File types and sizes to be uploaded to SharePoint:

Autodesk .3ds mesh file type, (3 sided polys)

5,000 polygons or less for ships

25,000 polygons or less for stations

2,000 polygons or less for orbital defense platforms

(Also the shipyard and Fleetyard have increasing numbers of build slots)
Basic Shipyard: 1 Build Slot*
Medium Shipyard: 2 Build Slots*
Advanced Shipyard: 4 Build Slots*
Fleetyard: 6 Build Slots*



Textures: image up to 1024 x 1024 is a reasonable limit. "I'll probably scale them down automatically in the game based on the player's hardware and display resolution." (Mike)

We know that most game engines will need the texture files in .psd, .jpg, .png, .tga, .bmp or .pcx format.

Scaling models:
Go to
http://www.botf2.com/default.aspx
And take Shared Documents / 3D models / and download AAA Scale model.

Load the AAA Scale model and load your model with it. Now scale your ship to fit.

Orient models: Your model should point with +Z as forward and + Y up as seen in Ultimate Unwrap program using 3ds file format. (A conversion in file type and using a different program may change the orientation. To check your program just download Federation Cruiser II form SharePoint and see how it loads and saves.)



Here is my suggestion as standard format (so post any changes or additions):

@Sharepoint \ Shared Documents \3D models \ Race subfolders:

Ship: one 3ds file not to exceed 5,000 polygons + (suggest) one or more texture file in bmp format not to exceed 1024 x 1024 pix. Compress the files, using 7-zip, together in one folder and upload to SharePoint, Shared Documents, 3D Models in the race specific subfolder. Name the folder/ file for the ship.* (See the naming convention in use at SharePoint)

Station: one 3ds file not to exceed 25,000 polygons + (suggest) one or more texture file in bmp format not to exceed 1024 x 1024 pix. 7-zip Compress the files together and upload to SharePoint, Shared Documents, 3D Models and the race specific subfolder in a folder named for the station.*

Orbital platforms: one 3ds file not to exceed 2,000 polygons + (suggest) one or more texture file in bmp format not to exceed 1024 x 1024 pix. 7-zip Compress the files together and upload to SharePoint, Shared Documents, 3D Models and the race specific subfolder in a folder named for the orbital platform.*

We also need an ingame 2D.png image of the ship.
Shared Documents / In Game PNG Images (see subfolders):


Ships, station, structures and emblems: 640 x 480 png file with transparent background. People seam to like all ships to point nose left and down in the image but I will be artistic when the need calls for it. The png images used in the game will be taken from this folder on SharePoint. The "image library" png images on SharePoint will not end up in the game so you can add in a black background layer to make it appear as it will in game. The transparent background should be all that reaches the edge of the image. Keep portions of the visible image from reaching the boarder as in game as there will be extra space beyond the 640 x 480 area added onto the image ingame.

Well, if everyone is OK with these suggested formates would one of the admins sticky this up to server as a reference point?

Makes life much easier as my work falls into these poly counts so just port what you need.

I think the resolutions I highlighted should read 2048x2048. Using powers of 2 resolution sizes gives better performance because graphics cards are optimized to use those sizes. (2048 = 2^11, 1024 = 2^10, 512 = 2^9, 256 = 2^8 and so on...)

Thanks for correcting that. I will fix the post. See, I could tell you are a smart one. I just plod along.

excuse my limited knowledge of the project, but what is a build slot? maybe I'll think that was a dumb question after seeing the answer but for now I dont get it
just begun to work on the romulan fleetyard so that is why I need to know what does 6 slots represent?
Thank you!

That is a very good question. It comes from the nature of the yard's capacity to build one or more ships at a time in the game. A fleetyard can build six ships at the same time. To represent that we would see six work areas where a ship would be constructed in a fleetyard. The first ship yard has one, the second ship yard has two and the third ship yard has four and a fleetyard has six.

