I am not one of those trekie types that pores over ship schematics or anything but I agree with the op that the Galaxy has noticable flaws and I noticed something was wrong with it almost immediately after I purchased one. It is a ship that is on tv every day only the constitution gets as much screen time so people know what it is supposed to look like. It is also one of the most beloved ships and deserves more love.
No, BCS-TNG is totally separate from BC-Central. BCS was only started to give the scripters some-place else to work undisturbed by the community until they felt ready to release.
Be sure you get the correct version of KM. I think the latest KM version is 2010 which had a metric sh*t ton of improvements over the older versions.
In fact, there is a ship building contest taking place on BCC as we speak. Some very interesting ships coming out. All of which are set in the "lost era" (post TMP, pre TNG)
Ah, I see. And I think I have the latest version installed, I'll double-check in the future.
And "lost era" haha, nice way of putting it. :P I'll check it out.
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9 My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
Heh, just be glad you didn't see these ships around launch ...
Honestly, I got the 'parody' impression when I saw the deflector part too. Did you know it used to not even be yellow? And just be glad you're not a bigger fan of the Intrepid class, which used to have impulse trails coming out of its airlocks. People still complain about the underside of the saucer, which is a trouble point on the Luna as well.
The early launch-era ships had extremely varied quality. Some were good, but some were terrible. Ships ranged from attempts at canon designs, to an unexplained redesign of the Olympic class, to adding some flat antenna things all over to make the Luna variant into the 'Polaris' variant. If you look under all the doodads, you can still see what the Luna used to be.
Over the years, ship artists haven't been the most numerous devs on the team, but they've done a lot of work to update the models from what they were. They have to deal with a lot of things like polygon budgets and swappable parts. Are more accurate models possible? With some issues yes, but it will take some squeezing in or else all the other ship work in the game will come to a screeching halt. Other issues are just limitations that the artists have to work within, or things that would cause more problems if they were to be 'fixed'.
It's easy to say it should be done better because other people have made accurate models, but working for a company on a schedule, having to prioritize your work, is totally different than making models on your own time that don't need to be optimized for the minimum game specs.
Take a look at my Foundry missions! Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
Regarding the difficulty of fixing such off center (or minor mesh-) problems in general:
You load the model and select the vertexes in the proper viewpoint, align the grid and/or turn on some sort of snap-to-grid, you then move the vertexes into their proper place.
After this you might need to check whether this has caused problems with the uvw map and adjust it if necessary (that's just a matter of moving another bunch of vertexes on a texture).
This is literally step-by-step. It might take 5 minutes (altho there might be more than one problem with a mesh, obviously).
Eh. Cryptics pretty hopeless.
The flipped polygons on many ship models (due to an error in their exporter) have, for the most part, not been fixed even tho it's even easier and the problem has been known for many months now, with the number of people having this problem slowly increasing.
I mean, sure, it would be nice if there was some huge surprise patch in the works that fixes most of the model errors in general - but I doubt it will ever happen.
It's kinda disappointing, really. Fanmade starships, with no pay and sometimes deadlines, can create much better looking vessels and have them work in a game. And then there's Cryptic... they can't even make a half-decent ship, even when they're being paid to do so.
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9 My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
What annoys me most ATM, is that 4 nacelled ships are really hard to make look symetric (side view) or at least look good.
I have found some ways to make the prometheus look at least decent but it's very hard to find some good combinations with the (Fleet) Heavy Cruiser.
I won't start talking about cryptics ships, i tend to get really upset when getting into this issue. Let me just say that if i where in charge of Cryptic i would fire the responsible ship artist with a pleasure. Especially the person who made the Patrol escort, the various Assault cruiser variants (excluding the regent), and most other Cryptic ship models should be .... (insert something cruel and untasty here).
Sometimes they have some nice basic idea but they tend to add way too many things into one design, making it look overloaded. They should look much more onto their starships general shape instead of making each little detail look special.
