FreeSpace Universe

[klightspeed]

I have been working on planets and other things from FreeSpace2.

For Vasuda, I have chosen a random G2V star about 300ly away. The FreeSpace wiki said that there was speculation that it may have been Beta Hydri, but that system was already taken by a different add-on.
For Ikeya, Ribos and Laramis, I have chosen random M6III stars.
For the nebula, I have chosen the Crab nebula.
For the binary system beyond the nebula, I have chosen 85 Pegasi.

The orbits of the planets and moons are rough approximations from the positioning of the graphics in FreeSpace2.
I will need to consult various FreeSpace resources to better determine the locations of the planets, etc.
I have not given any of the planets or moons atmospheres yet.

I have created a node map using a deep space object. This has 40 nodes at the moment, and the paths are colour-coded - Cyan for a good route, yellow for a broken route, and red for a route in enemy hands.

I am using models from the game to create the objects in celestia.
There are currently:
3 Knossos gates(inner and outer parts moving independently)
1 GTD Orion destroyer wreck (The one in the intro of FS2)
Enif Station and 3rd Fleet Headquarters
6 Jump Nodes (wireframe, using linestrips)
40 stars in the nodemap
9 planets
13 moons

I have created a program to convert an image of a planet to a partial texture. I have used this to create partial maps of the PlanetE and PlanetH planets in FreeSpace2. All of the other planets and moons used textures from this solarsystem.

Here are some screenshots:




The tarball is Here.

[selden]

klightspeed,

That looks like a great start!

One caveat, though: do you have permission to distribute the models from the game?

In general, such things are covered by copyright, licensing and trademarks so that, while you can extract them for your personal use, you can't publish them or models derived from them for reuse by someone else. Some publishers have taken people to court for doing that. I don't know if the Freespace license might be more generous in that regard.

[klightspeed]

do you have permission to distribute the models from the game?

I have asked for permission from Volition, and am awaiting a reply.
I have removed the models and textures I got from Freespace2 from the tarball I posted above.

In the meantime, I am working on a way to allow the end user (and myself) to convert the models from the original POF format to Celestia's CMOD format, and creating patches for e.g. the hole in the GTD Orion model.

[jgrillo2002]

Selden. as you might know. the company that made Freespace 2 has released the source code which means that freespace 2 models no longer are copyrighted. you can find more info at wikipedia and Hard Light Productions website

[ElChristou]

Selden. as you might know. the company that made Freespace 2 has released the source code which means that freespace 2 models no longer are copyrighted. you can find more info at wikipedia and Hard Light Productions website

Hey Jgrillo2002, still in the plundering business? Haven't you start your own models?

(BTW, you were not supposed to disappear from this "insane forum" (your words)? ah, and for sure, have an Happy New Year! )

[klightspeed]

Selden. as you might know. the company that made Freespace 2 has released the source code which means that freespace 2 models no longer are copyrighted. you can find more info at wikipedia and Hard Light Productions website

They have only released the source code to the game engine under a non-commercial license.
You still need a copy of FreeSpace2 to use its models and textures.

There is a strange clause in the EULA presented by the installer, though.
From the Freespace2 Wiki

You are granted a revocable, nonassignable limited license to create derivative works of this Software solely for your own personal noncommercial home entertainment use and may publicly display such derivative works to the extent specifically authorized by Interplay in writing.

Unfortunately, Interplay's website is down. Maybe they sold their webserver.

You may make copies of the Software for your personal noncommercial home entertainment use and to give to friends and acquaintances on a no cost noncommercial basis.

Who are my acquaintances?

This limited right to copy the Software expressly excludes any copying or distribution of the Software on a commercial basis, including, without limitation, bundling the product with any other product or service and any give away of the Software in connection with another product or service.

I await Volition's reply.

[jgrillo2002]

Selden. as you might know. the company that made Freespace 2 has released the source code which means that freespace 2 models no longer are copyrighted. you can find more info at wikipedia and Hard Light Productions website

Hey Jgrillo2002, still in the plundering business? Haven't you start your own models?

(BTW, you were not supposed to disappear from this "insane forum" (your words)? ah, and for sure, have an Happy New Year! )

bah I forgor and you are right. its your models and I respect that. anyways I think you may use the models ONLY on the opensource version

[klightspeed]

I have made a tool to convert POF models from Freespace and Freespace2 into cmod models for Celestia.
The tool creates both the individual submodels of a model, and a fused model.
e.g. for the GTVA Colossus (TerranSuper), it creates:

• The body
• 6 radar dishes, all spinning
• 10 huge turrets, and thier arms
• 53 other turrets (flak, laser, AAA, missile, beam)
• A mesh with the lights
• A fused mesh with all of the above

That is 82 meshes.

I have also designed the tool to calculate the orbital and rotational parameters to place the meshes in the right places and able to be rotated the right way. This information is harvested by a script that creates a gallery of the different meshes represented by the POF models.
I have designed the tool to only retrieve the LOD0 meshes from the POF models, and to ignore the meshes representing destroyed subsystems.

The tarball is at http://klightspeed.killerwolves.net/freespace2.tar.gz.

To use this tool / add-on, you will need the models and textures from Freespace or Freespace2. You will need to place the POF models in the freespace2/models directory, and the the PCX textures in the freespace2/textures/medres directory.
In addition to the usual C compiler and make, you will need ImageMagick installed, as I use this to stretch the textures to 256x256 and convert them to JPEG format.

With these prerequisites in place, you can "make shipyard" in the freespace2 directory, and the Makefiles will create the tool, use it to convert the models, then convert the textures, and finally create "shipyard.ssc".

As long as you put everything in the Celestia extras directory, you should be able to view the gallery using Celestia.
e.g. to view the SJ Sathanas (supercap2s-01), run Celestia, and in Celestia, press enter, and type "Altair/supercap2s-01", and go.