Federation:
Ship Yard I

Ship Yard II

Ship Yard III

Fleetyard I

Fleetyard II


Now you will ask why the Federation has two kinds of fleetyards and all the other major races only have one. That is because MOE is evil and he made me do it. It also has something to do with fleetyard one is built at sol only and the other one you can build in other systems beyond Earth.

Yes, I am evil. Muahaha.

The Fleetyards are intended to be one of the last structures in the game - they are tech 11 structures, capable of vastly increasing the construction rate of ships. In that respect, they are a make-or-break structure; build yours first, and you ensure that you can construct a fleet quickly and efficiently, because not only do they have the most construction slots, they actually build ships faster than the other shipyard types.

The build speed of a shipyard depends on its' "build efficiency"; they duplicate a set percentage of the total system industrial output. (Allowing you to build both a structure and a ship in the same star system at the same time, which wasn't possible in BOTF)

The construction rates of the shipyards are as follows:
Federation: 25%, 50%, 75%
Klingon: 30%, 60%, 80%
Romulan: 25%, 50%, 75%
Cardassian: 30%, 60%, 90%
Dominion: 30%, 60%, 90%

And the fleetyards are as follows:
Federation 75%, 100%
Klingon: 125%
Romulan: 125%
Cardassian: 130%
Dominion: 150%
Note: All fleetyard bonuses in the game are currently incorrect. The above efficiency rates are the correct rates. This error will be fixed once the editor works again.

The Federation get two Fleetyard structures to maintain both canon and consistency. We know that Utopia Planitia was constructed on or above Mars some time before TNG era, so to maintain canon, it's a tech 5 structure. But since all of the other Fleetyards are tech 11 structures, Utopia has a low construction bonus (It's only as efficient as the later tech shipyard 3's but can build more ships at the same time), as does the the second Fleetyard.

In all, this means that the Federation gain access to two Fleetyards instead of one, and as Utopia Planitia is a tech 5 structure, it means the Federation have a mid-tech ship construction advantage over the other Empires. But both Fleetyards are less efficient than the Fleetyards of the other Empires, by a long way in comparison to the Dominion, which means they actually have a fleet construction disadvantage towards the end of the game. The Federation also have to should both the construction and maintenance costs of two separate Fleetyards, whilst the other Empires only have to pay for one.

All Fleetyards, except for Utopia, can be built in any natively-owned (Ie. colonised not subjugated or membered) system. Also note that four of the minor races have special Fleetyard structures.

thanks to Surak !!!! i´ve found this post, i was seeking everywhere, how to make the 3D models and what kind of file do you need when everything it´s done. I´ve recently made two ships for botf, vesta and luna classes, and now i´making the kelvin and constitution from the last movie. Of course for the original botf, i must have the polycount low, but 5.000 polys it`s a dream for me, you have more freedom to make it more real.
So... i know that maybe you administrators, are tired answering the same all time, here it goes the NAIB question:
1_"(3 sides polys)" ???? what that does mean ???? Triangles ???? because i always work with square polys.

well i´ll download the AAA scale model


So if i understood well (i HOPE), when i finishe the ships i´ve made and the ones i´m doing, with more details, i will upload them in the respective place in shared documents.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Live long and prosper

Welcome Anjel. We like to hear from all the fans but a fan with skills is special. We can use more people with CG skills.

Yes, triangles because that is what is called for in .3Ds files. It does cut down the detail some but for now that is it. I can upload the files to SharePoint for you when the time comes. Our project is original universe so the 2009 movie ships are not seen. Sorry but we predate that film and rely on the wealth of material from all the shows that came before that including our parent game, BOTF.

Work on ship models is at a slow pace right now. There are two reasons for that. One is that our combat engine had been coded to work in windows XP. The underlying game is now coded to run in XP, vista and Windows 7. The old 3D combat engine no longer works. We need to have a new combat engine coded. Coding work currently is aimed at getting the multiplayer version of the core game out in the next few months. Without a combat engine the game will not run the models but only 2D images of them on the main user interface. Once we are coding a combat engine there will be more guidance about quad polygons, normal maps, hard points and the rest.

