[Mothership Restoration]

Oh wow, I didn't even know there were ships hovering ominously around Pocket D! 15ish years and this game still surprises me 😁

[Mothership Restoration]

I've decided to fix up the Rikti Mothership to be 3D printed (captured from the game using HeroOgler), and assuming I stick to the project, I'll use this thread to post updates.

However, this post is really here because I had never seen (at least, that I recall) the underside of the ship, and it's kind of cool to see, since it's usually just buried.

 

Did we know that the mothership looked like this under all that dirt?

 

[3D Print Steps]

Per the above, I've streamlined steps 1-16 in the above guide with some batch files.

 

As with anything strangers on the big scary Internet send you, be cautious, because whether they're heroes or villains, they'll tell you it's safe. I encourage you to read through the source code to determine whether or not you believe this safe to use (or ask someone you trust to do it), and that includes the 3rd party elements (GLIntercept and OGLE... both of those repos are linked in the HeroOgler readme). Again, this is encouraged but not enforced.

 

Speaking of which, please read the readme. It's there for a reason 😁

 

https://github.com/TalonGrayson/hero-ogler

 

Contributions are welcome, especially if they fix issues

 

@leeper48 If/when you update your guide, I'll edit this post too.

[Tele on target and on click with a bind]

Yeah, I totally agree, but I think to people coming into CoX for the first time from other, more modern games, might find the slash command interface daunting at first. I didn't know there was a tool available, but that could be a great stepping stone to point the people I'm trying to convince to jump into the game to!

[Tele on target and on click with a bind]

14 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

it always makes me think of a runner who takes twice as many steps as he has to. 🙂

 

Sometimes that's a good thing. I've started using powecexlocation cursor translocation but I miss see the little rings at my cursor when I click as they indicate whether your cursor is against a wall or floor.

 

But I think that supports your overall sentiment; flexibility is key, because preference trumps efficiency every time, and that's one of the many things this games does incredibly well.

 

I just wish there were an in-game bind/macro building UI... mainly because there are just so many things to learn and remember otherwise

[Tele on target and on click with a bind]

5 hours ago, Solvernia said:

I don't know what you mean by "find a shift key". It's always in the same spot on your keyboard and can be pressed instantaneously, since your hand is right there at all times.

 

Yeah, depending on your hands, and not taking any disabilities or manual difficulties into account. No harm in offering options with less complexity.

[New Costume Pieces Request]

I have always wanted to be able to RP  a Rikti Traditionalist, but there seems to be no way of doing it visually (I can't even find a Rikti costume temp power, but I could have missed it).

 

Could we unlock Rikti parts (including head) by getting the Master at Arms badge, perhaps?

 

Ideally this would be all Rikti armour (except U'Kon Gr'ai's, Hro D'tohz, etc)... everything from the Conscripts, through Headman Gunmen (Gunmans?) and Mentalists, to Magi (Maguses? Maga?) would be incredible - perhaps too much to ask, but a recolourable Conscript armour would be awesome.

[Most spectacular in-game view?]

My favourite view is the floor, so when I'm not looking directly at it, I'm doing everything I can to reposition myself, often with the help of bad guys:

 

 

Second favourite is:

 

 

But I also really enjoy this sort of thing:

[Tele on target and on click with a bind]

I used to use a similar bind for Spring Attack on my claws/wp scrapper back in the day, which was handy when you wanted to move around a crowd quickly. It's knockback (enh to knockdown, naturally) was super helpful in giving an assist to someone who had bitten off a bit more than they could chew. I could target a foe near them, hit the bind and basically teleport into the crowd, knocking a bunch of them down before getting the claws out and thinning their numbers.

 

If I can find the keybind in my files I'll share it here, although it's not an answer to the question.

 

Edit: in fact, it's most likely:

/bind t powexec_location target spring attack

[3D Printed Characters with brief process notes]

2 hours ago, leeper48 said:

Clean and crisp. What was the final print time?

