Author Topic: CEP mod for Nexus (Read 65688 times)

The Old Dragon · « **Reply #25 on:** February 17, 2011, 23:50:10 »

Unfortunately, that's quite typical when it comes to modders and modding. When a new idea comes up there's an initial excited buzz which then dies away... and sometimes it takes the idea with it.

I'm still up for this though, I was thinking that maybe we should start with the background things like improving the scenery and better descriptions...

The Old Dragon · « **Reply #26 on:** February 24, 2011, 15:07:05 »

Looks like the 'buzz and excitement' has gone out of the idea.

Well, I've now made a plan of action on how I think we should go about it; so have a read and if you think you can help out along the way, please let us know.

Quote

Nexus:TJI CEP Overall Plan
=========================

This plan is subject to change at any point dependant on what issues we run into... as I don't know what to expect, nothing is 'set in stone'.

Deployment
----------

All going well, what I'm thinking of doing packing this up into a .dap file like the Nexus:TJI patch 1.01 is (also including the patch itself). Although if someone with more knowledge can make a self-extractor to overwrite the various files, I'm more than happy to go down that route.

Phase One
---------

Phase one will be improve the scenery (backdrops, starmaps, celestials). Look into adding new lighting tweaks.

Things to do...

1)   Look into adding Geomodder's planetary descriptions.Possibly increase descriptions for all systems in Nexus.

2)   Look into getting all appropriate celestial models to rotate.

3)   Work through the Nexus systems to improve their overall 'look' (Place background things like nebulae, comets and asteroid belts).

4)   Look into adding the Dynamic lighting Mod.

Phase Two
---------

Here we can look into improving the model/ texture quality, possibly weapons effects too.

1)   As there is a lot of models and textures (not just the ships, everything from small fighters to the largest capships, asteroids to celestials) to possibly work on, we'll keep it to this single task.

Asteroids already revamped by DreamorCZ.

Phase Three
-----------

Adding new models and weapons.

1)   Design and build new models as well as import from other mods (seek authors permission first!!!!) to improve variance. Have a general conflab to discuss model concepts and other things related to modelling.

2)   Do the same with weapons.

Phase Four
----------

Bug hunting phase. Open threads in several Nexus forums to ask players for any problems they've run into while playing the vanilla game. See if we can fix some of them.

Phase Five
----------

Optional here, look into adding new missions and content to the game. These would probably be side/behind the scenes missions as matching the original character voices would be problematic.

Phase Six
---------

Look at adding demo versions of the mods currently out/in depvelopment as well as Arparso's Skirmisher. Talk with the various mods authors to arrange when the time's right.

As stated earlier, this plan is subject to change as options, ideas and problems arise.

I've started on getting things ready, so that we can all work from the same source the starting files have been uploaded to a dropbox folder. Anyone seriously interested in helping, please pm me and I can give you the details.

@GeoModder
If you don't mind, I'd like to include your newer descriptions mod. Out of curiosity, does your work cover all of the text entries for the various celestials, models and such?

@DreamorCZ & JStubbles
You guys seem to be the most knoweldable about getting the planets to rotate, again, this is something I'd like to include. Would it be possible for one (or both) to work on these?

@JStubbles
I read somewhere (may have been here or ModDB) that you'd improved the planet textures? Was that all of them and would you allow us the use of?

The Dynamic Lighting patch... not sure exactly who created it, but I'd like to include it.

Kindest regards,

The Old Dragon

Arparso · « **Reply #27 on:** February 24, 2011, 16:16:49 »

The overall plan sounds good to me. Just keep in mind, that any changes to the stock game will also affect installed mods using these changed assets like effect textures, icons, ship models or revamped systems. Changes to the tacticstypes.ini are particularly "dangerous" for mods not having their own tacticstypes (and thus relying on the default one). "SAMPLE 01 A Complete Mission" and "NEXUS Skirmisher SP Settings" are two such cases.

For those mods, the Skirmisher doesn't read the actual default tacticstypes.ini, but falls back on some other default file included with the Skirmisher. This would need to be changed accordingly as well and could be provided with the installer or the mod archive.

Quote from: The Old Dragon

All going well, what I'm thinking of doing packing this up into a .dap file like the Nexus:TJI patch 1.01

Yeah, that'd make the most sense as well as make uninstallation easy - just remove the .dap and the mod is gone.

Quote from: The Old Dragon on February 24, 2011, 15:07:05

The Dynamic Lighting patch... not sure exactly who created it, but I'd like to include it.

I'm fairly certain Mularac created the patch, based on this discussion mostly between jstubbles, GeoModder and me. I don't believe anyone will object to including this patch.

Mularac · « **Reply #28 on:** February 24, 2011, 19:45:35 »

Quote

The Dynamic Lighting patch... not sure exactly who created it, but I'd like to include it.