The other reason is that we need some windows backgrounds for the game user interfaces. These 2D images are being created from 3D models. Most of our modelers are working on these images originally designed for us by a professional graphic novel and gaming artists. You can read more about that part of the project here. It is very exciting work and behind each image is a massive 3D model.

Again welcome. There is more we can talk about but that will get you started.

Hey Anjel, welcome to the forums!

It's great to hear that you would be willing to help with the game. As Kenneth said, we need more people with CG skills.

If you were wondering what our old combat system looked like, we've got several videos on Youtube. The videos are numbered, so just click on the links on the right of the page to see the next video in the sequence. (Fraps has a 30 second record limit so the videos had to be split up)

Kenneth also made a Video Intro for Supremacy that you might want to look at too.

I like your avatar by the way. Great Trek quote there.

Is that you in the Avatar? Captain Bashir

Thank you very much MOE, so you understand a little of castellano (spanish).

Actually Captian Bashir, i am not the men in that picture, buuuuuut for reasons i don`t know yet, that men (a swedish, i think, film director whose name i don´t remeber now) looks like me from rigth side... yes i have a big nose I don´t know... destiny brought that picture to me and i like it, i could take the same picture on me, but when something it´s strange and vizarre, like finding another guy who looks identical to me from the other corner of the world,deserves to be appreciated... (i didn´t know what to say at the end)

These days i was reading the link you gave me Keneth_of_Borg, and i really enjoyed what i have seen so far, read almost the twelve pages, and it`s amazing, i feel thrilled to participate, because nowadays i`m incursionating in v-ray rendering from differents scenarios, outside and inside, and ship modelling, but i don´t mind to make people too (it isn´t my best, but i learn quick), so far i made a monster, a teddy bear and a mole (is that the word ???) here you can watch some pictures:








Each and everyone made in 3Dmax and with bones, so then you can make animations with them.
I do not have to many scenario rendering because im still learning v-ray, but here i´ve got a jail with standard render:




So if you want, ask me anything you need and i will help with as much as i can, it would be a real honor to help in this proyect.
Thanks for you attention.

Regards

BTW, i watched the video intro made by Keneth_of_Borg and it´s wonderfull, i can help in that matter too, i can use After Effects, Premiere and Sony vegas for video editing. And sounforge for sound editing too.

That sounds great. Would you be interested in doing the Klingon backdrops as depicted out by Slim in that link?

ok, tell me where do i start, and if there is something done beside the backdrops to continue or something else.

Regards

No one has yet worked on the Klingon backdrops as 3D models. The idea drawings and suggested color schemes come to us from Slim and are posted in this Thread. See page one and two of the post for the Klingon material and an explanation of each image in the respective posts.

I would guess that the second one, the espionage, is the easier one to start with but that is up to you. You can post your work as it progress in that thread. As explained in the first post the final result will be a 2560 x 1600 image that is incorporated into the games user interface.

Nope, I only speak English. Google translated it for me.

Well, I can't speak Spanish too, only English, Croatian and a bit of German, but I thought that it's obvious what the writing means (For anyone that is interested : Larga - Long, Vida - Life, y - and, Prosperidad - Prosper.)

Very nice model work up there Anjel. I could not see it all until I got home and outside the fun filter at work. I am sure you will do great work on the Klingons. We are all looking forward to it. Take your time. It should not be a rush job.

Will you spare somebody to us in 3d models and 2d images section KoB ? You are true Borg drone Kenneth.

Nice images Anjel

Sorry if I come down hard pushing people into backgrounds. With any luck this will be done in less than a geologic time scale. With any luck the new update and our well timed viral campaign for it will bring us more workers than we know what to do with.

It's ok mate, you are doing big size resolution images and each detail in the scene is important, you need lots of people for such big work. Just kidding, actually we (vjeko and me) don't need help I think in a year we will finish all 2d art.