Good evening Vaygrs, Hiigarans, Kadeshi, Taiidan's, fellow Turanics and Bentusi who deem this important enough to attend.
This is firstly to inform all you gentlepeople that there will be some new pictures on the shiny.
Then to clarify a few things. First some might wonder why no download? easy, It's not finished. With the huge mountain of games being released as unfinished and mostly rushed wallet hazards, I refuse to perpetuate the problem by unleashing a shitty halfarsed mod on you. Homeworld players are too good for this crap. Also, I'd rather keep you all interested and then after a bit of a wait unleash the full power of what i've done on your senses. Hopefully...
I want to make it plain: This mod will not change gameplay in any way. I am however open to cooperation with any mod team that wants it and will in time submit a piece of work to those I would like to overhaul as a sort of audition. Also, Gearbox, I'm looking for a job :P
I will discuss what I will do and want to do for THIS mod. I will make parallax maps for everything. These maps, like everything, will be implemented at my discretion and I like them aggressive and detailed. My reasons are simple, there is no point in having these things if you cannot see them. I appreciate subtlety like anyone, but not when it comes to spaceships. Also, Homeworld ships seem more rugged and rough to me, built to do a job, not dangle on a line.
Then the textures, Suggesting an overhaul of the Textures is madness and displays a lack of texturing knowledge. just repainting one ship is a months work for me, optimistically. a whole game... not in my lifetime will i finish it and the pressure will kill me before my time anyways. and contrary to popular belief, photoshop can not enhance the quality of the textures, as you can not make it out of nothing. And in any case I see no problems with the current textures, you have to get really close to be bothered by their resolution anyways.
I also will not be changing the specularity. I set it that high because it is sunlight after all. Anyone who argues should go stare into the sun for a while. However, I do agree that the ships do seem a bit glossy as in they look like they are made of glass whereas I would like a more metallic look. This is due to the glowmaps relic gave us. the pics I post will show what I've tried to do about this.
Relating to the above, I am also trying to give the ships a more worn, maybe even battered look. at this point I really don't want to edit the diffuse texture but it may become necessary if the so far achieved effect is desirable but inadequate. This remains to be determined. I look forward to seeing what you all think about the alterations.
Furthermore, regarding the specularity, I will tone it down and up according to the map. I refered dissenters to the sun, and I will kindly provide Hiigara's star in a picture as my case in point. When you look at it, it is almost blinding and yet there is no shine on the ships, does that seem right to you? And on the dustmaps, Gehenna for instance, such a shine is obviously unnatural.
Chimas said not to make the visuals too powerful, because people get bored with them... Hard to argue with that, but then, people get bored with everything. By that argument, why bother at all? Hence that is a piece of advice I will, with respect, discard. This mod is all about shock and awe. I did not start this page to be just another copypastetheshaders. I started it to be the last word in Homeworld Pretty.
The LOD's... Yes, I'm playing around with that to see what works as well. some ships sren't bother by quick LOD change, these are usually the small ones. The big ones however... I've increased the distance for the mothership's LOD change by a factor of 2 and yet it is still silly close when changing. not even mentioning the shipyard. So yes, I will be changing that as well. and for those who cringe at the performance hit... well this is the Ultra High graphics mod.
That brings me back to Chimas. I regretfully have no mentionable coding abilities. I wouldn't even know where to start to make options available to the user. At this point it is a case of full or none at all. Any volunteers?
Hmm right, the backgrounds. I want* to change the backgrounds to more realistic black and starry because I think they make the work I'm doing more natural and just generally look better (look at sajuuk for instance). but I'm really afraid to change the feel of the game for the worst. the atmosphere of the game is intoxicating, I playtested the campaign and before I could stop myself I was at mission 4 without having overhauled everything in mission 2. I don't really want to change that, because I doubt I can improve it.
Bugs... I've said that badges are lost with this overhaul. I've obviously been playing around a lot with these shaders and even modified the resourcenm shader to do what I want. to do this I had to read CNLPEPPER's notes and it is very clear that badges die with the parallax mapping. Not gonna get more technical because I don't fully understand it all.
I've also noticed that some colour schemes work better than others, this of course is very subjective but I thought it worth mentioning as people will no doubt want to play in their own colours, where the experience may differ to an extent.
Right well I think I've said everything for now, please, I know I'm a bit stubborn but I do appreciate comments, good and bad, but good more than bad :D. Just know that I do everything with a goal in mind and not just at random... mostly. And remember, this is still very much WIP.
Cheers gentlepeoples and have a good one.
NEW PICTURES!!!!!!
No rush..