Idea EVE Online?

[Secunda Martia]

Hello, all. First things first: I'm new to the forum so please forgive me if I've put this in the wrong place, or said something I shouldn't.

This one's more a suggestion than a request, and I make it because I simply wouldn't know where to start in developing my own mods and add-ons, even for something as mod-friendly as Orbiter.

I'm a big fan of online game EVE Online. I imagine at least one or two people here must have played it. It occurred to me that it'd be pretty cool to be able to fly EVE ships in Orbiter, because one thing I've always missed in EVE is that lack of direct ship control and proper physics (or is that two things?). I know EVE isn't intended to be a simulator, so I don't criticise, but as someone who still holds to an unreasoning faith that one day Elite IV Will Come, I do long to have bash with these vessels in a 'proper' simulation.

Now I'm aware that these ship designs are part of a commercial property, and I admit I don't know what the legal issues might be. However, I have asked on the EVE forums already and consensus in the replies I've had so far has been reasonably positive. One poster suggested that the basic ship models can be extracted from the EVE game files. Another mentioned that there'd been a mod for Homeworld that placed the game in the EVE universe and included the ship models. CCP - the company that owns EVE - was apparently quite happy with the Homeworld mod, provided that proper credit was given.

So can anyone think of any obvious objections? Any more-official enquiries I can make? Or, better still, is there anyone who thinks it's a good idea, knows all the legal ropes, and is willing to give it a shot?

 

[Kaito]

EVE Online ships would be awesome in here, although I think they would need to be carried as cargo; they aren't intended for atmospheric flight.

As long as proper credit is given, i see no problem with it

 

[Eagle]

Yes, you should be fine, just give proper credit for what your addon is of and how you made it. If you convert the models created by EVE say so, if you create the models yourself take some credit yourself.

 

[Vash]

I play EVE all the time and I agree that it would be fun to actually be able to fly some of those ships in a more realistic sense.

If you do get the models converted directly from EVE (which I highly recommend), make sure that you pay attention to the scale of the ships. Anything above cruiser level is HUGE. I mean really, really big.

Which reminds me... I've always wanted to fly a Titan ship like the Erebus.

Anyway, if you get proper permission from CCP, you should definitely go through with this. And while you're at it, you might want to see if you can't convert the station models as well.

 

[BHawthorne]

I recall awhile back that there was a utility to export Eve models out of the game format. Might google for it. I've been playing eve for several years now.

 

[Stripe]

TriExporter ?
http://www.agronom.pl/selvin/EVE/TriExporter/tabid/66/Default.aspx

If someone could pull this off that'd be fantastic!
Be a good form of free marketing for EVE as well (provided credit is given etc)

 

[Secunda Martia]

Well, I've been dabbling, and I've asked an additional question in the EVE forums but it looks like that thread's died already. But since my question now isn't specifically related to the EVE software I'll ask here as well. At the moment I haven't checked officially with CCP because it doesn't seem worthwhile if - as I suspect will be the case - I find out that it's all beyond my skill.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could simply set '3D Ship Modelling I' training and go do something else for thirty minutes like I could in the game...!

I now have ship models extracted from the game and converted into .3ds files. At the moment they're blank: there are no textures applied. For textures I have two sets of files. One set comprises something called a .blue file, which I believe is specific to CCP. A third-party utility called TriExporter will recognise these files and load them in, but as far as I can tell it will not display the texture or enable me to apply the texture to the model.

The .3ds files I can convert to .msh files with 3DS2MSH, and load with the Orbiter Mesh Wizard by José Pablo Luna Sánchez. But I have no idea what to do with the mesh now I've loaded it.

I also have a number of .dds texture files extracted from elsewhere in EVE. I don't know whether these textures are supposed to fit the ship models. I can see them as thumbnails but can't find anything that will let me load them and examine them in detail.

Finally, even when I have the textures, I don't know what application I can use to apply them. Orbiter Mesh Wizard talks about textures but I can't work out how to make it actually do anything with them. I've looked at the 3ds models in Blender but quite frankly I might as well try to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs as navigate the billions of obscure buttons and switches on that.

I've read a couple of tutorials - again mostly in glyph form. The pictures, where I understood them, seemed to be suggesting that I need to gut the model, open it out into a net, then apply my texture over it flat.

Can anyone advise me a good next step, please?

(One limitation is that I don't want to spend money on this. That may sound like me being tight-fisted but it's not: I'm not a 3D modeller and it would be stupid to buy something I'm never likely to use after this. So any utilities I use will have to be freeware only, please.)

 

[andysim]

Can't imagine flying a raven (eve battleship) with transX and IMFD lol but yea it would be nice to see them.
Maybe you could do a Titan to scale that way ppl who play eve can get a sence of scale without training for years or getting into a 0.0 alliance hehe.

 

[Secunda Martia]

There's no 'white flag' post icon...

I surrender.

I've updated the EVE forum so I'll update here, too. Sorry to resurrect the thread after so long.

I'm going to have to say I'm sorry, but I'm unable to produce the EVE add-ons as I would have liked. I simply don't understand how to do what I need to do. I have the models; I have the textures (possibly), but I simply can't apply one to the other. I've tried numerous online forums and guides but with no luck - they all seem to assume that I already know how to do what they're teaching me to do. And the freeware software I've found that seems to handle this sort of thing is incomprehensible to me.

So unless anyone else would like to have a stab, that's that. If anybody does want to have a go and post the results (assuming CCP permission), I'd be delighted, because I'd love to fly some of these ships - see a titan next to the ISS...

But I'm afraid I'm just not one of nature's ship builders.

 

[Woo482]

I think you need to UV map the Textures on to the model

 

[Stripe]

I am quite new myself to Orbiter, however somewhere buried in the back of one of my cupboards I have the box of MSVC++ V6.0 Professional (which I haven't touched in about 5 years)

I am much more a programmer than I am an artist/modeller etc. If you already have the meshes/textures then (to me anyway) you've already done the hard part.

I've had a passing glance through a few guides on here and elsewhere about making your own ships from scratch. Maybe if you say you're not a ship builder, then you're going in 'too steep'.

Find a few good tutorials on some of the free utils you use. Yes, they may not have anything to do with Orbiter, but the skills you learn will be useful for that. I think I was skimming a tutorial the other day and it was all about making a tomato (well, it looked like a tomato) and how to make him walk.

I'm sure a good Google session will turn some good stuff up

http://www.aovi93.dsl.pipex.com/addon_software_utilities_tutorials.htm

http://www.warbard.ca/orbiter-addons.html

http://www.eharm.net/shop/freeware/orbiter/developer/modeltextures/modeltextures.html