By the way they should give us much more freedom when designning our ship at the ship tailor. At least they should make pylons and nacelles much more flexible to place and to size them.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
It's kinda disappointing, really. Fanmade starships, with no pay and sometimes deadlines, can create much better looking vessels and have them work in a game. And then there's Cryptic... they can't even make a half-decent ship, even when they're being paid to do so.
You forgot to add that Cryptic most definitely has deadlines, sort-of set work hours, and probably have no desire to take their work home with them.
So yeah, I'd sort of expect Joe Free-Time after work with months on end to map every weapon hardpoint as accurately as possible will turn out better work than Mike Ship-Guy who has to put out a ship every two weeks* and pray nothing goes wrong else the next ship he has to do in two weeks might end up rushed.
Does it really come as a surprise to you that fanmade stuff turns out better most of the time, with that in mind?
*number is pulled out of exhaust pipe, probably innaccurate, but likely in the ballpark based on observation.
You forgot to add that Cryptic most definitely has deadlines, sort-of set work hours, and probably have no desire to take their work home with them.
So yeah, I'd sort of expect Joe Free-Time after work with months on end to map every weapon hardpoint as accurately as possible will turn out better work than Mike Ship-Guy who has to put out a ship every two weeks* and pray nothing goes wrong else the next ship he has to do in two weeks might end up rushed.
Does it really come as a surprise to you that fanmade stuff turns out better most of the time, with that in mind?
*number is pulled out of exhaust pipe, probably innaccurate, but likely in the ballpark based on observation.
Nope, not a surprise. That's why I suggested, in posts around the same page as the one you quoted, that they ask Joe-Free-Time to use their models in the game.
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
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I think one thing that many people overlook when they say, "Just have fans build it!" is that everything that goes into the game has to be built in specific ways. Ships more than most, as they are basically a character. They need to not only fit into a triangle count, and a material count, but they have to be split up into multiple parts, with pivots in specific locations for customization. They have to have all of their UVs set up in a way to work well with multiple different materials. They have to be set up with nodes for every phaser strip, blinky light, photon torpedo launcher, and tractor beam. They have to be named in specific ways, and a million other things I'm sure I don't know about since I'm not a ship artist.
The point being, making a ship for OUR game, is a much more involved process than just making a good looking model in Maya for renders.
All of that stuff makes it difficult to outsource. There are many iterations, many things need to be double, triple, octuple checked, and when something breaks, there needs to be someone to debug/fix it who knows what they're doing.
All of that stuff makes it difficult to outsource. There are many iterations, many things need to be double, triple, octuple checked, and when something breaks, there needs to be someone to debug/fix it who knows what they're doing.
All of that stuff makes it difficult to outsource. There are many iterations, many things need to be double, triple, octuple checked, and when something breaks, there needs to be someone to debug/fix it who knows what they're doing.
There are complaints out there on model geometry, texture issues and other model-related issues that have been around for over a year.
Sometimes longer.
Given the number of ships released in a year (up to date, not very many) one has to wonder where bug-fix is on the priority list. Somewhere near the bottom one assumes.
It's like this with other aspects of the game too. It's almost like Cryptic has a "if it is live it is utterly perfect and the problem is you" attitude twords bug-fixing.
I would just like to point out that of all these things, the only one I ever noticed (and it bothered me) was the asymmetry on the Galaxy Dreadnaught. Asymmetry bugs me a lot and is easily noticeable. The lack of Ten Forward also really pops out at me.
I should also add that, while I think perceptions of "errors" in the models should be discussed, the fact of the matter is that many aspects of these models is somewhat open for interpretation. For instance, the Galaxy class is my favorite ship, but as already pointed out, the models themselves are somewhat inconsistent and certain features are never clearly visible on screen.
That being said, the Galaxy class ship model is, for the most part, pretty good considering the time constraints. I just hope that the artists can give it a nice facelift when they release the planned bridge set.
I disagree with the original poster that STO's models are "terrible". In fact, I think some are incredibly detailed and the amount of modification they have made based on player feedback is astounding.
