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[Makoto Priano]

Do want.

[Esna Pitoojee]

This is actually one thing that vexes me.

All of these assets have been created, but with the Incarna flop, very few of them have seen the light of day. As such, CCP has a bunch of assets sitting around that Marketing is tapping as an easy resource for unique promotional ships -- making hangar queens of things that might actually be fun to toy with. I'd -love- to kit out an Ishukone Watch ship or three for live events, for instance, even if they're the functional equivalent of standard vessels.

Gripegripegripe.

Not you alone, mate. I'm particularly vexed by the huge number of apparently complete (or nearly so, at any rate) Incarna assets that haven't been deployed on TQ despite functioning fine on SiSi because "Incarna" has apparently become a bad word, even if the functional work is apparently nearly done. But, for another thread.

Anyhow, I'm not terribly leaning either way on the BC changes. I don't know a ton about the Caldari Command Ships, but I would point out that in the case of the Cyclone->Hurricane shift for the Sleipnir, tiericide has made the Hurricane decidedly armor-focused - perhaps not the best basis for a command ship that is totally shield-based? The Harbinger/Abso also has a bit of a limitation in its 4 mids, but that's going to hurt boosting setups more than direct combat ones.

[Sakura Nihil]

This idea is terrible, do not want.  They "improved" my Helios back in the day with this kind of change, it's been fugly ever since.

[Druur Monakh]

I like it. It adds more visual variety (and bored artists usually produce the best work).

And speaking as a often scout and ablative-point pilot: it would make it easier to distinguish the two types of command ship.

[Saede Riordan]

I'm not a fan at all of these changes. For one, I feel like the command ships have a sort of performance style, when they were designed for their given hull. A Slepnir with a Hurricane hull would feel weird, likewise the nighthawk/drake.

Not to mention that, but by switching over these hull designs, it just creates a reason not to release a new T2 battlecruiser using those hulls.

[orange]

Not to mention that, but by switching over these hull designs, it just creates a reason not to release a new T2 battlecruiser using those hulls.

Yes!  Taking the two other Battlecruiser hulls and creating new T2 variants would be interesting.

[Sakura Nihil]

Confirm.  I like the thought of new CBCs, based on the Tier 2 or Tier 3 models, as long as they don't mess with the existing CBCs.

[Mithfindel]

I'm pretty sure the Hethmobile is a giant teacup, or whatever the Caldari use for coffins.

So, Hethmobile is anything with significant structure damage. (All Wayists and most of the other Caldari as well are cremated.)

[Lyn Farel]

That is still at least a texture job (or a full remodel if the structure changes a bit like for a lot of T2 ships). Granted, it does not take whole weeks, but still needs a few days that could be spent somewhere else.

And I doubt that they have a proper T2 skin corresponding to the T2 manufacturers for these BCs. Why would they have already that ?

You should read Art sections in the CSM minutes for the last couple years. All the information on V3 is there, along with a few dev blogs and dev posts. I've been watching it closely as it goes down since I am an art addict for EVE expansions.

It's been made pretty clear right from the very beginning that when a ship is given the V3 treatment, it comes out the other side with a complete selection of skin versions. See the original Scorpion devblog as an example. Notice how it already comes with a full selection of skins? Even Ishukone and Lai Dai, Mordus, State, etc... the whole set already made. My guess is that it is done with some sort of procedural skin generation. Color values, decal templates, and a logo are selected for a variant... and that variant is applied to all the ships quickly and easily. This simplicity (though they did not specify that this is how they do it) was mentioned as one of the major reasons for going V3, because it's easier than having to hand-paint every variant manually.

Watching various data snoops who render these hidden versions outside of the game (like the chick from Caldari Prime Pony Club, and Sarmatiko) has also made it clear that this is indeed done using a system of templates, as I've seen screenshots of the templates. I've also seen ships using the correct and exact same pattern with alternate color values applied. Like a pink Navy Rokh, for example.

Some ships don't have a T2 version, or won't. Those color values are attributed to a different NPC corp instead. For example, Carthum shares the same skin as Sarum. Just a different logo. Kaalakiota shares the same skin as Home Guard. Different logo. Ishukone shares the same skin as Ishukone Watch. Different logo. See where I am going with this? This is incidentally why when the Amarr ships got the V3 treatment, many Viziam and Carthum ships carried the Ardishapur and Sarum logos by mistake. So even if the Scorpion has no need for the Ishukone T2 skin... that skin can still be used as Ishukone Watch Scorpion. On the same note... even though the Harbinger at the time had no need for a Carthum skin (Absolution), it already had the Sarum skin... which can be easily and quickly re-purposed into Carthum by using a simple logo swap.

Even if you don't believe anything of what I'm saying, as you can see by the video, the correct assets already exist, and Fozzie hasn't even decided whether or not he wants to do it yet. There is no extra several days of art work that needs to be done, so you can stop worrying that valuable time will be wasted.

I think you may be confusing a lot of things on how texturing really works, but that is a lot of info that I did not remember well or simply didn't know, since indeed I don't follow all their art panels closely.

So yes, I guess that in the same vein they already have the proper paintjobs for the new commandships (carthum/sarum, KK, etc).

On the procedural idea, I don't think so.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

That is the first texture sheet I stumbled upon, looking for an example. Every texture in 3D modeling is done like this, in more or less silly shapes depending on the software used. Even voxel painting (painting directly on the 3D model) had to be converted into texture sheets like those.

So, eve online ships probably fall into the same process as well. There are of course many ways of doing it, but eventually they have to recolor/repaint every part for it to match accordingly to the new look, for every model. They sure use decalcs or the likes, after all all of this is done on photoshop or similar software, so you just bring up the logos and images you want and start to use them as decalcs on the texture sheet at the right spot.

They do not simply press on a button and voila, procedural texture generation doing a carthum variant, a KK variant, and all. They have to change the hue, remove the old decalcs and put the new ones, change the little lights hue or where they are, add camo or else, etc.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Here's the old Apocalypse textures. Not sure how this relates, but either way they seem a lot more complex than the rifle texture you provided. I might be wrong about procedural generation, but in the end... it seems the work has already been done either way.

[Karmilla Strife]

The current Absolution is one of my favorites. I'd rather not see it changed to a harbinger model (which I think is ugly.)

However I really would like to see them release the alternate ship skins. It would add a huge amount of variety. It's frustrating to see them only released as promo items.

[Lyn Farel]

Here's the old Apocalypse textures. Not sure how this relates, but either way they seem a lot more complex than the rifle texture you provided. I might be wrong about procedural generation, but in the end... it seems the work has already been done either way.

It's because I only linked the diffuse map for that gun texture, but I guess it also has a normal map, specular map, etc, attached to it.   

[Saede Riordan]

not every texture set actually has all those layers, most textures just have one layer. The EVE texture layering is actually fairly unique.

[Katrina Oniseki]

tbh I dunno what half of those things mean. I just know that when I see an art blog, I get a chubby. Looking at that, I feel like I wanna go diffuse someone's map, if you get my meaning.

[Samira Kernher]

However I really would like to see them release the alternate ship skins. It would add a huge amount of variety. It's frustrating to see them only released as promo items.

Yes please. And let us choose which one we want to use.

I want Mandate-colored ships!