

With this in GIMP, I simply pasted each of the screenshots over the existing ship and then applied a number of filters and tweaked the brightness, contrast, and color levels until the art style matched up nicely. Next, I used EVNEW to open EV Nova’s data files and get an example sprite sheet out for a ship. With the texture mapped onto the ship, it was time to render the scene, position lights to match how a ship in EV Nova is normally lit, and then take 64 screenshots of the ship rotated by increments of 5.625 degrees.
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In hindsight, I should have probably imported the ship as multiple objects and then applied a texture to each. It’s a rather arduous process, but seemed to be the quickest way to get what I was after at the time. This process involves “unwrapping” a 3D object onto a 2D plane, filling that 2D plane with artwork, and then re-wrapping it around the object. Next, with the model completed, I brought it into Blender so that a texture could be UV mapped onto the CAD model. EV Nova uses 64-frame sprite sheets to display the ship on the screen, and I knew there was no hope of consistently drawing a ship at different angles that many times, so a model would be necessary for rendering. To create my franken-ship, the IDA Courier, I first started in FreeCAD to build a 3D model of what the ship would look like. EV Nova had quick ships and it had freighters, but it didn’t have a quick, small freighter, so I decided to design one by combining the original Courier with EV Nova’s iconic freighter, the IDA Frigate. One of my favorite ships was the Courier, a light freighter able to move quickly between star systems while carrying a reasonable amount of cargo.
#Ev nova pilot editor software#
Years later in high school, Ambrosia Software released its second sequel, Escape Velocity: Nova, and my friends and I were hooked all over again.ĭue to a recent unexpected bit of downtime, I found myself playing EV Nova once again with my friend, and decided it was about time I expanded it a bit by filling a perceived gap from the first game.

It was fascinating in its openness and the range of ways you could play it. I was maybe ten or eleven years old, and I’d just gotten a space exploration game called Escape Velocity. Active crön events - shows the chronological timers currently in effect, and the time remaining.The first time I stayed awake until the sun came up was the night I got my color Macintosh IIsi.anything that changes prices) are currently in effect. Active disasters - shows what disasters (which include things like food surpluses or supply shortages, i.e.Active ranks - shows what ranks and honors the player has been given.Stellars currently destroyed - shows what planets/stations have been destroyed, either by the player using a planet-type weapon or by an NCB set string.Stellars Currently Dominated - Shows what planets/stations the player has dominated.Items Currently Owned - shows what outfits the player owns.Contribute Bits - shows which contribute bits are filled by the player's shïp, oütf, and ränk resources.Mission bits - shows which NCBs the player has set.Active Missions - shows what missions, if any, the player is doing.

Current Cargo - shows what cargo, if any, the player has.Pilot statistics - shows the pilot's name, nickname, gender, strict play status, whether or not the player has seen the intro screen, ship name and type, current system, legal status, game date, fuel, credits, and combat rating.Plug-ins loaded - this section shows what plug-ins, if any, the player is using.The first section shows the date and time the log was created, as well as the game version.Then, every time a pilot file is loaded, EV Nova will output all of a pilot's statistics into the file.Ī pilotlog file is separated into several sections. To make a pilotlog, create a plain text file in the main EV Nova folder called pilotlog.txt. A Pilotlog, somewhat similar to a debuglog, is a text file created by EV Nova containing all of a certain pilot's achievements and statistics.
