MOD: STA2 Upgrade Project 2014 - A stock A2 mod in FO

posted on March 24th, 2014, 11:53 am

I did it the same way other working wireframes do it - alpha channel.
A empty layer might work too, will test it.
It might probably end up a smaller file too, although the difference would really be minimal and probably unnoticable.


@ cyard2, rresear2 and ryard don't have build buttons? Can't say I noticed, but it's easy enough to fix.

posted on March 24th, 2014, 1:29 pm

I got very disillusioned with the standard A2 Build buttons and wireframes a long time ago. Reason? They go into too much detail. The player is supposed to be the Admiral. I think the player only really needs to know how many "runners" a Fleet has and the overall status of each. The system status percentages are next to the ship icon in the individual ship displays if the Admiral needs to kinow the specific status of a particular vessel.

I am very fond of fahreS' Compact Clear Mod. The UI for the original game is very very creaky and doesn't really fit what I think a Star Trek based game should have. I decided to make up new Build Buttons and wireframes from scratch. I never really completed all of them but I did get through most. For BSG HRM v1.0 what I took a screen shot of the whole ship, pasted it onto a black background and added a border. Next, I applied an alpha channel (or mask, if you prefer) to the ship and the border. See the attached pics from my photobucket account to view the finished result.






The only problem with making these is the time consumption. Making them is drudge work of the worst sort. Because of the way the game is coded there must be both a build button and a wireframe. Two pics are needed for every single ship, station and pod in the game. Of course, these have to be different sizes as well. Adding in the correct sprite coding is a copy/paste job to the global_gui file. One error in a single entry will cause a CTD event.

The easiest part? Making the background color for the buttons and the tooltip. Most graphics apps can covert a color notation from RGB to Hex and vice versa. Simple matter to pic a color I liked and then change the hex notation in the faction GUI files.

posted on March 24th, 2014, 2:13 pm

@TrashMan: All the build buttons are present it's just that the cyard2, rresear2 and ryard buttons don't match the stations because I used non-stock models. That is a planned fix down the road once I learn.

@Thunderfoot: Those look good in the pics. I'm not too concerned with the build buttons for now. Cabal has been working on new UI's for each race with new button backgrounds so all the ship images will have to be transferred to them I'm guessing. You can see what he has so far back on page 2 or 3 I think.

I always liked the original wire frames how each section of the ship highlighted when damaged, but that's a lot of work for little pay off. I like how Aad did them, just a nice picture of the ship. I would prefer them to not be noticeable on a fully transparent background though as everyone has mentioned. I will need to do a few as practice and once I get the hang of it I'll probably start redoing all the wireframes after all the maps have nebula lighting added and the single player missions/maps are redone.

posted on March 24th, 2014, 11:19 pm

@TrashMan: All the build buttons are present it's just that the cyard2, rresear2 and ryard buttons don't match the stations because I used non-stock models. That is a planned fix down the road once I learn.

Easy - peasy.
Will make those tomorrow once I get back from work.

posted on March 24th, 2014, 11:31 pm

I did it the same way other working wireframes do it - alpha channel.
A empty layer might work too, will test it.
It might probably end up a smaller file too, although the difference would really be minimal and probably unnoticable.


@ cyard2, rresear2 and ryard don't have build buttons? Can't say I noticed, but it's easy enough to fix.

Yea that's basically what I was doing, added alpha channel then cut out the black background parts. I'm not sure when I will get time to work on it again to do them all, so if rifraf wants to get them from you that is fine too. Lol, I'm slow with getting things done as I get side tracked to easily.

posted on March 25th, 2014, 12:48 am

I certainly don't want anyone to start doing something that they're not really into. I only asked that if you were doing these on your own if you were interested in sharing for the mod. I know everyone has their own projects and life going on so I'm not asking anyone to do them for me nor do I want to sound like I'm pushing anyone into doing something they have no interest in.

It's just an aspect that I never learned to do yet and never really thought about. However, I fired up a stock install and had a look at the original wireframes again. Now the ship/station images certainly aren't as pretty as a nice new image of each model that Aad Moerman did , but they are on fully transparent backgrounds and the parts of the models in the picture do light up when damaged. I wonder if you all think they are just trash or do they have that kind of retro look to them that you could live with in game?

I've actually contemplated what purpose they even serve except to show what ships/stations you have selected in the GUI when you have a whole group at once?

posted on March 25th, 2014, 11:02 am

No probs. Like I said - 5 minutes of work.

Would be even less if the SOD Viewer worked properly on laptops.

Regarding old wireframes and the new ones - new ones are smaller and don't have damaged states.
It's nice to look at, but since you already have the hull bar and the systems indicator, it's not really necessary.

posted on March 25th, 2014, 1:11 pm

rifraf, Wireframes are also required for the build queue in shipyards, otherwise you can't see what has been queued up

posted on March 25th, 2014, 1:59 pm

DOH. You're right SJ. Completely missed that. I do have access to several other mods though. I'll check those tonite and see if they have transparent backgrounds and also if there are enough to cover every stock ship/station.

@TrashMan: I know the originals are pretty redundant as all you have to do is mouse over or check their status bars, but add a nice touch. I just wish the devs would have made the images on them nicer. Oh well, I'll have a look around though. It'll be a while before I start doing them so no big hurry.

I'm going to look at dumping the intro vids and such to save space. One thing I'm not sure about is if they are missing if it'll crash the game? I'll have to test before a new release. When I first started the mod I already cleaned out every possible unused texture so no more space to be gained there.

