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[Rushmik]

If there's a way to port Google Sketchups into it I'd be happy to make objects for this.

[Rose]

there is, but you need the paid version of sketchup.

blender is a better program to use.

[Ghills]

It's easy enough to convert SketchUp models into Blender models, use the COLLADA (.dae) format if you have SketchUp 8. It's the newest version, and even the free version can export to COLLADA. http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36203

Here's a tutorial on what to do after you export it: http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/import-google-sketchup-kmz-models-advanced.php

Good luck!

EDIT: Edited to make it clear that the free version exports to .dae.

[thewonderidiot]

If there's a way to port Google Sketchups into it I'd be happy to make objects for this.

That would be awesome  . I can handle pretty much any format you throw my way. As Ghills pointed out, COLLADA will definitely work. If you texture the stuff yourself, I'd appreciate it if you could include normal maps along with the textures so we can do more advanced techniques than just basic texturing on them. Assuming everything goes as planned, you'll likely get to see your models in the next non-bugfix release  .

Anyways, time for a status update. Things are going as smoothly as possible with my current school workload, and I'm putting as much time into it as I can. The geometry implementation is still pretty theoretical, but the rest of the application is moving out of mostly design into mostly development.

Here's the planned layout, as is currently being developed:

• GUI is going to be state-based and purely lua script-driven. The only GUI code in the Overseer application itself will consist of running a predefined script each state (though this will likely be taken even further back out into config files). Overseer itself will provide hooks into all of its functionality, and it will be the job of the lua scripts to tie those hooks together into an interface. This means that if you don't like the stock GUI, you can edit it with a standard text editor and likely add functionality to it as needed. Additional hooks will need to be compiled into the C++, but ideally after a while we'll reach a point where the need to add hooks is very rare. This functionality is mostly done (except, of course, for the hooks into states that I haven't written yet.
• We're shooting for configurability. Any object that's not part of the terrain will be selectable in edit mode, with dialogs with live previews to swap out models. When replacing large populations of models instead of individuals, Overseer will remember that selection and make the model in question its new default for that type. This should let you tweak the looks of everything to your liking through a friendly interface, without needing to dive into XML or lua.
• I'm currently working on implementing some (optional) basic networking functionality. When enabled, Overseer will check for any updates upon launch. The most useful side effect of this, and the reason why I originally started considering it, will be ease of Memory.xml distribution. This way, once a Memory.xml for a new version is available, Overseer will just automatically grab it.
• I've been doing some research into export functionality. There's a hell of a lot of popular 3D formats. I've been looking around, and I think at the basic level, at least at first, Overseer will only export to COLLADA. It'll let me export a scene rather than just one massive entagled mesh, and it's pretty widely supported from what I've seen. Povray will likely come next after COLLADA. I'm considering whether to take the same approach with GUI and make the C++ side of the exporter just a bunch of hooks, and let all of the exporters be lua scripts that attach and do the actual exporting themselves.

That's where everything is right now. If anybody sees any glaring holes in the design, or wants any core features that I didn't list, let me know before I get too far, because I'm working on all of this stuff as we speak  . I have no screenshots to share since all of this stuff is mostly back end, and all of it (minus the exporting, of course) needs to be in place and at least slightly functional before the new geometry generator can be put in to start doing its thing.

By the way, a note about the current release. We've solved MOST of the texture problems with the relief mapping techniques. The rotations were caused by an inconsistent tangent space. Once I fixed tangent space generation, the rotation went away, but the textures still scroll very slightly as you fly by them. Sexymustard thinks it's a problem with the lighting matrices, and he's looking into it.

[Cotes]

Strange. I recently upgraded my computer. It certainly isn't that old. Must be a driver issue. I'll check it out.

I'd start by upgrading the GPU drivers, yes. I recall I had a similar problem that got fixed with that.

[Ghills]

You know, I may want to try my hand at modeling for this. Is there a list of models that Overseer still needs? Do you have any specific requests or specifications?

