Better Textures?

They can certainly be annoying if you are not used to them. There is no mod yet to make the textures look nicer, but that is one of the things I’m planning on, once I figure out how you make the darn things convert to the game format in the first place. 🙂

–IronDuke

I don’t know if the game actually HAS a max resolution for textures, considering that Torn Stars/Unstable Space has some pretty high-res textures. I do know that 3d-models do. The UV maps, which are built into the .pso format that I-War2 uses for 3d-models, are locked at whatever resolution they were assigned. I think the only way to fix that would be to make new 3d-models, which I’m planning on doing anyway. If we were to use say a 512×512 instead of a 256×256, it would only use the top left quadrant.
But there is a problem with making new 3d-models. The version of Lightwave used by PS was very old. Annoyingly, the file format appears to have been changed only a year or two afterwards, and the game can’t read the new file format. None of the Lightwave versions after the reformat support the old one. In order to make 3d-models for the game, we have to get our hands on a very old copy of Lightwave, ie before version 6.0. I know from a screenshot a dev took that their version was 5.6. It’s possible that there’s some trick that can bridge this problem, but I don’t know of it.

–IronDuke

My current plan is to see whether or not Blender’s export as Lightwave function will produce a file readable by I-War2. I think I did do something once that successfully got a model into the game, but I don’t remember exactly what that process was. I do know that the model was a fixed collider for the Heavy Destroyer, as the ingame collider is too small by, I think it was 50%.
I’m going to hunt down that file and start poking things to find out what I did. I have a veritable treasure-hoard of ancient files for I-War2 that would be utterly impossible for someone else to understand, and are hard enough for me to do so. But I’ll blow the dust off my archives and have a look.

Speaking of textures, it’s an absolute pity that the game does not support normal mapping. 🙁 It could look stunning if it did so.

Oh, I just got an idea. I’m going to look into it straight away… :whistle:

–IronDuke

Well, I have blisteringly good news.
I asked about my idea with the folks on the Limit Theory IRC, and they said it’s been done before quite safely, so here goes.

My plan is to do a remake of I-War2 in Unity. However, it would have to draw some of the assets from an original I-War2 installation. Otherwise, maybe a ship wouldn’t exist, or something similar to that. The best part with this plan is top-of-the-line graphics, and the ability to throw in as much extra stuff as I want. Including an additional story. (I-War3! :woohoo: )
The only hole I see is that someone could simply identify which files my remake draws from the original game install, copy those files, and put them online. But actually, someone could just do that to the installer for the GOG version of the game, so…

As I mentioned, this has been done before, to even well known games like X-Com. I think one or two of these remakes got a cease and desist, but only one or two. In any case, if it was taken to court (which would be a hilarious waste of money for Atari) they would probably lose, according to the IRC folks.

What do you think of that plan?

–IronDuke

[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]I have a very different plan.

Someday I would like to build my own game engine (with rendering engine). This engine would allow me to make things work exactly as I want them to. Therefore, if you want normal mapping in the game, I can add normal mapping to the game. Considering I have written 0 lines of code for the engine, consider this worth a grain of salt…[/quote]
That’s hard. And I’m lazy. Bad combination, so I won’t can’t help with that. But I wish you the best of luck, although attaining the level of skill needed to do that with one person would take about thirty years. 😉

[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]
I also have a plan regarding copyrights. Atari is really slacking in good game output, especially in the space-sim genre. The Roller Coaster Tycoon series is the best that I’ve seen on their site. Perhaps they would listen to a beautifully rendered trailer, with its own engine, a fighting chance in the space-sim genre, and a couple of good programmers willing to make a deal. From what I hear, there are quite a few people out there with memories of I-War.[/quote]
People have been contacting them with requests for permission to make an I-War3 since 2003-4. They have either never responded, or said heck no. Possibly they could be budged a little by a trailer and engine already made, but I doubt it. And the fact that they are slacking in good games is one of the reasons I don’t want to attach myself to them. Plus, I don’t know what kind of deal they’d want. I feel edgy at the prospect of ‘deals’ with large companies.

[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]Anyways, it would still be useful to import proper UVs from lightwave for something like this… 🙁

If you get into I-War 3 in Unity full swing, let me know. I can probably help with things like new ship models.[/quote]
First point: bah, just gotta make new models. It’s entirely possible that the UV’s are accessible, but I haven’t found them. I never poked the 3d-models part of the game too much. I was more into changing gameplay and such.
Second point: I will definitely let you know. Whatever you are able to help with I would appreciate. :cheer: A project that size would be hard, although I can use a lot of the default I-War2 assets this way.

–IronDuke

Speaking of Josh and LT, depending on whether importing modeling will be possible and how this will be done, it might be a good idea to implement the I-War models for a mod in LT first. After all, LT is about the perfect description of the I-War universe and the Badlands. Sure, some things would still need to be done, story-wise, but since LT is supposed to be highly moddable, it should not be too difficult – or at least less difficult than creating your very own space game engine from scratch. But that’s just my two cents.

I know that LT’s assets are procedural, but the game will be highly moddable, Josh expects there will be a thriving community around it. I fully expect someone to hack in a way to import models from outside. Hell, Josh himself might do the deed. Anyway, nobody has heard from him for almost a month now, and while he’s been absent for far longer before, I wouldn’t make plans until LT finally ships, even as a Beta.