But the Galaxy is so iconic that it really needs to be the best model in the game, with the awareness that several disparate models of the ships exist.
I would just like to point out that of all these things, the only one I ever noticed (and it bothered me) was the asymmetry on the Galaxy Dreadnaught. Asymmetry bugs me a lot and is easily noticeable. The lack of Ten Forward also really pops out at me.
I should also add that, while I think perceptions of "errors" in the models should be discussed, the fact of the matter is that many aspects of these models is somewhat open for interpretation. For instance, the Galaxy class is my favorite ship, but as already pointed out, the models themselves are somewhat inconsistent and certain features are never clearly visible on screen.
That being said, the Galaxy class ship model is, for the most part, pretty good considering the time constraints. I just hope that the artists can give it a nice facelift when they release the planned bridge set.
I disagree with the original poster that STO's models are "terrible". In fact, I think some are incredibly detailed and the amount of modification they have made based on player feedback is astounding.
But the Galaxy is so iconic that it really needs to be the best model in the game, with the awareness that several disparate models of the ships exist.
Lockboxes make money now, not the gimped Galaxy with its horrid stats that noone buys. Hence, with limited time the Art team probably has, its safe to assume that Galaxy is on the very bottom of everything in STO. Sad, but most likely truth.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
The absence of that version is what keeps me from purchasing the FMs for a Fleet Nebula.
The crazy thing is...look at the Venture deflector.
If the Venture skin became available on the Nebula, the ship would look a whole lot more like the filming model and would probably convince me to purchase both, the Fleet Nebby and the Venture skin.;)
These very minor cosmetic aspects SHOULD be on Cryptic's list... but in the lower ranks of it
STO way too many major bugs (e.g., ongoing issues with private challenge matches, flickering textures etc.) to dedicate a DEV to smth insignificant as this now.
Note: Some of you REALLY play the immersion-card here??? OMG, folks... Being in an STF with a borgified Ferengi Marauder, a Breen ship, a Dominion ship and a Tholian cruiser - ALL miraculously captained by Starfleet officers - completely killed off the last bit of immersion looooong ago...
I think one thing that many people overlook when they say, "Just have fans build it!" is that everything that goes into the game has to be built in specific ways. Ships more than most, as they are basically a character. They need to not only fit into a triangle count, and a material count, but they have to be split up into multiple parts, with pivots in specific locations for customization. They have to have all of their UVs set up in a way to work well with multiple different materials. They have to be set up with nodes for every phaser strip, blinky light, photon torpedo launcher, and tractor beam. They have to be named in specific ways, and a million other things I'm sure I don't know about since I'm not a ship artist.
The point being, making a ship for OUR game, is a much more involved process than just making a good looking model in Maya for renders.
All of that stuff makes it difficult to outsource. There are many iterations, many things need to be double, triple, octuple checked, and when something breaks, there needs to be someone to debug/fix it who knows what they're doing.
are ya'll EVER going to fix the fleet emblem issue on the assault cruiser (sovereign)?
the port side (left) fleet emblem is jut a mirror of the one from the right side. and as such it displays BACKWARDS from how it is supposed to look.
its been like this since the assault cruiser came out, and still has never been fixed or even addressed (as far as I know).
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I think one thing that many people overlook when they say, "Just have fans build it!" is that everything that goes into the game has to be built in specific ways. Ships more than most, as they are basically a character. They need to not only fit into a triangle count, and a material count, but they have to be split up into multiple parts, with pivots in specific locations for customization. They have to have all of their UVs set up in a way to work well with multiple different materials. They have to be set up with nodes for every phaser strip, blinky light, photon torpedo launcher, and tractor beam. They have to be named in specific ways, and a million other things I'm sure I don't know about since I'm not a ship artist.
The point being, making a ship for OUR game, is a much more involved process than just making a good looking model in Maya for renders.
All of that stuff makes it difficult to outsource. There are many iterations, many things need to be double, triple, octuple checked, and when something breaks, there needs to be someone to debug/fix it who knows what they're doing.