Yeah, that was me. The patch is insanely simple, I just added

Code: [Select]

CELESTIAL
	Name ""

	Radius 0.00001

	Type 1
	Mass 0.00001
	Gravity 0.00001
	Color 0.00001
	Size 0.00001
END

At the end of every .system file.

If it's ok with you, I'd deal with the last two points of the phase one.
Also, since this is going to be a big project made by many people we should agree on some method of version control.

I'd recommend SVN or Dropbox. Any ideas?

The Old Dragon · « **Reply #29 on:** February 25, 2011, 00:45:12 »

Hi Mul,

Dropbox already set up, looks like you can only link to one dropbox at a time though (unless I'm missing something). And having to download the contents of a box everytime you link to it isn't practical. So for some (i.e. me and yourself at least) we'll have to manually sync with dropbox.

Sent you a pm with the dropbox details. By all means on point 4, I may well tinker with some of the systems as well.

Lt.Brandon · « **Reply #30 on:** February 25, 2011, 10:22:09 »

I've been working on making higher quality textures for a bit myself, if I ever get them to look right I'll let you know. For the most part what I've been making has been higher quality asteroid backgrounds, and a few ship retextures.

The Old Dragon · « **Reply #31 on:** February 25, 2011, 14:39:24 »

Hi LT,

I'd like to see what you've done with the asteroid backgrounds, they always looked a bit horrible if you got near them.

PM with dropbox details will be on it's way soon.

Regards

The Old Dragon

Mularac · « **Reply #32 on:** February 25, 2011, 18:56:44 »

i don't think Dropbox will be suited for a project this big, a SVN account will be more suited in my opinion.
If you want, I can set it up myself.

The google code project hosting page is a good site, grants us up to 2 gb of space, but it has a minor flaw. Our project has to be Open Source.

And Old Dragon, yes, you can have two Dropbox accounts running simultaneously, just download a stand-alone client and voilá! done.

So, SVN or Dropbox?

Arparso · « **Reply #33 on:** February 25, 2011, 19:42:44 »

Assembla might be an alternative to Google Code - they don't require you to go open source and also offer 2 gb of free storage space.

Mularac · « **Reply #34 on:** February 25, 2011, 21:46:43 »

Oh... that's nice one! I was using xp-dev until now for my projects, this one sounds much better!

Well, I think that we should assamble a subversion host.
However, which would be our project's folder? Nexus folder itself? so that we can test the project on real time?

The Old Dragon · « **Reply #35 on:** February 25, 2011, 22:29:19 »

For the time being, at least, all I'm looking for is a place where we can stage a 'central repository' that we can all access and work from; so storage space works for me. I'm quite happy for you to find us a suitable home Mularac.

The first two stages are more concerned with improving the existing textures and models than anything else, so any testing can be done through the standard mod folder. At a later date, when we're ready to look at coding, the CEP can quickly be compiled into a .dap file and then placed into the main nexus folder... will make installation/uninstallation a very simple affair.

DreamorCZ · « **Reply #36 on:** February 26, 2011, 19:04:20 »

I completely agree with Old Dragon's plan.

About the planet rotation. It will take quite a lot of time because all planet textures must be placed on a new mesh and then animated and added to system files and there is also a little problem with night side of planets when there is not possible to re-add texture with city lights.

Lt.Brandon · « **Reply #37 on:** March 02, 2011, 04:55:59 »

I just took a few screenies of my asteroid background textures, Nexus is hating on me though and making them a lot blurrier then I made them. It's not to bad though, just gonna make them smaller so it's less noticeable. Anything you guys would like to see floating around in those asteroids?

The Old Dragon · « **Reply #38 on:** March 03, 2011, 09:00:08 »

Hi LT,

Looks quite a bit better that the original background textures. Good work

Mularac · « **Reply #39 on:** March 08, 2011, 05:16:41 »

Ok guys, I got ourselves a home. The site is https://www.assembla.com/ You need to make yourself an account there and then post it in on this site so I can invite you to the project.

The project's url is: https://subversion.assembla.com/svn/nexustjicepmod/
But since it's not Open Source, the only way to access that is if you become part of the project.

Assembla provided us with our own SVN repository. For the ones of you that don't know what SVN is, I'll tell you.
SVN is a software versioning and a revision control system.

How does it work?
By a simpe 3 step mechanics.

Step 1:
Before you start to work you UPDATE. This will (of course) bring you to the latest revision, changing, adding, deleting and merging all modified files since the last time you updated.
ALWAYS remember to Update before begining to work.

Step 2:
While you're working and you've achived something (finished a piece of code, cleaned up a bug, etc) you COMMIT. When you commit you'll bring the SVN repository to a new revision, marked by your changes. But before you actually press the commit button is of good practise to hit the Update one again, in case someone has made any modifications since you started working.

