Tank Changes

blastard · Post by **blastard** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 4:51 pm

Hello BzFriends:

I know nothing about the world of programming. I think you guys that build these maps and tweek the program must be awefully smart. So.....if this is a dumb question, set me straight. Any thought to being able to personalize the appearance of your tank as an option?

I would love to have 'Tank You!' written on my turret and perhaps a smiley face :thumb: crudely drawn on my tank's underbelly. Or even when I am in Turkey have 'Dervish Bait' writting on my tank. I do not mind right clicking for info.....in fact I would be unhappy if that was taken away but visual ID on tanks would certainly change the feel of the game a little.

Best!
Blastard

Post by **Fiberchunks** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 4:55 pm

iirc, and my knowledge of this is highly limited, that would require texture changes on the tank itself.

I think Patlabor221, and the good captain_proton were talking about having redefinable textures on tankage some time ago on IRC. If I'm wrong, I'm sure they'll slap me around abit

It would be nice to have team logos and carp of that nature on your tank.

Peace
Fiber

ski · Post by **ski** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 4:57 pm

That would be too Awsome but Im not sure if there is enough room on the tanks to do that aside from color that is...

heh, customized tanks!!cool

if anyone could do it it would be Patlabor!!! he da man

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 4:59 pm

Yes I have a plan to redo the tank as external lodable models, with real skins. The current model does NOT have "skinable" texture coords.

it's all in the mix.

ski · Post by **ski** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 5:03 pm

Patlabor221 wrote:Yes I have a plan to redo the tank as external lodable models, with real skins. The current model does NOT have "skinable" texture coords.

it's all in the mix.

awsome! What a major change that would be for the game...everyone give a shout out to PATLABOR!!

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 5:05 pm

it's gonna be a sizeable thing. I have had talks with Tm about it for a while now. Tho there needs to be some code cleanup before I can start it. And it does tie in with the map changes.

ski · Post by **ski** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 5:12 pm

is it something that could happen in the next month or two or it more of a long term project..i guess i can answer that myself cause I know programming is time consuming (including the testing) and we are all on voluntary time...heh

kernel panic · Post by **kernel panic** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 5:20 pm

Patlabor221 wrote:it's gonna be a sizeable thing. I have had talks with Tm about it for a while now. Tho there needs to be some code cleanup before I can start it. And it does tie in with the map changes.

I wanna drive around with a big fat kp on the front and back of my tank!

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 5:54 pm

I don't know how long it will take. actualy what I am hoping is that 1.9 doesn't have that many big features, but mostly the proto changes and cleanup. Then we will be able to get out lots of releases faster. With a cleanup it will be easyer to implement this. But this also depends on my Contenent Mananagment System ( CMS ). So maybe It can be put in, in sections. I'll probably start with something simple like the CMS allowing the map to specify difrent textures in the map.

ski · Post by **ski** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 6:39 pm

cool.

that prob be the best thing....small step

KP: too funny...heh

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 8:04 pm

If I don't change the tank model too much, Team logos will go on the sides. Tho they will have to be approved by the CMS admin ( so that people who don't want offensve things, don't see offensive things ). Same goes for all media. It has to be approved by the CMS, or you see the default.

Spaceman Spiff · Post by **Spaceman Spiff** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 6:05 pm

blastard wrote:I think you guys that build these maps and tweek the program must be awefully smart.

I must agree about the "program tweekers".... but map makers? Nah!!! You could do it too!!! Go download BZ Edit and try it out, man!

If I can do it, anyone can.

Textured tanks... yes, very cool. And yep.. they's definitely have to be approved... soooo... Perhaps you could make a simple text input (like the server, port, and callsign inputs that write to your config file) that would allow you to write something on the side of your tank.... that way it could be language filtered fairly easily. Chances are, if you did that, you'd have to make the text glow or something... otherwise it wouldn't stand out against the tank very well. The more extensive textures and stuff could come later.

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 6:24 pm

that would actualy be rather hard, since it has to be turned into a texture. That would require a font renderer and stuff. Not that it's not posible, but it's just harder.
And that has the disadvatnage of not going thru a server aproval. All team logos will folow the same rules as all other media in the CMS, it must be approved. Or I could write nasty things on my tank, when the server op dosn't want nasty things. The team logo will be a seperate texture that you can make, and if you just want, you can open up paint, and put some text on an image, it will be realy simple. There will be samples.

Spaceman Spiff · Post by **Spaceman Spiff** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 9:23 pm

Well..... I was thinking of something along the lines of this....

You know how you can just write things on a flat surface (like in a modeler)? Why not just make it so that the text writes onto the side of the tank... just like the callsign shows up... but on the side of your tank too. Maybe this is a stupid idea... but it sounds logical to me.

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 10:39 pm

you can do that, you would just have to submit a personal logo with what you want. it's is a speratete texture applied to the logo areas of the tank model ( on the sides). All textures have to be images, when you "write things" on a model it makes a texture. We would have to make something that takes the text, renders it with a font on an image, and puts it on the tank. THis is posible, just a fair amount of work, to keep you from just going into paint and puting those words on like a 64x64 logo texture. and it makes it a lot harder to block the vulgaritys you are so against seeing.

Dervish · Post by **Dervish** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 10:53 pm

This all sounds just too cool.

I love it.

