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Author Topic: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)  (Read 27973 times)

Rushyo

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #60 on: December 18, 2015, 02:34:24 PM »

The way it's handled in the TV show changes from scene to scene. The Cylons do or do not attack the civilians based on the screenwriter's prerogative, and are positioned according to logic that is completely outside the script.

The typical conceit is that it's implied the Galactica is 'between' the fleet and Cylons. In other cases the Cylons just fly in and around the civilian vessels without harming them until it's pertinent to the plot to do so. If you're paying close attention it's actually quite comical how unnecessarily benevolent the Cylons are to the fleet; they could have wiped out the human race multiple times with ease. The Battle of the Ionian Nebula is a perfect example of this. Galactica holds off the Basestars from outside the fleet, whilst the raiders just zip around the civilian vessels and only bother to ram their missiles up the ample scenery pieces (*ahem* I mean civilian ships) when they roll a natural 6, even though they could have leveled the fleet long before they detected Anders.

This is fine. It means I have room to play around and see what suits the game best. I don't have to take any 'easy routes' either way. At the end of the day gameplay takes priority, and these sorts of decisions will come out in the wash once play-testing proper starts. For now it's all about considering the implications as opposed to making hard choices on whether I should keep certain gameplay aspects before I have any feedback on them.

I had a busy morning today. Took a detour of around three hours to add a fresh new mechanic to the combat side: Firing solutions. Battlestars can now plot flak fire against either one or two angles simultaneously. This flak fire completely ignores the usual CIWS principles of Starsector's point defence weapons; instead they work as in the show, setting up a screen of fire a fixed distance from the Battlestar.

The result improves the dynamics of the fighting immensely. Being caught out of position against raiders is a bigger deal now: You either need a close escort or to allocate a certain amount of your defensive flak to negating the approach of fighters. I've also given the Cylon Basestars high-yield warheads. They're less numerous than previous, but if you let a single one through they pack a punch. They have decent range now, forcing you to always consider the position of the Basestars lest one of them swing around and start unloading missiles in to your blind spot before you can react. Naturally facing off against three, or four, Basestars, at equidistant vectors from your Battlestar, becomes an extremely deadly proposition.

The firing solutions are quite organic. If you allocate all your flak fire in an arc covered by a small number of flak cannons then the effectiveness is reduced dramatically. Similarly, if you deploy your flak on your broadsides you get maximum utility, but risk having either fighters or a Basestar sneak in their fire in to the central gaps. This makes manoeuvring far more relevant, and often I find myself drifting off-vector to get optimal positioning: trading off position for defense, offense for defense, or offense for position, as required. The cannons take a decent amount of time to re-vector on new firing angles, meaning you have to think in advance where you want your flak placed before the fracas starts.

For the purposes of testing, the firing solution is controlled via the numpad. I was surprised at how intuitive this interim solution is. After the first couple of missions, once I got used to it, I found modifying the angles to be quite a fun challenge alongside also directing the fleet and handling the other weapons. There's lots still to do though. The AI uses it, but not too intelligently; it only understands when to use broadsides ATM. Also, the flak fire should be MRV munitions that disperse in to multiple dumb warheads, but currently they're just standard single frag warheads.

I've also added standard ShaderLib support for all the major ships (Battleships/Basestars) and weapons systems, with material/normal/surface maps, which was quite painless. I also added a cringeworthy bit of CIC audio when a firing solution is first plotted. I rather hate the sound of my own voice when recorded, but it let me test out cutting voice acting in with ambient FX from the series. That bit worked as hoped; sounded like I was actually in the CIC.

The missions have mostly balanced themselves out now. I can't beat the Pegasus with the Galactica, which is now a really tough fight. I don't even get through one Basestar in the ambush scenario; too many damn raiders. Taking out the lone Basestar with the Yashuman is still pretty easy, and feels just right. The time-to-kill has increased, but with the added dynamics it doesn't get tiresome nearly as fast as before. This is closer to the intended play of combat.

The Kobol objective 'quest line' is nearing completion. Once that's in I'll be adding other multiple-battle, multiple-decision objectives to add a bit of narrative punch to the otherwise fairly dry business of keeping the fleet from falling apart.

