This month we are focusing our attentions on Excalibur's art team and as part of that we feel that this is a great time to give a preview release of the ship artist's export guide:
Above all other things, the Excalibur project has always been focused on developing a game which supports the community and third party developers that want to create content for it. This has been our primary concern during the development of the game and it is the reason for some of the unique features you will find in the engine.
Another key element for supporting the community has been the creation of a new, future-proof standard which will allow Excalibur, running on the Evolved engine, to push beyond the visuals seen in other space simulation games. This new standard builds upon and ultimately replaces that of the NanoFX Alpha which was itself largely based on Star Trek: Bridge Commander’s texture system.
While documenting this standard it has been agreed that basic techniques and guides for successful exporting should be included to assist developers in creating high quality assets for the game. This guide will explain how the new ship standards work as well as how an artist can get the most from them.
This is a first public release for this document and reflects the texture standard as we currently have it set up. While we can be confident that there will not be any large changes to the standard, we do advise that some small aspects of the standard may be modified in order to improve in-game visuals and performance.
Mark Ward
Creative Leader – ST Excalibur
Stexcalibur.com