[thewonderidiot]

You know, I may want to try my hand at modeling for this. Is there a list of models that Overseer still needs? Do you have any specific requests or specifications?

Here's our current list of models:

Yup. Pretty much nothing. Feel free to model whatever you want -- plants, buildings, items, whatever. Anything will be much appreciated!

[Ghills]

Awesome. I claim the easy, box-shaped pieces of furniture. Chests! Cabinets! Tables! You will have some at some point in the near future.

Any information about how high quality the models need to be? Like, polygons and resolution?

[thewonderidiot]

Awesome. I claim the easy, box-shaped pieces of furniture. Chests! Cabinets! Tables! You will have some at some point in the near future.

Any information about how high quality the models need to be? Like, polygons and resolution?

Hmm... not really. Make them look nice. I think it's easier to reduce quality than to increase quality, soooo... yeah. Just don't go overboard and put like 100,000 polys into a cabinet. 

[Ghills]

Ok. I'll do my best, but I'm making no promises until we see how the first few turn out.

[Telcontar]

So very happy to have a visualizer again. Thank you!

[Rushmik]

I've whipped up a stone table and chair set in my lunch break. Are these too simple? I was going for a simplistic yet dwarven look (and was short on time, of course).

Spoiler: Table and chairs (click to show/hide)

From left to right: wall, stone table, stone throne.

Here are two sets side by side to demonstrate the continuity I had in mind:

Spoiler: Table and chairs, two sets (click to show/hide)

From left to right: wall, stone table, stone throne.

If I'm to make textures they won't be to the realistic standard we have now. I can do great "painted surfaces" (akin to TF2?), but they only look nice if the rest of the scene is the same. I'll make other examples just for fun, even if these aren't what you're looking for.

[Draco18s]

I can do great "painted surfaces" (akin to TF2?)

Do you mean displacements?

Anyway, those table/chair look nice.  The only gripe is that a stone chair is called a throne so it would be more than a bench.  Wooden chairs would probably also not look like benches.
But it still looks nice.

[thewonderidiot]

I've whipped up a stone table and chair set in my lunch break. Are these too simple? I was going for a simplistic yet dwarven look (and was short on time, of course).

Spoiler: Table and chairs (click to show/hide)

From left to right: wall, stone table, stone throne.

Here are two sets side by side to demonstrate the continuity I had in mind:

Spoiler: Table and chairs, two sets (click to show/hide)

From left to right: wall, stone table, stone throne.

If I'm to make textures they won't be to the realistic standard we have now. I can do great "painted surfaces" (akin to TF2?), but they only look nice if the rest of the scene is the same. I'll make other examples just for fun, even if these aren't what you're looking for.

Those look great!  As Draco18s pointed out, a chair/throne in the same style would be nice too.

As for texturing -- don't worry about it too much. Though, would you mind exporting texture coordinates on it, assuming the texture is just one big generic mineral texture? That'd make sexymustard's job easier 

To be honest, I'm not sure what the final textured look of the furniture will be. The most realistic approach, I guess, would to just use the same texture for the whole thing. However, things can get pretty hard to see pretty fast if you have a bunch of shale tables and chairs in a room carved in shale. I want to combat that somehow, without introducing materials that couldn't have been present (eg, wood legs in an embark with no trees), but I'm not sure yet how I'm going to approach it. *shrugs* I'll deal with that when I'm actually placing furniture in the scene.

EDIT: By the way, if you'd like to see the visualizer drawn in that style, go ahead and make the textures. I was just thinking about it, and being able to change texturing styles on the fly would be pretty cool

[Rushmik]

I'll see how capable I am at drawing textures first, I think. 

In hindsight I'm not sure why I made the throne that way lol. I'll do a few more tomorrow, with textures hopefully. I'll also look up texture mapping, as right now I have no idea what that is (unless it's a template marking areas such as "table top" and "table leg" on the texture image?)