EVE Technology Lab

This idea is a suggestion for CCP, and this thread is for player comment, to estimate demand.

The core idea is this: CCP should generate a special class of ship models that are packaged and textured differently to those found in game.

Why?

The Eve brand is enhanced if players are spending their own time generating interesting derivative art in their communities. Every time someone sees an Eve ship model, the brand benefits.

It follows that CCP and the Eve community would benefit it players had easy to use, good looking 3D models of ships and other Eve assets.

What is the big problem with this?

CCP will have their own view, but I perceive two chief problems. The first is IP based, the second is concerned with technical performance.

In the first instance, CCP cannot be in the business of teaching their competitors how to build a product that is better than their own. It is commercial suicide. They must consider that the various methods their artists use to build textures and general visual effects in game is highly valuable IP. This is an easy idea to grasp. Imagine you needed to build a space MMO that looked great. Would it help if CCP told you everything they knew about that?

So, if CCP teach everyone how they texture and use ship models, in great detail, that is a real problem.

The second issue concerns the development of the game. Eve is not purely a visual project. There are bandwidth concerns and numerous other non visual bottlenecks that compete for attention and resources. The visual team need to be extremely flexible in their choice of technologies and methods, so that they may squeeze every bit of performance from the available budget. This means they need to be able to change they way they operate at the drop of a hat, and this means versions of their methods are updated very often. If you need to teach your player base your methods, so they can use your models, that becomes a full time job for somebody.

A possible solution to both these problems could be for CCP to create a special version of their ship models for 3D player art.

Players do not need fully functioning Eve ships. We just need the basic shape and the textures, capable of import into 3D software. Once we have the basic model and texture maps, animation of engines and guns can and should be done in the modelling software.

If CCP developed a simple script for converting their models into a simple, widely accepted format, they could supply players with easy to use models that revealed absolutely nothing about the methods CCP use for the game itself. They would protect their IP, and get far away from the business of teaching people to do what they do.

They would also have neat control over the appearance of player generated art. They could imprint their logo onto all the ship hulls, for example, and promote the brand directly.

The digital world is always evolving, and 3D software is no longer restricted to commercial works. Nearly every has a computer and graphics card capable of running Maya or Blender at useful speed.

Simplified, easy to import models and texture files would put Eve and CCP right into this emerging field of graphic art.

Thanks, but things have moved on with the packaging of textures and the use of PBR rendering. CCP are making life difficult for modellers, but I doubt it is intentional. They are just updating their methods and tech, but the consequence is that all the third party apps like Triexporter and the Caldari Prime Pony Club (for real) no longer work.

This thread is sort of a plea for CCP to release a set of texture files and the base hull model files specially made for player modellers. It would stop folks hacking their files and trying to reverse engineer their methods, when all we want to do is muck around with our Eve ship concepts on our 3D software.

The thing is, modellers gonna model. If Eve ships are easy and modeller friendly, a lot of Eve ships will get modelled by the increasingly vast horde of modellers. If Eve ships are really difficult to model, no ships will get modelled by the vast hordes etc.

With 3D printing emerging as a thing, player created Eve ship models could become a massive billboard for the brand.

Or, if things keep going like they are right now, some other firms will get their art into this public space, and CCP will be left clutching their IP in a dark cave.

No make a model all you need is clean isometric views of the ships. Top down, side, and back. The textures you can make yourself. You don't need CCP to provide them. They are pretty easy to make. Anyone kno where I can find clean isometric views of ships?