The models for Star Trek Bridge Commander are not simply renders for making hi-rez pictures. The same hardpointing, naming, and some of the "million other things" are also done in that game, as well as any other game that models are added to. (Which is pretty much any modern game).
If it's such a difficult process that takes too long for your artists to do in the short times they have, then give the community the tools they need to improve the look of the ships in this game. Hold a contest, offer ingame rewards, or whatever, to inspire and motivate people to give it a try. They win (prizes), Cryptic wins (better looking ships), players win (better gameplay experience). Win/Win/Win scenario.
I disagree with the original poster that STO's models are "terrible". In fact, I think some are incredibly detailed and the amount of modification they have made based on player feedback is astounding.
"Incredibly detailed" doesn't describe some of the clearly obvious ship errors, for example on the Sovereign, as shown in the first post.
Sure, "terrible" is up to debate, but "sloppy", in some of these cases, is not.
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9 My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
"Incredibly detailed" doesn't describe some of the clearly obvious ship errors, for example on the Sovereign, as shown in the first post.
Sure, "terrible" is up to debate, but "sloppy", in some of these cases, is not.
The models of most of the player ships are incredibly detailed, in some ways more0so than on the real on-screen models. Whether they contain what you judge to be "errors" has no bearing on their detail.
If you want to nitpick, there are huge numbers of "errors" in the real models used on screen and unlike the game, those errors are pretty much permanent. Compared to the "errors" and inconsistencies that made it onto the hundreds of hours of professionally-produced Star Trek television and movies, I think the art department here is doing a rather good job.
It does not mean that you should not point out what you believe to be an error when you find it. It just means that getting one little detail wrong when you zoom in ultra-close hardly makes the ship models "terrible".
The models of most of the player ships are incredibly detailed, in some ways more0so than on the real on-screen models. Whether they contain what you judge to be "errors" has no bearing on their detail.
If you want to nitpick, there are huge numbers of "errors" in the real models used on screen and unlike the game, those errors are pretty much permanent. Compared to the "errors" and inconsistencies that made it onto the hundreds of hours of professionally-produced Star Trek television and movies, I think the art department here is doing a rather good job.
It does not mean that you should not point out what you believe to be an error when you find it. It just means that getting one little detail wrong when you zoom in ultra-close hardly makes the ship models "terrible".
I don't know why I keep having to post this picture over and over...
This problem, along with the Dreadnought components being off-axis and the gap in the Expl. Cruiser Retrofit, is quite easily seen. The Intrepid-class has a similar problem, on the underside of the saucer.
You don't need to zoom in ultra-close to see this. And I hardly call this "accurate".
"A rather good job". Right.
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
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I don't know why I keep having to post this picture over and over...
This problem, along with the Dreadnought components being off-axis and the gap in the Expl. Cruiser Retrofit, is quite easily seen. The Intrepid-class has a similar problem, on the underside of the saucer.
You don't need to zoom in ultra-close to see this. And I hardly call this "accurate".
"A rather good job". Right.
Just because the name and registry number are in a certain place on the Enterprise E does not mean they would appear in the same place on another ship. Ships in this game can carry quite lengthy names and the art department may have decided to rearrange things a bit to make the names more visible rather than forcing a tiny, unreadable font.
I think there are an awful lot of ship models in STO and the art department has generally done a fairly good job making them accurate. For instance, the level of detail on the B'rel is absolutely stunning.
Note: Some of you REALLY play the immersion-card here??? OMG, folks... Being in an STF with a borgified Ferengi Marauder, a Breen ship, a Dominion ship and a Tholian cruiser - ALL miraculously captained by Starfleet officers - completely killed off the last bit of immersion looooong ago...
Thank you for pointing that out.
If people want to constantly zoom in and stare at their ship so much so that what is described in the OP actually effects them...that's perfectly fine. To each their own.
...but to say that this hurts immersion is ridiculous.
