I haven't been following this thread much, but what's wrong with the image in:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Lovok

I can photoshop it a bit. The original is dark and small.

Picard

Not really good ideas IMO.
Neither cloning photos left and right (what's the point really?), nor using images for replaced characters (which might be confusing). I'd KISS.

(re the latter, the pic we have for the Malurians [which won't be in the game, so I'll just remove it], it's actually the malurian guy in disguise as an Akaali, which is silly)

How do you suggest we deal with the limited number of Dominion agents? That is the point, the issue, we are trying to deal with. If Mike has a way to code for fewer agents in that race we are good. If not we have to find a way to make more than we have so far.

I'm pretty sure I can Photoshop any of us into a changeling, or at least die trying

Since changlings can look like anyone else, it makes sense to use other characters from other races as the agents. There wouldn't be confusion because you would know you are playing as the Dominion. The agent would just have a Founder name. In fact, that could be part of the interest in playing as the Dominion - you need to assign the agent that looks Klingon (he is good at taking on Klingon features), to the Klingons etc. That agent would be the most effective there. You could assign another (They are changlings after all) but they might not be as good at escaping detection.

Just a thought.

Facinating!

We have a random event called Discovery of Data, should that random event give Data as an agent to a random empire?

O'Brien

Not sure what you mean. He doesn't need to code anything in particular. The number of agents we add to the data files is the number of agents the game will use as the available pool. There really isn't an issue, and we don't need to create one. If the Dominion has fewer Agents, is that really a problem? They also have a different gameplay style, this is just part of it.

We could also put a limit on the number of active agents so it wouldn't matter how many we have in the database, races with more agents will just have more diversity.

If you read the first page of this thread, one of my posts quotes, among other things, the max number of active agents per empire. It's currently set at 8. Not that the games is actually enforcing it already, but provisions have already been made.

Not really. The changeling is still the changeling, it's not like he/she had plastic surgery. And remember that you will be able to change assignments.
And, since they're replacing someone else, that means we wouldn't be able to use that someone else in their respective empire.



If you're familiar with the Star Trek universe. Hopefully, our audience will be much wider than that.



That doesn't make any sense. He has a Founder name but a pic from another race? What's the criteria here? Surely he won't be called by his Founder name when undercover or whatever.



I don't see the interest, since the changelings can take any form. And it makes those agents less flexible. If I only have a Klingon changeling and I've only met the Romulans...

And is that final? Will it be enough since agents will have various roles and stats...I never take anything in this game as final since everything gets changed all the time. I have no time or patience for anything like this...simple yes/no/it is planned... will do from now on. I can't concentrate or remember everything anyone said, I'm working on four big exams atm and I managed to do over a 150 agent images, a little appreciation would be nice...or simply a normal communication.

Thanks for all your hard work Vjeko.


I know other would help too, and do it without finding fault in everything you do, if only we had half your talent.

Here is an update from Mike on what is needed for the agents.

"I haven't come up with an exact number, but we should try to come up with a dozen (or more, if possible) agents of the appropriate race(s) for each empire. We can also have several "common" agents that can be recruited by any empire (Alien freelancers of a sort)."

So we need a new set of common agents. Best we use aliens other than the major races to avoid new reason to find fault.

Should the Federation have only human agents then? I mean it's a bit funny having other races as agents before you even discover them and specially of they aren't on the map.

eh, it's like that in most 4X games that have 'heros' or 'leaders' (MoO2, Endless Space, etc.). It's actually not that strange if you think about it. People will presumably migrate around the galaxy much like they move between countries and continents here on Earth. It's entirely possible for one member of a species to end up living and working among foreigners before contact has been made between the two respective governments. Odo worked for the Cardassians, Bajorans, and Federation before any of them came to know about the Dominion.

Good point, we should still keep the aliens at minimum. Also I was thinking, what if membering a race could give you agents among other things. I don't know what you envisioned with common agents but every race could have 1,2,5,10 depending on what we decide, number of agents that would add to your pool, IMO a good additional feature of the minors...

That has actually been suggested before, as a way to make minors more interesting.

Kenneth, IIRC those pics are already being used for the minor race images (except for Quark?).

Greetings everyone. Blaze Lee Dragon here. I did the voices in Kenneth's intro videos and some in game voices.

I was talking with him about other things I might do to help with the game. I'm fairly handy in blender, though by no means a pro.

He suggested I try my hand and modeling a head, here is my attempt at a changeling. Using Odo for reference. I don't have the hair, color, back ground or uniform, but since I did bout 4 days of work I figure upload it before I put to much more into it and get an opinion if my work might be usable or not.

That looks like a good start Blaze.

The ears will need more depth to them and the chin points and extends too far out. That should be easy to fix. These human models are really complex. I think making a sphere for the eyeballs will help as well.

If you do it high poly enough you should be able to paint the texture right onto the model in blender. That may still not prove to be high enough resolution enough for our needs. If that is the case there are some tutorials I recall on unwrapping the head for texture mapping. You start with a vertical seam in the back. By mapping a high res image you can put in things like photo real eyes, skin and lips. Mapping a sphere for the eyeballs will be easier than the rest of the face.

I did use spheres for the eyes :S

yeah I wasn't sure about the ears myself. I'll thickening them up, and work no the chin.

i've done a few unwraps but not so good at texturing from scratch. I may look up some tutorials and see what it says. for background I was thinking of maybe just placing a blank plane and using a photo of the inside of dominion bridge or something.

Below is an image of a model available on blender swap. It appears rather photo real. That is where we are trying to go with this as images we already have are photos of real actors from Star Trek.
The model is found here at blenderswap:
http://www.blendswap.com/
More human models here:
http://artist-3d.com/free_3d_models/02anatomy_design.php

Here is an intro to mapping textures:
http://cgcookie.com/blender/2011/01/21/intro_uvmapping/

This looks like a good human head tutorial here, start to finish:
http://cgcookie.com/blender/series/creating-a-realistic-head/
here is one on projection painting
http://software-tips.wonderhowto.com/how-to/texture-head-with-projection-painting-blender-377647/

The changelings in the more base state, like Odo, do have those simplified ears, nose and lips. That should make it easier than say trying
to look as good as a photo of Captain Picard. The background might be the Great Link on the Dominion home world.

wow...yeah I've never done anything that good... :S

Great start!

--

BTW, I've added a bunch more agent pics, mostly Jem'Hadar and a couple Vorta, and a few other. We have plenty of Dominion agents now.

Well if you are saying we have enough Dominion agents, that you have added but not posted here, can Blaze use those blender swap models to make minor race agents?