That was just shy of 8 hours

[3D Printed Characters with brief process notes]

This needs some clean-up and a lick of paint, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Only a couple of minor printing defects... I'll probably reprint it tbh

 

Glue for scale

[3D Printed Characters with brief process notes]

30 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

 

I'm not an expert on toxic materials and maybe the sources I'm looking at are dated (eg. there are non-toxic resin brands on the market). But a quick google search on resin will say that it is very toxic, should not be handled without gloves, needs proper ventilation, and is extremely damaging to the environment if not disposed of properly. Note that by toxic I don't mean "unpleasant to be around". I'm talking about damage to your skin, particles in your eyes and lungs, etc.

It's massively toxic to the environment, for sure. Uncured resin should never, ever be disposed of in any way whatsoever. Cured resin can be landfilled but not recycled, but isn't an environmental hazard otherwise.

 

I've attached an MSDS for Elegoo ABS-like resin. It's a pretty typical resin, but each resin is slightly different.

 

Like I say, I can't in good conscience tell anyone not use PPE when using resin, but I am certain it's less dangerous than most people think. It's good to be cautious, but it's also good to have all the facts (the MSDS), as well as some anecdotal experience to give context.

ELEGOO ABS-Like Photopolymer Resin MSDS Report.pdf

[3D Printed Characters with brief process notes]

The main benefit of venting a resin printer is getting rid of the smell, to be honest. Some resins smell worse than others. I've found that most are inoffensive, but one particular resin stank so much it literally made my eyes water.

[3D Printed Characters with brief process notes]

8 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Are you doing anything to address the layer lines before you paint? Resin printers are definitely better for smoothness and detail, but I've stayed clear of them because the resin is a lot more toxic than working with PLA.

 

So, yeah, they are, but they're no where near as I assumed before owning one.

 

Full disclosure (and disclaimer), I am not hugely risk averse, and you should not take anything I'm about to say as absolute truth. Always do your own homework, take every precaution you can, and assume the worst.

 

The MSDS (material safety data sheet) for any given resin is usually available from their website. Every one I've read more or less sums up as "do not drink, wash your hands if you get it on your skin, if it's giving you problems breathing, get some fresh air". I compare it to petrol/gasoline in that both are nasty stuff, but when you use them appropriately, they're totally fine. These days I don't even wear a respirator or gloves when I'm handling resin, and my printer sits about 2' from my face at my desk.

 

Resin printing is messy, and the resin is more expensive, and cleanup/post-processing is a different beast entirely. I don't have pets or children, so I can be a bit more slapdash and take more risks, so that's also worth bearing in mind.

 

Not to plug my channel, but I stream on Twitch every Friday and Saturday. If you're on there and you see me streaming, feel free to pop in and ask me about this sort of thing. I'm totally open to sharing XP with this sort of thing (typically Fridays nights are maker/creative streams): https://go.twitch.tv/talongrayson

 

I have 5 or 6 years of 3D printing experience with FDM/FFF (PLA, I've never found a need for other materials so far) and MSLA (resin) printers, and I can talk about it for days 😂

[3D Printed Characters with brief process notes]

16 hours ago, leeper48 said:

Following up to my post above on the 64bit & new launcher working - even better news... this new GLintercept/OGLE is working on my NVIDIA card. No more hopping to my old machine.

 

This is fantastic news. It's amazing that OGLE not working on any of my machines for reasons unknown resulted in such a positive outcome.

 

Now to get it working on my machines (one is Radeon, the other NVIDIA, so here's hoping one of them works)

 

And to keep this thread arty...

 

@leeper48 grabbed my main for me, and sent me the OBJ. I'm no expert in Blender, but I'm comfortable in it, so I've decided to try and create a hi-res version of the model, suitable for resin printing, with as much detail sculpted into the thing as possible. Here's a render of my progress so far...

