Don't worry, I've never released anything that ugly, have I? It was a bitch to get transparency working on the 3D scenes so I could go without the background, but I've got it working now.

It will be a great update....In all its aspects

Everyone here in Beijing said to say hey.
So what about rotating 3D ship model? Oh just make the
update and we will worry about that later.

I wasn't expecting you to release anything ugly Mike. I was just making sure you'd thought of it.

I'm sure i'm not the only one thinking "I can't wait to see this ingame".

My thought is to make sure the user interface is quick, because there is a lot to do between turns in this game. I cannot wait for this update
Hello to K_O_B in Bejing. CB

The 3D models are loaded in the background, so even if they don't appear right away, the UI doesn't freeze; the player can continue scrolling through the ship list. However, they load pretty instantaneously on my machine.

I improved the lighting a bit and enabled grab-and-drag rotation of the models.

Go Mike! That looks way cool.

Drag rotation? That's better than BOTF already! There were four directional controls in BOTF.

Have you considered zooming on the models? It could be controlled via mouse scrollwheels...

Of course I have. But it creates a kinda weird clipping effect because of the invisible rectangular viewport. Besides, it resets and starts doing the normal rotation once you stop drag-rotating the model, so it's not that useful anyway.

I just realized what was missing in the image Mike. We need to get silvercliff to do one of his beautiful LCARs frames for this window. Captain B

Oh and by coincidence, he joined the forums exactly 5 years ago on Sept. 11 (2005).

Are you planning to add ship lighting (windows, engines, deflectors...) to the model renderer?

Oh, and sorry for the double post, but is this planned for the next update or is it just a preliminary test?

Unless I run unto unforeseen problems, this should be in the next update. Since I was redesigning the shipbuilding interface anyway, it seemed like a good time to add the 3D rendering. I'm keeping it simple, though--no fancy lighting. We'll save that for the combat engine.

Ok, great. People will really enjoy this. I think that it will attract a lot of followers.

I just thought it would be nice if the modelers could see some of their work in the game after all this time .

Yeah, can't wait.

Yeah, it's a really nice reward for Kenneth and co. Finally people will be able to truly appreciate all their hard work.

Mike you must be working really hard. Is there anything you need from us? Shall we send dinner or something? But seriously, drawings, ideas, moral support? We the vocal posters appreciate it, but you must be aware that there are thousands of lurkers out there salivating. Thanks man. CB

Finally got around to reworking the shipyards in the actual game. Got the 3D ship views in too.

Brilliant Mike, that's just brilliant!

So when you say it's 3D, does that also mean the ships are rotatable in that actual view? And if it works like this, does that mean we now need to scrap all of the ship images? I just did a quick check, and removing all the ship images I have from the game would take out 370 images, totalling 25.3mb.

By the way, will the 3D views eventually be included in the Trekpedia?

Well we still need ship images for fleet deployment view and the trekpedia (Am I forgetting something that also uses ship images?) unless you are planning to add the renderer there too

You could look into doing a nicer background later. We are very happy with the that whole layout.

I am off on a new boat now for a few days. You will likely not hear from me for a while.

We need to keep the images for the task force views and (for now) the encyclopedia. The ships rotate around the Y-axis on their own (i.e. they spin around "sideways"), though you can grab them with the mouse and rotate them yourself along either axis. That's what I did in the screenshot, which is why it's pitched upwards like that.

(Incoherent wirds, mihed with drooling) Can't wait for the game...

Wow this is so exciting. Shipyards coming!

Wow that is pretty damn cool, it is the small polished things that make a truly great game stand out.

Of course there is always the need for more,... MOAR!!!

Regards Wolfe