If people want to constantly zoom in and stare at their ship so much so that what is described in the OP actually effects them...that's perfectly fine. To each their own.
...but to say that this hurts immersion is ridiculous.
Here we go again!
I don't need a magnifying glass. I don't need to zoom in. It's obvious from a distance! And it should never have happened, if the model artists were doing their job in replicating the looks of the ships from the series this game is based off of.
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9 My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
i could be wrong here so dont complain at me for it, but with the dreadnought spinal lance being slightly off, is that because the saucer is supposed to have the saucer seperation console, so thats why its off . . . because the designers tried to take its ability to seperate into account?
again i may be wrong about this, its just what i have seen
The Galaxy-X model is a modification of the already-existing Galaxy Class Retrofit model, which does have saucer separation. You can see this if your Galaxy-X bumps against the wall of the sector block, and you turn the camera to look at the sector block.
As to why it's off, I'm not sure, and that's why I've made this thread, to get Cryptic to fix it, along with some pretty obvious ship errors.
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9 My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
I think one thing that many people overlook when they say, "Just have fans build it!" is that everything that goes into the game has to be built in specific ways. Ships more than most, as they are basically a character. They need to not only fit into a triangle count, and a material count, but they have to be split up into multiple parts, with pivots in specific locations for customization. They have to have all of their UVs set up in a way to work well with multiple different materials. They have to be set up with nodes for every phaser strip, blinky light, photon torpedo launcher, and tractor beam. They have to be named in specific ways, and a million other things I'm sure I don't know about since I'm not a ship artist.
You forget, that the models for Bridge commander are not simply "pretty models". They have to have all the hard points set up too. Every weapon, every glowy bit, every system is a node that has to be placed correctly and have any needed resources (sounds etc) associated correctly and included with the ship otherwise it will crash the game out all by itself.
For example, is that torpedo launcher hard-point located outside of the ship according to the @N@SHIP.Py? If so, CRASH. Are the torpedo to be used and the associated sounds all correctly referenced? Any one typo, CRASH.
Heck, look at ST: Excalibur (The fan made indie remake of BC). The ship hard-point system for that game is already more complex than the system used in BC.
I haven't even touched on the models and texturing for those games.
The point being, making a ship for OUR game, is a much more involved process than just making a good looking model in Maya for renders.
It is difficult. I don't know from experience of course, but if it was so easy then everyone would be at it.
All of that stuff makes it difficult to outsource. There are many iterations, many things need to be double, triple, octuple checked, and when something breaks, there needs to be someone to debug/fix it who knows what they're doing.
Please tell us, how many of the new ships have customizable physical parts? We get to VA level ships where the customization of physical parts basically stops and the only possible changes are texture based iirc. The VA retrofits of lower ranked ships have the customization, but the new ones (jem dread, wells, oddy, Galor, D'kora) all lack physical customization.
Btw, would you be able to find out for us what kind of polygon budget the artists have to work within, as well as how many texture maps, what size those maps can be and whether or not the mesh needs to be unified?
It's just something that I'm sure a lot of us would like to know. Heck, I might even be able to use that info to twist the arms of one or two BC modders into making some samples of ships within the graphical constraints.
The lack of solid info in that regard is one of the main reasons those guys who mod for BC/Excalibur who also play STO simply will not consider it. They are some of the most obsessive Trek fans I have ever met, they love what they do and they also cringe at how some of the meshes in game look. Not all of them want to do it, but those that do cannot do it without knowing what the constraints are.
If the relevant constraints and parameters were set for the mesh makers among us, would the ship artists and programmers at your end be willing to have a peek at some samples if these samples were made?
The Galaxy Dreadnaught has the spinal lance, canons and shield module misaligned, the Galaxy celestial skin has windows on the lower saucer misaligned, these are long standing errors on ships that are not free, customers had to pay for them so they should be held to a higher standard than free designs.
