29 Reply by Bandu (edited by Bandu 2008-05-31 13:19:51)

  • Bandu
  • Ron Paul for Prez!
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  • From: Manchester , UK
  • Registered: 2006-01-15
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Re: The shield

Safe-Keeper wrote:

We took a vote when we made our PSGs whether balls on the tops of the ISDs were radars or shields.  We decided to base our design off the movie (and indeed several games) which all depict the giant domes as shield generators.  So, when it comes to the FirstStrike universe (*giggle*) those are, in fact, shield generators.

You decide facts by committee? How very unscientific. Darwin and Einstein roll in their respective graves, and Kent Hovind shits his pants with glee. Next you'll say the FS maps were Intelligently Designed, as opposed to brought about by natural processes.

Indeed I was half disappointed that the shield gen on Ryloth wasn't a huge dome myself.

It wasn't a giant dome because us champions of truth shot your decided-upon-by-committee ideas down, you blackguard of irrational thought, you [waves Nietzsche statue threateningly].

tongue

The shield design was based on 2 things really.

1. Lore.
... states that the shield generators and the sensors are both situated in/on the domes. There is no definitive lore to state whether the shield gens are the domes themselves, and the sensors being modules on the domes, or vice versa. With that in mind we went with the dome because it is quite a well known Imperial design, aswell as the following....

2. BF2142 animations...
The carrying of the shield generator had to use default bf2142 animations, since we didnt at the time have either the man power or the time(other things were of a far higher priority) to make new carrying animations. These reasons depicted the size and , to a lesser degree, the shape of the object.
A similar reason arose with concerns to the look of the Squad Beacon. Initially we only wanted to have you carrying a base (a disc) and have the antenna etc animate out of it. Neither carrying animations or the animation of the object itself were included due to the reasons above. Infact the initial design was going to be based on the antenna contraption Han Solo put up when he was with Luke on Hoth. Animation restraints put an end to that.


As for the look of the PSG, Im sure if they upped the contrast in the alpha of the shield texture youd get the look you are after. In my own opinion I didnt want the shield itself to be very visible since we never saw a shield in the OT.
I think the look of the dome itslef could be improved with the addition of an ambient occlusion map.

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Frédéric Bastiat