A Galactica-class utilising the new firing solution mechanic to hold off a Basestar and her raider complement. Note that some of the raiders have gone around and snook in some fire before the Vipers can intercept:
« Last Edit: December 18, 2015, 03:17:26 PM by Rushyo »
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joe130794

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #61 on: December 18, 2015, 04:22:55 PM »

sounds much more difficult. least it shall be more challenging. Looking forward to trying it all out once it's done. Is it possible to test out the mission now or wait till it's all ready?
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Rushyo

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #62 on: December 19, 2015, 03:57:11 AM »

Not yet  ;) It was literally a morning's work. Compared to all the campaign stuff there's really not much value in testing it yet. Right now, all the focus remains on the campaign.

Having said that, looking at ShaderLib I am have been considering breaking with one of the original design principles and switching from the current hybrid Starsector/CG art style to something more photo-realistic.

Starsector's default shaders (and ShaderLib's default replacements) are good for making sprite art shine, but since I have no intention of producing any unique sprite art that's being wasted. The most obvious change would be to eliminate most of the ambient lighting that brings out the contrast on the sprites; this would permit for realistic shadowing instead. I could also introduce modern PBR rendering shaders, replacing the relatively simplistic Blinn-Phong shading used by ShaderLib.

There's a bunch of other things that could stem from this. Introducing 3D flak co-ordinates ought to produce really pretty metallic reflections on Battlestars/Basestars. I could have missiles trails fly under a Basestar's top 'winglets', instead of the current artifact where they always fly over the top of the flat sprite. Lens flares effects, 3D particle effects... loads of possibilities.

Here's an example of a Basestar rendered with a decent real-time PBR shader. The PBR shader has been given a single light source (e.g. a star). The metallic/roughness maps are being generated in real-time using a Basestar-custom pre-processing shader generated by a professional tool I have. For the final game I'd bake these instead of processing them in real time, as that would just be a waste of resources.



This would be a significant departure from the initial plan though. I guess it's a 'nice to have'.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2015, 04:08:36 AM by Rushyo »
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #63 on: December 19, 2015, 04:19:35 AM »

"PBR" is literally just a school of thought.  The difference between PBR and traditional rendering is that with PBR you define the properties of an object (to be run in essentially a lighting sim), while with traditional rendering you directly define how it should look.

For sprites, there is no difference between the two techniques in most applications, since it just boils down to how you want to go about creating/baking maps.

The reason most PBR shaders look good is because they use a metallic microsurface lighting technique that you rarely see elsewhere.  Blinn-Phong I found appropriate for Starsector because it simulates shiny materials, lit by hard, intense light sources.  This very closely matches conditions in a space battle, so there wasn't much of a point doing something fancy.
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Rushyo

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #64 on: December 19, 2015, 04:59:22 AM »

Aye. Can't argue with any of that. But it's easier to derive metallic/roughness maps for derivative art, as you can easily interpret the implied physical properties of the materials. Some values are more easily derived for objects using a PBR mindset. I don't need/want to try to reverse engineer appropriate properties based on the TV show lighting when I can just say to my tools "yeah, this bit of the ship is just dimly polished steel." Not: "Let's try 4% gloss for this particular hull surface. Nope too little. Maybe 8%? Nah, that's too close to the 9% hull over here. 6%? Maaaaaybe."

Quote
The reason most PBR shaders look good is because they use a metallic microsurface lighting technique that you rarely see elsewhere.  Blinn-Phong I found appropriate for Starsector because it simulates shiny materials, lit by hard, intense light sources.  This very closely matches conditions in a space battle, so there wasn't much of a point doing something fancy.

I agree that makes perfect sense with Starsector's default art pipeline, but if I wanted to take a new art direction to emulate the TV show, that would involve writing a custom shader anyway. If I'm going to bother to write a new shader with intent to move towards a photo-realistic approach for a bunch of metallic assets, then writing a "PBR" shader (which I'm just using in the sense of the common short-hand for the sort of shader you described) seems entirely context-appropriate. All the dynamic range of the art in the TV series is differing grades of paint-wear and metallic surfaces.