I've done more than a bit of ship designs myself for various game mods, I know about geometry budgets and UV mapping, the Celestial windows is a UV mapping error, the Galaxy Dreadnaughts spinal canon is a non zero x axis dislocation for the addon object group, which is what the lance and canons are, overlaid on a standard Galaxy model and is a very easy fix.
It's all well and good to talk about the high degree of tolerance to which designs are held but such talk falls short in the face of visually obvious flaws that go unnoticed and despite dozens of posts describing the problem and hundreds of patches still remains unrepaired.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
Comments
I couldn't agree more.
Ah, I see. And I think I have the latest version installed, I'll double-check in the future.
And "lost era" haha, nice way of putting it. :P I'll check it out.
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
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Honestly, I got the 'parody' impression when I saw the deflector part too. Did you know it used to not even be yellow? And just be glad you're not a bigger fan of the Intrepid class, which used to have impulse trails coming out of its airlocks. People still complain about the underside of the saucer, which is a trouble point on the Luna as well.
The early launch-era ships had extremely varied quality. Some were good, but some were terrible. Ships ranged from attempts at canon designs, to an unexplained redesign of the Olympic class, to adding some flat antenna things all over to make the Luna variant into the 'Polaris' variant. If you look under all the doodads, you can still see what the Luna used to be.
Over the years, ship artists haven't been the most numerous devs on the team, but they've done a lot of work to update the models from what they were. They have to deal with a lot of things like polygon budgets and swappable parts. Are more accurate models possible? With some issues yes, but it will take some squeezing in or else all the other ship work in the game will come to a screeching halt. Other issues are just limitations that the artists have to work within, or things that would cause more problems if they were to be 'fixed'.
It's easy to say it should be done better because other people have made accurate models, but working for a company on a schedule, having to prioritize your work, is totally different than making models on your own time that don't need to be optimized for the minimum game specs.
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You load the model and select the vertexes in the proper viewpoint, align the grid and/or turn on some sort of snap-to-grid, you then move the vertexes into their proper place.
After this you might need to check whether this has caused problems with the uvw map and adjust it if necessary (that's just a matter of moving another bunch of vertexes on a texture).
This is literally step-by-step. It might take 5 minutes (altho there might be more than one problem with a mesh, obviously).
Eh. Cryptics pretty hopeless.
The flipped polygons on many ship models (due to an error in their exporter) have, for the most part, not been fixed even tho it's even easier and the problem has been known for many months now, with the number of people having this problem slowly increasing.
I mean, sure, it would be nice if there was some huge surprise patch in the works that fixes most of the model errors in general - but I doubt it will ever happen.
He's dead, Jim.
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I have found some ways to make the prometheus look at least decent but it's very hard to find some good combinations with the (Fleet) Heavy Cruiser.
I won't start talking about cryptics ships, i tend to get really upset when getting into this issue. Let me just say that if i where in charge of Cryptic i would fire the responsible ship artist with a pleasure. Especially the person who made the Patrol escort, the various Assault cruiser variants (excluding the regent), and most other Cryptic ship models should be .... (insert something cruel and untasty here).
Sometimes they have some nice basic idea but they tend to add way too many things into one design, making it look overloaded. They should look much more onto their starships general shape instead of making each little detail look special.
By the way they should give us much more freedom when designning our ship at the ship tailor. At least they should make pylons and nacelles much more flexible to place and to size them.
You forgot to add that Cryptic most definitely has deadlines, sort-of set work hours, and probably have no desire to take their work home with them.
So yeah, I'd sort of expect Joe Free-Time after work with months on end to map every weapon hardpoint as accurately as possible will turn out better work than Mike Ship-Guy who has to put out a ship every two weeks* and pray nothing goes wrong else the next ship he has to do in two weeks might end up rushed.
Does it really come as a surprise to you that fanmade stuff turns out better most of the time, with that in mind?
*number is pulled out of exhaust pipe, probably innaccurate, but likely in the ballpark based on observation.
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Nope, not a surprise. That's why I suggested, in posts around the same page as the one you quoted, that they ask Joe-Free-Time to use their models in the game.