Oh, how do you guys like the map lighting. Is it too dark, not dark enough? Do the map backgrounds look good? Just curious.

posted on March 25th, 2014, 2:32 pm

I certainly don't want anyone to start doing something that they're not really into. I only asked that if you were doing these on your own if you were interested in sharing for the mod. I know everyone has their own projects and life going on so I'm not asking anyone to do them for me nor do I want to sound like I'm pushing anyone into doing something they have no interest in.

It's just an aspect that I never learned to do yet and never really thought about. However, I fired up a stock install and had a look at the original wireframes again. Now the ship/station images certainly aren't as pretty as a nice new image of each model that Aad Moerman did , but they are on fully transparent backgrounds and the parts of the models in the picture do light up when damaged. I wonder if you all think they are just trash or do they have that kind of retro look to them that you could live with in game?

I've actually contemplated what purpose they even serve except to show what ships/stations you have selected in the GUI when you have a whole group at once?

Yea I know, it's just nothing I planned to do right away myself as the only reason I want this mod mainly is to re-play the campaign. If Trash has them done then that may be a better option for you then waiting for me.

Though to be honest, if I was you I would learn to do it myself... if not just for the experience so you will be able to do such things as you mod expands and changes without having to rely on the community.

DOH. You're right SJ. Completely missed that. I do have access to several other mods though. I'll check those tonite and see if they have transparent backgrounds and also if there are enough to cover every stock ship/station.

@TrashMan: I know the originals are pretty redundant as all you have to do is mouse over or check their status bars, but add a nice touch. I just wish the devs would have made the images on them nicer. Oh well, I'll have a look around though. It'll be a while before I start doing them so no big hurry.

I'm going to look at dumping the intro vids and such to save space. One thing I'm not sure about is if they are missing if it'll crash the game? I'll have to test before a new release. When I first started the mod I already cleaned out every possible unused texture so no more space to be gained there.

Oh, how do you guys like the map lighting. Is it too dark, not dark enough? Do the map backgrounds look good? Just curious.

The intro videos can be safety removed... it will simply take you right to the main screen like FO. Already did this myself.

posted on March 25th, 2014, 6:53 pm

hey guys not sure how far you are doing but i give you news that chiletrek has provided permission to use his 8472 models in the mod so when ive compiled the animated versions that ive been working on for him

also ive also been working on race specific build buttons which you guys are free to use when completed.

I do/did have a mini mod that improves borg ranking and assimilation which if you guys would like i can complete for the mod (i'll do the base a2 races if you want to add more ship/stations/races then you can expand)

//www.fleetops.net/forums/modifica ... ssic-11200

posted on March 25th, 2014, 10:39 pm

Well, I only got the federation wireframes cleaned up so far .... times a flyin' when you're testing things.

posted on March 26th, 2014, 2:39 am

Here I show how I did with the new alpha layer:

alphalayer.png

editalpha.png

Final image should look like this:

final.png

So I'm a little dense and can't figure this out. I open my wireframe in GIMP. Click layer then transparency then click add alpha channel. It now adds the alpha to the red, green and blue channels in the box on the upper right.

Then do I just click layer then mask then add layer mask? A box then comes up with choices of where to initialize the mask to, but not sure if this is right or which selection to save to?

Well I see the example pictures that were posted didn't show, but this was posted back on page 7

posted on March 26th, 2014, 3:02 am

Here I show how I did with the new alpha layer:

alphalayer.png

editalpha.png

Final image should look like this:

final.png

So I'm a little dense and can't figure this out. I open my wireframe in GIMP. Click layer then transparency then click add alpha channel. It now adds the alpha to the red, green and blue channels in the box on the upper right.

Then do I just click layer then mask then add layer mask? A box then comes up with choices of where to initialize the mask to, but not sure if this is right or which selection to save to?

Well I see the example pictures that were posted didn't show, but this was posted back on page 7

Simplest way to do it is this.

-add alpha channel
-click fuzzy select tool
-click on the black background of the picture (this will select all the black outlining the ship)
-click delete
- done.
-Click file > export > un-check RLE compression (I believe you must do that as when I didn't do it, it didn't work right for me in game) > export again to save.

Just be sure to watch on some ships/stations such as the borg as they also have black parts in the center of the ship/station that can also be cut out to make it look right. Just zoom in and do the same thing minus the add alpha channel as you already did that.

posted on March 26th, 2014, 3:24 am

Thanks Xanto. I went back after I posted and finally figured it out and they look great in game. I came back here to post that I got it and see you posted almost exactly what I did.

I'll see if I can bang these out in a nite or two and post as a separate download. Thanks for everyone's help. I'm going to go ahead and do them all so if you want to stop I'll just put in a download when I'm done.

@Blade: I do currently use Chiletrek's 8472 stuff in the mod. I wasn't sure if you had noticed or not originally? The race specific build buttons you are doing sound great. Cabal is working on race specific GUI's with new buttons as well and I think I'll have to transfer all the ship/station images to them once done, but not sure yet? Thank you for the offer though and I'll let you know.

I read the thread you did about the borg. Sounds interesting. I would like to build in a ranking system like in FO, but as you said it's an enormous amount of odf's. I'm just working to keep it as stock as possible at first, but I would then like to work on doing more modding to it like add more ships, change the game play and balancing and such. I could look at your borg mini mod then and we can see?