirty render in Blender:

battle_screens_b01m01.png

I did use the exterior models for rendering to also get the cockpits, I simply added a light in each to make them more visible. Same for that landing pad of the station. Otherwise I just placed a sun so that the whole scene is pleasantly lighted. Image is high resolution.
Just really don't know how to get any type of engine glow working in Blender I am simply too stupid for that...

[Ace Antilles]

Quick and dirty render in Blender:

battle_screens_b01m01.png

I did use the exterior models for rendering to also get the cockpits, I simply added a light in each to make them more visible. Same for that landing pad of the station. Otherwise I just placed a sun so that the whole scene is pleasantly lighted. Image is high resolution.
Just really don't know how to get any type of engine glow working in Blender I am simply too stupid for that...

Nice that looks about right to me.
I really need to look into this 3d route. You guys are bloody clever lol is blender free or cheap?

As for engine glow I was going to try a form of shadow. I did it on a smaller scale and it kinda worked. With some image manipulation.