I think we briefly talked about skinable tanks a while ago, but the devs had some many other priorities on their plates at the time.

I can just picture all the possibilities...

a big red and white bullseye target skin
Pic of a chicken running
Red cross logo (for those attempting to psyche old veterans of foreign wars)
Chrome tank
"Rice-Rocket" skin, complete with tinted windows, ground effect graphics, and "R", "eibach", and various other Japanese racing part and mod stickers
"Low-Rider" skin, metal-flake puple paint, with gold-spoked tank wheels where the tread armor is, gold wheel-well flairs, gold letters in the back, "Old Skool", and an airbrushed picture of some scantingly-clad woman fighting an undead creature.

The words:

"Geronimo!"
"Remember Pearl Harbor"
"Fear This"
"Survival of the lagged"

Camo for ST tanks:

all green, with blue and yellow line camo in a comical attempt to blend in with the BZFlag battlefield
building camo, with brick painted sides and a gray top and bottom
sky camo for tanks jumping down

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 12:37 am

chrome isn't realy "skinable" since it requires a difrent rendering method ( enviroment maps)

the texture will not change based on what you have.

to prevent skin abuses, all skins will need to be aproved by the CMS admin. This prevents all transperant skins, and the brick skins.

ST tanks are invisible, who would see the textures?

Dervish · Post by **Dervish** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 10:05 pm

Ok Patlabor, you've been replying to a lot of my posts and trying to "correct" me. So, time for me to reply nd nit-pick at your post, hehehe.

Patlabor221 wrote:chrome isn't realy "skinable" since it requires a difrent rendering method ( enviroment maps)

Sure it is, haven't you seen "chrome coloring"? You simply paint something grayish-white, with streakish-curvy-lines of colors like blue, tan, and white.

Patlabor221 wrote:This prevents all transperant skins, and the brick skins.

I think camo skins would be fun, because not all tanks will have a good camo all the time, and you'd still see a ST tank with brick camo, because it moves and you can see the canon. Still, I can picture some gross abuses of skins (such as transparency, lewd images, and profanity).

Patlabor221 wrote:ST tanks are invisible, who would see the textures?

That's CL tanks, not ST tanks. You need to play some more.

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 10:52 pm

Yeah. I do need to play some more with flags, mostly been do in that one shot, no flag, decks thing lately. Sadly there just isn't enough time.

you could do that forcrome, but it realy dosn't look that good ( tried it ). the texture needs to move around as you change in orientation to it.. I would like to add environ maps as well, but I will wait a bit for it.

yeah the cammo thing would be cool, and after I do this it will make it posible. But I am not going to worry about that now. It would change gameplay imho, since you are suposed to see ST tanks, that is one of there weaknesses. Maybe a new camelion flag or something?

I have no dout that the creative people of the comunity will be able to do ALLL sorts of cool stuff with this

looking at it more, I don't see this geting into 1.9. I do see a lot of the prelim stuff geting in tho. Well unless I take a week off from the 2 jobs.

Dervish · Post by **Dervish** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 11:24 pm

Patlabor221 wrote:you could do that for crome, but it realy dosn't look that good ( tried it ). the texture needs to move around as you change in orientation to it.. I would like to add environ maps as well, but I will wait a bit for it.

That is true, the chrome doesn't look all that great if it's static.

Patlabor221 wrote:Maybe a new camelion flag or something?

Ah, that would be very cool.

Hmmm, may be a flag that is half cloak, half stealth? It could do a weird camo kinda effect in the first person view (you could see the tank, just blended in a bit with background), and then a very faint blip on the radar instead of the highly visible dot of normal tanks.

Patlabor221 wrote:I have no dout that the creative people of the comunity will be able to do ALLL sorts of cool stuff with this

I'd be happy to help the devs with graphic design for the skins and such. This is fun stuff for me (unlike programming and making code pesticide which pays the bills), so I would be happy to donate my time there.

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 12:03 am

the devs can't draw, cept for me

it's all external, so you guys get to go to town with out even compiling a thing

thats the point of it, all media is modular.

sn0w_m0nkey · Post by **sn0w_m0nkey** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:09 pm

...lowrider tank is something i just gotta have esse...

sm

ski · Post by **ski** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 5:05 pm

Spaceman Spiff wrote:
blastard wrote:I think you guys that build these maps and tweek the program must be awefully smart.
I must agree about the "program tweekers".... but map makers? Nah!!! You could do it too!!! Go download BZ Edit and try it out, man! If I can do it, anyone can.

I dunno, I tried to use BZedit. Its not hard but it is time consuming

Of coarse im way too impatient...heh

Spaceman Spiff · Post by **Spaceman Spiff** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 9:17 pm

Heyyyyy ski.... if you need a lil' "tech support"... I'd be glad to help.

Once you start using BZ Edit, it's a piece of cake... pry easier.

m0nkey.... a low rider tank would rip! Only a couple questions.... can we have tinted windows? And track spacers? And sub-woofers? And little dice on the rear-view mirror? Maybe a convertable option?

C'mon dev's... get with the program! LoL

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 9:35 pm

there is a tutorial on the BZEdit site ( yeah it sucks but it's something). if anyone wants to make a better tut, then hey I'll host it.

Official forums for BZFlag.org

Tank Changes

Tank Changes

Re: Tank Changes

Re: Tank Changes