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
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The point being, making a ship for OUR game, is a much more involved process than just making a good looking model in Maya for renders.
All of that stuff makes it difficult to outsource. There are many iterations, many things need to be double, triple, octuple checked, and when something breaks, there needs to be someone to debug/fix it who knows what they're doing.
So teach me Taco!
There are complaints out there on model geometry, texture issues and other model-related issues that have been around for over a year.
Sometimes longer.
Given the number of ships released in a year (up to date, not very many) one has to wonder where bug-fix is on the priority list. Somewhere near the bottom one assumes.
It's like this with other aspects of the game too. It's almost like Cryptic has a "if it is live it is utterly perfect and the problem is you" attitude twords bug-fixing.
I should also add that, while I think perceptions of "errors" in the models should be discussed, the fact of the matter is that many aspects of these models is somewhat open for interpretation. For instance, the Galaxy class is my favorite ship, but as already pointed out, the models themselves are somewhat inconsistent and certain features are never clearly visible on screen.
That being said, the Galaxy class ship model is, for the most part, pretty good considering the time constraints. I just hope that the artists can give it a nice facelift when they release the planned bridge set.
I disagree with the original poster that STO's models are "terrible". In fact, I think some are incredibly detailed and the amount of modification they have made based on player feedback is astounding.
But the Galaxy is so iconic that it really needs to be the best model in the game, with the awareness that several disparate models of the ships exist.
Lockboxes make money now, not the gimped Galaxy with its horrid stats that noone buys. Hence, with limited time the Art team probably has, its safe to assume that Galaxy is on the very bottom of everything in STO. Sad, but most likely truth.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
The absence of that version is what keeps me from purchasing the FMs for a Fleet Nebula.
The crazy thing is...look at the Venture deflector.
If the Venture skin became available on the Nebula, the ship would look a whole lot more like the filming model and would probably convince me to purchase both, the Fleet Nebby and the Venture skin.;)
I see no such akward details on the latest ships though, so I guess that it will get fixed eventually when they have time for this.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
STO way too many major bugs (e.g., ongoing issues with private challenge matches, flickering textures etc.) to dedicate a DEV to smth insignificant as this now.
Note: Some of you REALLY play the immersion-card here??? OMG, folks... Being in an STF with a borgified Ferengi Marauder, a Breen ship, a Dominion ship and a Tholian cruiser - ALL miraculously captained by Starfleet officers - completely killed off the last bit of immersion looooong ago...
STOWiki admin.
are ya'll EVER going to fix the fleet emblem issue on the assault cruiser (sovereign)?
the port side (left) fleet emblem is jut a mirror of the one from the right side. and as such it displays BACKWARDS from how it is supposed to look.
its been like this since the assault cruiser came out, and still has never been fixed or even addressed (as far as I know).
No. What he is saying is, "We're fine with the way the ships look. We have no intention of fixing up the older models."
If it's such a difficult process that takes too long for your artists to do in the short times they have, then give the community the tools they need to improve the look of the ships in this game. Hold a contest, offer ingame rewards, or whatever, to inspire and motivate people to give it a try. They win (prizes), Cryptic wins (better looking ships), players win (better gameplay experience). Win/Win/Win scenario.
"Incredibly detailed" doesn't describe some of the clearly obvious ship errors, for example on the Sovereign, as shown in the first post.
Sure, "terrible" is up to debate, but "sloppy", in some of these cases, is not.
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
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The models of most of the player ships are incredibly detailed, in some ways more0so than on the real on-screen models. Whether they contain what you judge to be "errors" has no bearing on their detail.
If you want to nitpick, there are huge numbers of "errors" in the real models used on screen and unlike the game, those errors are pretty much permanent. Compared to the "errors" and inconsistencies that made it onto the hundreds of hours of professionally-produced Star Trek television and movies, I think the art department here is doing a rather good job.