Step 3:
When pressing the commit buttom, a window will appear (if you're using the program turtoiseSVN, which'll be the one I'll be using as example) showing you all the changes you've done while you were working. There, you can choose which ones to commit and which won't (it'd be best if you only commited finished or at least clean partial code, nothing half-done or something like that) and finally, write down a summary of your change log in the designated "message" area. This is very important, always leave a message when you commit, always. Otherwise it'll be quite tedius to keep track of our project.

And an optional step 4: Undo any possible merging problems (this'll happen when SVN tries to merge two modified files by two different people and for some reason the two files differ too much for it to do a proper merge and it can't tell appart which one is right. If you've followed all steps this is very unlikely to occur, but still)

Ok, that's how SVN works, now how to make it work on your computer. If you're on windows I recommend the program turtoiseSVN.
Ok, once you've installed your favourite SVN program on your computer, it's time to do the Checkout. In case of tortoiseSVN, doing so is very simple, as it's a shell program, fully integrated with windows Explorer. All you have to do is right click on the folder you'll choose to keep our project in and then click on SVN Checkout. This will automatically download all the files of the latest revision. It'll ask you for the SVN url, to which you have to paste the one that appears in upper section of this post and done! You're good to go to start working.

To update and commit using turtoiseSVN: Simply right click on any on the project's folder (nexustjicepmod) and then click on SVN update or SVN Commit... depending which action you want to perform.

The Old Dragon · « **Reply #40 on:** March 08, 2011, 08:54:26 »

Hi Mularac,

Have made an account under my avatar - The Old Dragon and await an invitation.

Mularac · « **Reply #41 on:** March 08, 2011, 15:52:59 »

Invitation sent. Also, one last thing I forgot to mention.
In order to keep things simple, I think it'll be best if we place in svn only the files to be added the .dap file instead of the whole nexus_00.dat content.

The Old Dragon · « **Reply #42 on:** March 08, 2011, 21:38:33 »

I've uploaded the files from the dropbox. I also agree about keeping things simple.

jstubbles · « **Reply #43 on:** March 09, 2011, 03:35:13 »

Created an account as "jstubbles"

Lt.Brandon · « **Reply #44 on:** March 09, 2011, 05:22:13 »

I made an account as LtBrandon, I did it yesterday and managed to forget about posting here $:-\$

jstubbles · « **Reply #45 on:** March 09, 2011, 07:15:25 »

I can add the planet textures to the CEP project for public use as I make them but they are in fact, for BSG. I also have a lot of other art content on my plate so things in that department might go a little slow for now.

For the rotating planets, maybe Dreamor will know more, but the only way I've gotten it to work was with a custom model and texture applied to it. I don't know if you can swap textures in the system editor like with normal planet models. However, I can be totally wrong on that. I didn't mess around with it TOO much.

jstubbles · « **Reply #46 on:** March 10, 2011, 07:14:04 »

Hmmm, I seem to have accidentally checked in a bunch of file to the project. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong here. I made a new folder, then tried to import through SVN using the link listed on the site. Nothing happened - it gave some error. So I right clicked and made the folder a respository, then tried again. After that it got latest on the files. Except, the project files aren't showing on my end and the crap files it automatically made have been uploaded to the project =\

I've only used SVN a few times, over a year ago. Any help would be great! I hope I didn't damage anything in the directory =\

Lt.Brandon · « **Reply #47 on:** March 10, 2011, 12:07:53 »

Nothing seemed to be damaged when I went through it. Just added a few folders of random crap to the project. What SVN client are you using? If it's tortoise then make a folder, use the project link for checkout with your username/password for assembla, it should then download the files and allow you to upload content.

Just to be sure your using the right link, this is the one I'm using https://subversion.assembla.com/svn/nexustjicepmod

Edit: I just went through and cleaned up what your SVN Client added, anyone see anything I missed?

jstubbles · « **Reply #48 on:** March 10, 2011, 15:35:19 »

That worked Brandon - thanks a lot!
I think the issue is just the terminology differences. At work, we use Team Foundation and Source Depot for asset management. The term "checkout" is for actually checking files out for editing, while "get latest" has it's obvious function.

Thanks for clearing that up as well as clearing out my mess!

jstubbles · « **Reply #49 on:** March 10, 2011, 15:42:59 »

Quote from: DreamorCZ on February 26, 2011, 19:04:20

It will take quite a lot of time because all planet textures must be placed on a new mesh and then animated and added to system files and there is also a little problem with night side of planets when there is not possible to re-add texture with city lights.

If you're making a new planet mesh anyways, the default method of swapping planet textures doesn't seem to work anyways. When I tried exporting the mesh with no texture, the model would actually change when I tried swapping it's texture in the system editor.

Since we then have to apply textures like a normal model, you can always just apply the __night map as a __lum map instead. Sure it might look odd if you made it particularly bright or if your sun isn't that bright, but it's the only real solution I can think of. Thats what I'm doing for the planets in the BSG mod and it looks pretty decent still.