 

 

[3D Printed Characters with brief process notes]

Not so long ago, I printed out a wee statue for my wife, depicting the Widows we used to run when we were first dating.

 

I've not been able to capture CoH recently, but I hadn't thought to use a crappy GPU to do it. Good shout!

 

Here's a render from 8 years ago 😁

 

[How do you create texture mods?]

24 minutes ago, AboveTheChemist said:

Is the location in your screenshot behind the tram in Atlas Park?

 

Yes, it is.

I'll PM you the texture file now. Thank you!

[How do you create texture mods?]

59 minutes ago, AboveTheChemist said:

If it does, then that's another sign that it might be that mipmap count flag.

 

Skipping that, I resaved it without mipmaps and got the following result. A visually different corruption but it looks like the same portion of the texture is corrupted. For what it's worth, this corruption appearance is consistent whenever I don't mipmap, and the previous corruption is consistent whenever I do, if that makes sense.

 

I'm running PiggViewer 1.61 in compatibility mode (XP SP 2, and have also tried SP 3 with the same result).

 

 

[How do you create texture mods?]

Thanks for the topic. I'm glad to see this is still a thing, but I'm having a problem when I create the *.texture file. The *.DDS file looks fine, at least.

 

Evidently there's some LOD issue, which at first I assumed was to do with the MIP maps setting in the Nvidia plugin. but the second (closer) image has strange corruption on the bottom half regardless of what setting I use.

I'm using Photoshop CS6 and NVIDIA dds Format (v8.55.0109.1800) and I've done this sort of thing before, but it's not playing ball all of a sudden. Any advice?

 

Side quest note, any idea how to get rid of the brick bump/normal map?

 

 

 

[3D Printable Archetype Logos]

On 1/12/2022 at 4:43 AM, Jawbreaker said:

I'm in if you make them available. I can also trade for COH Patches and stickers I make

 

Cool cool. Once I've finished them and got some examples painted up I'll post here.

[uk time players]

I'm UK based, and I only get to play in the evening or at weekends. I've never had difficulty finding a TF starting, or recruiting for one and having a full team within about 5 minutes.

 

Regular mission teaming is a bit more tricky. Haven't tried for radio missions.

 

At the moment I typically log in for the MSR (so, 8pm our time), and then potter off and either run some solo stuff or hop about joining TFs.

 

Feel free to add me (@TalonGrayson). Always happy to, y'know, play the videogame...

[3D Printable Archetype Logos]

Yeah, they're pretty rough in FDM, but fine for drafts

[3D Printable Archetype Logos]

I decided to 3D model the archetype icons/logos for 3D printing, with little recesses in the back for magnets and I'm thinking about selling the STLs (for a small amount) on CGTrader or similar.

 

Regardless of whether I do or not, I wanted to share the first draft prints with you lot. I've also done the Mastermind one but after the first print I decided to rework it a little for better definition.

 

Eventually I plan to print these in resin, paint them, and stick them on my fridge 🙂

 

 

[Can combat escort NPCs have their AI set to "defensive" rather than "aggressive"?]

I very rarely take teleport, so I can't remember whether Recall Friend works on NPCs of this nature, but if so, maybe a temp "Recall Hostage" power in these missions would ease things a little without breaking the missions too much?

[City Info Tracker for Homecoming]

I thought about this some more, and I think the only feature/service needed on the game client side is that shadow dump (*teehee*) into some external database.

 

Once the data has somewhere to live, any framework/language could be used to build the actual REST API, since that would be a completely separate service from the game client.

 

Maybe that was already obvious, but I didn't think it was explicitly mentioned, so I'm, uh, explicitly mentioning it.

 

I have absolutely no idea how the data is stored by the game client, or whether maintaining multiple database connections is possible, or whether writing data to 2 different databases simultaneously is possible, or whether that would cause lag/perceivable server strain, but perhaps it's actually plausible that real-time data shadowing could be a thing... maybe... if you think about it from a not knowing anything point if view...