It does not mean that you should not point out what you believe to be an error when you find it. It just means that getting one little detail wrong when you zoom in ultra-close hardly makes the ship models "terrible".
I don't know why I keep having to post this picture over and over...
This problem, along with the Dreadnought components being off-axis and the gap in the Expl. Cruiser Retrofit, is quite easily seen. The Intrepid-class has a similar problem, on the underside of the saucer.
You don't need to zoom in ultra-close to see this. And I hardly call this "accurate".
"A rather good job". Right.
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
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Check out the Vorcha mesh on this page. Stunning isn't it? 20k polygons.
Now I don't expect quite that level of detail, but surely the models could look reasonable? Many of the ships in STO just look 'off'.
Just because the name and registry number are in a certain place on the Enterprise E does not mean they would appear in the same place on another ship. Ships in this game can carry quite lengthy names and the art department may have decided to rearrange things a bit to make the names more visible rather than forcing a tiny, unreadable font.
I think there are an awful lot of ship models in STO and the art department has generally done a fairly good job making them accurate. For instance, the level of detail on the B'rel is absolutely stunning.
Thank you for pointing that out.
If people want to constantly zoom in and stare at their ship so much so that what is described in the OP actually effects them...that's perfectly fine. To each their own.
...but to say that this hurts immersion is ridiculous.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Here we go again!
I don't need a magnifying glass. I don't need to zoom in. It's obvious from a distance! And it should never have happened, if the model artists were doing their job in replicating the looks of the ships from the series this game is based off of.
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
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again i may be wrong about this, its just what i have seen
As to why it's off, I'm not sure, and that's why I've made this thread, to get Cryptic to fix it, along with some pretty obvious ship errors.
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
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You forget, that the models for Bridge commander are not simply "pretty models". They have to have all the hard points set up too. Every weapon, every glowy bit, every system is a node that has to be placed correctly and have any needed resources (sounds etc) associated correctly and included with the ship otherwise it will crash the game out all by itself.
For example, is that torpedo launcher hard-point located outside of the ship according to the @N@SHIP.Py? If so, CRASH. Are the torpedo to be used and the associated sounds all correctly referenced? Any one typo, CRASH.
Heck, look at ST: Excalibur (The fan made indie remake of BC). The ship hard-point system for that game is already more complex than the system used in BC.
I haven't even touched on the models and texturing for those games.
It is difficult. I don't know from experience of course, but if it was so easy then everyone would be at it.
Please tell us, how many of the new ships have customizable physical parts? We get to VA level ships where the customization of physical parts basically stops and the only possible changes are texture based iirc. The VA retrofits of lower ranked ships have the customization, but the new ones (jem dread, wells, oddy, Galor, D'kora) all lack physical customization.
Btw, would you be able to find out for us what kind of polygon budget the artists have to work within, as well as how many texture maps, what size those maps can be and whether or not the mesh needs to be unified?
It's just something that I'm sure a lot of us would like to know. Heck, I might even be able to use that info to twist the arms of one or two BC modders into making some samples of ships within the graphical constraints.
The lack of solid info in that regard is one of the main reasons those guys who mod for BC/Excalibur who also play STO simply will not consider it. They are some of the most obsessive Trek fans I have ever met, they love what they do and they also cringe at how some of the meshes in game look. Not all of them want to do it, but those that do cannot do it without knowing what the constraints are.
If the relevant constraints and parameters were set for the mesh makers among us, would the ship artists and programmers at your end be willing to have a peek at some samples if these samples were made?
I've done more than a bit of ship designs myself for various game mods, I know about geometry budgets and UV mapping, the Celestial windows is a UV mapping error, the Galaxy Dreadnaughts spinal canon is a non zero x axis dislocation for the addon object group, which is what the lance and canons are, overlaid on a standard Galaxy model and is a very easy fix.
It's all well and good to talk about the high degree of tolerance to which designs are held but such talk falls short in the face of visually obvious flaws that go unnoticed and despite dozens of posts describing the problem and hundreds of patches still remains unrepaired.