[Anaz]

Yup. It is.

The thin like is where the two halves don't quite meet.

First model I did entirely "freeform" without manually entering coordinates.

[Taristin]

Manually enterring coordinates scares me.


It's a blocky stubby little ship. But, Terran. So go figure.

[Imagine]

Are you using TrueSpace? It's a ***** about welding halves together. I found it to be easier to do symmetrical extrusions on a subdivided box.

[WeatherOp]

It would make an awesome bomb too.

[Anaz]

Originally posted by Imagine
Are you using TrueSpace? It's a ***** about welding halves together. I found it to be easier to do symmetrical extrusions on a subdivided box.

Max7. My "new toy". Get the urge to play with it once and a while. And I know truespace's foibles. Easiest way to get it to combine two halves is to make them extend over each other a very tiny bit, and boolean them together, but make sure that you don't have the "remove extra edges" thing enabled, or it'll take edges off all flat surfaces, which is irritating as it tends to destabalize about half the polygons.

[StratComm]

Ah.  Delete one half of it, make sure the other half extends over the centerline, and use the symmetry modifier.  Easiest way to get something mirrored across its centerline, by far.

[Anaz]

I've just been building halves and using the mirror thing. Instanced copies rule.

[WeatherOp]

I normally build the whole thing, except on small things.

[StratComm]

Symmetry is your friend

Seriously, other than the UVW Map modifier, I use symmetry more than anything else.

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by Imagine
Are you using TrueSpace? It's a ***** about welding halves together.

No, it´s not! At least not in TS 6. All you need it to select the face you want, click a button, and it´s done. No muss no fuss.
Don´t know about TS 3.2 though.

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by Anaz
Easiest way to get it to combine two halves is to make them extend over each other a very tiny bit, and boolean them together, but make sure that you don't have the "remove extra edges" thing enabled, or it'll take edges off all flat surfaces, which is irritating as it tends to destabalize about half the polygons.

No! No! Bad Anaz! Bad Anaz!

Symmetry modifier is the boy.Either that or the mirror tool.
2D & Boolean = Good (very good actually)
3D & Boolean = Bad

Originally posted by StratComm
Delete one half of it, make sure the other half extends over the centerline, and use the symmetry modifier

I usually add the Symmetry modifier almost straight away before any serious modeling.

[Anaz]

Originally posted by Roanoke



No! No! Bad Anaz! Bad Anaz!

Symmetry modifier is the boy.Either that or the mirror tool.
2D & Boolean = Good (very good actually)
3D & Boolean = Bad

I was talking about truespace.

Anyhow...any other comments about the model?

[Anaz]

Yey for double posting.

Added some guns. Played with the symmetry modifier too. I think I like referenced/instanced copies for building the geometry, then deleting the copy, and symetrying the resulting half, as from my playings with of symmetry led me to believe that you can't see both halves of it as you worked on it.





Yes, I know the guns have to be pointing straight up to go into FS2. They look cooler this way.

[WeatherOp]

Now it's starting to look like one of the Ion Frigates from Homeworld.

[StratComm]

You can see the changes if you just click on the symmetry modifier in the stack.  You're usually working underneath it, so it doesn't get applied to the viewport.  Besides, you should have a general sense of what it's going to look like mirrored beforehand anyway.

Though if you're staying under 20k polys for the mesh, instancing a copy and mirroring it works pretty well too

[Anaz]

I'm bad at visualizing the other half of it when I model like that, and I don't think I'll breaking 20k any time soon

[Roanoke]

The little symbol that looks like a Test-tube can be clicked to show the result of the modifier.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Anaz
Yey for double posting.

Added some guns. Played with the symmetry modifier too. I think I like referenced/instanced copies for building the geometry, then deleting the copy, and symetrying the resulting half, as from my playings with of symmetry led me to believe that you can't see both halves of it as you worked on it

Offhand, if you simply delete half if it, then mirror it but make sure it's a reference copy you mirror, then changes in one side should (IIRC) be reflected in the reference copy as well.

[TrashMan]

Nice...very nice...