There are other benefits to physically-based shaders over Blinn-Phong, but these have more to do with the over-simplification inherent in the Blinn-Phong model than anything relating to micro-surfaces. Fresnel, for example. This is implied as part of a physically-based rendering, even if it's not dependent on anything specific to do with microsurfaces. Indeed, the PBR shader I used above is as comfortable using specular/glossiness maps as metallic/reflectivity maps. It will quite happily accept either set.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying: I know exactly what you mean, but the pertinent issues of "how you want to go about creating/baking maps" and "metallic micro-surfaces" are exactly the questions I'd be looking to address if I went this direction. I'm not one of those people who thinks PBR inherently makes things look nicer. As a general rule, I'd hope anyone talking about implementing their own PBR shaders would be aware of that!

Sort of reminds me of the casual uses of HTML5 or OpenGL. The common vernacular usage has long since departed from the technical description, but still influences the naming of things using those technical implementations.

Addendum: I should probably also clarify that when I say "photo-realistic" I mean the real-time portion of the industry's definition of "photo-realistic"; which is to say that in five years it will look positively cartoonish. I'm aware that the idea of achieving genuinely photo-realistic results with top-down 2d sprites is patently absurd. But if I were to make the decision to switch from the mod's current art style (which is tailored to minimise my art workflow as much as possible so I can focus on the gameplay) to something more realistic, I'd be obliged to make sure the fidelity level at least got over the 'uncanny valley' hump and would budget for a level of work appropriate to achieve that. Even if I didn't even up creating a physically-based shader specifically, I think the critical aspect at this point is that the benefits would have to be worth significantly expanding the scope of the work. I'm not convinced that's the case yet, I'm essentially just thinking aloud. PBR or no, the question is whether to make that big switch in art style.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2015, 09:31:26 AM by Rushyo »
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Rushyo

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #65 on: December 20, 2015, 05:20:10 PM »

Prototype DRADIS interface. Only took around ~30 lines of codes. Sprites sourced from the CIC project. Winding down the work for the Yuletide period, so updates will be more scarce for a bit.

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joe130794

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #66 on: December 21, 2015, 04:28:08 AM »

Cool looking dradis. Maybe have a red alert pop up when the enemy fires nukes. The radiological alarm.
Can't wait for this. Looking awesome.
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Rushyo

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #67 on: February 28, 2016, 01:32:10 PM »

Although my original plan was to continue this work alongside my hacking/intelligence consultancy work and law degree sometime this month, I've picked up a 3D games contract on the side with a well established games studio (project is NDA'd so I'll keep quiet on the details). This means my total working + study hours per week is currently ~80 hours. This doesn't leave much time for the BSG mod! (or, indeed, sleep...)

Since both my intel work and my games work are short-term contracts with the possibility of extension, I'll re-visit my priorities at the end of March to see if it's viable to pick this up again from where I left off. If it's not, I'll look at setting out a new design for an interim mod with a smaller scope I can squeeze in around stuff. On the other hand, if these contracts go well, there's also the possibility I might have a look at hiring some other folks in to help! Either way, expect things to be very quiet for the next month, but nothing's dead or scrapped if you don't hear from me.

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joe130794

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #68 on: February 28, 2016, 02:57:25 PM »

Glad to hear your still here. You just have a bit of a busy schedule. Good luck on the new project. I hope this is continued even if it's slow going. I would love to test it at different stages. I was playing it earlier on a custom mission. Galactica and Pegasus with a dozen viper squads and 3 raptors squads versus 6 basestars and countless raiders and heavy raiders. Didn't lose anything. Am looking at trying to edit the Battlestars to made them a bit more realistic. Adding some smaller turrets to the Pegasus because it had numerous turrets similar to Galactica's mounted on the front as well as the bow cannons and wanted to actually give Galactica it's 8 main turrets. Although with less damage. Thing is what to go off because in B&C the Galactica had loads of turrets.

Good luck :)
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joe130794

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Re: Battlestar Galactica Total Conversion (WIP w/ 0.65a demo)
« Reply #69 on: March 02, 2016, 06:18:26 AM »

I modified this from starshipschematics and added it into the game. Can just about beat a basestar with a wing of mark VII vipers and a raptor wing.
I also modified some weapons for it, A smaller version of both the gun battery and flak battery. It has the nuclear system from galactica too but it's locked forwards.

What do you think??

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