Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 11:40:42 am

Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 11:40:42 am
ok I need some help with this - DONT WORRY! its not in doing any of my work! so calm down, relax and look at these pics...

Whats missing in the texture (or the ship)? *bear in mind they are DEFINATLY not finished I have just the main areas done the inside has no extra decks etc)
I know they might not be the best, you might not think they fit the ship, you might think the ship sucks... I dont care :D
I think something is missing on this texture but can't place it what is it?

(btw the ship is the Quadatar - Company (civilian) medium carrier featured in the demo I am making for me MOD)

(NOTE: these are unrendered and straight from the 3d window of milkshape3d so they look crap)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/side1.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/back1.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/cornor1.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/cornor2.jpg)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Unknown Target on August 08, 2003, 11:42:34 am
Textures need more detail ;), and, if it's a freighter or barge, DEFINATELY some grease, or some dirtiness to it.
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 11:44:55 am
it says up there what it is (carrier) and I KNOW the textures need something but what EXACTLY (I have textured about 10 ships with custom (totaly) maps and am running out of ideas and 'details' and so... the request...  I all fits together so nicly! Perhaps 'too' nicly..... hummm.....:nervous:
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Unknown Target on August 08, 2003, 11:56:41 am
try looking at Hegemonia (Haegemonia, for those of you in Europe) for some texture ideas ;)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 12:09:36 pm
I onbly have the demo and the textures in there are... very distinct and dont really give me an ideas for my carrier here... (it wants to be textured! Can't you hear it calling?)
Is there any BIG ships in full game (apart from stations)?
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Unknown Target on August 08, 2003, 12:24:59 pm
ya, there's battleships and such. visit the website to see what I mean (www.hegemonia.info or www.haegemonia.com)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Thor on August 08, 2003, 12:26:49 pm
Add somke pipes or creases or windows or lights or advertisments or stranges purposeless bumps.
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Flipside on August 08, 2003, 12:32:20 pm
Also, you need to remap the front of the ship, you've got the lines of doom. Other than that, I think we all agree it needs 'stuff'. Lights, pipes, strange tubular unknown things just something to hide the repeating texture. I must admit, I don't use tiling unless I have to, I'd much rather have a single texture, with lots of detail :D
That said, cool looking ship, looks like it could take a severe pounding.

Flipside
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 12:44:17 pm
advertisments or stranges purposeless bumps

the TSC ruled that company ships should have no advertisment on thier ships in any way or form so thats out...

and I use 512x512 maps and such I can either have tiled or low detail maps (on the side of a ship)... I like tiled more

(this IS a big ship, well not in FS2 terms)

oh and bridge (top) and front and inside are not even finished yet so they are not mapped - dont worry, im not a newbie ;)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Flipside on August 08, 2003, 01:53:04 pm
LOL Fair enough :D

Nowadays, I just post a different material on each side of the ship and do it that way, I used to be worried about memory/speed etc, then I thought 'So, how many 512 x 512 textures does UT2003 put on the screen at once?' ;7

Flipside :D
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Taristin on August 08, 2003, 04:31:12 pm
It needs stuff on the top of the barge thingy part.
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 04:59:24 pm
what is the 'barge' thingy part? and what stuff?:rolleyes:
Title: Re: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Taristin on August 08, 2003, 05:06:30 pm
Quote
Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER
(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/side1.jpg)


The long flat part on the left.

I think that the simplest and maybe best way is to put a bump-out thingy running around it. (Think like the Vasudan FS1 freighter, with the big ridge running along the top... You now which freighter, the one that was mistaken for a cruiser during the TV war... yeah, that one...)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 05:10:26 pm
thats the control deck, it houses the bridge... and most importantly - its not textured yet!

now thas over with;)

I have made some changes but its an extreamly repetative texture....

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/side2.jpg)

and heres the actual texture... see what I mean?

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/carrier3.jpg)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Taristin on August 08, 2003, 05:16:59 pm
Yeah, but try to see if you can model in a bump like on this ship, I think you could use it...

(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/qm/pub/snipes/ridge.jpg)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 05:32:59 pm
the front bit? I thouhgt about something like that but i thought nar! it will get it the way of the turrets and the bridge is up there...


anyway I dont want to put every feature on every ship... it IS only a company vessel
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Taristin on August 08, 2003, 05:34:51 pm
Well it certainly needs something... if not better texxies


Edit: Besides all that, it is a good model, I know how hard it is to make a good one.,..
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 05:37:41 pm
humm? I thought all my models were good???:p

:thepimp: :lol:



EDIT: I'll have a muck about with adding model detail to spaec out and visualy debunch(tm) the textures - I post a pic o 2 when I finished
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 06:58:30 pm
its not much but Im stuck...

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/new1.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/new2.jpg)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Flipside on August 08, 2003, 07:04:29 pm
Well, I hope you don't mind me taking a liberty, but I fiddled with the texture a bit and came up with this :-

www.freewebs.com/flakmonkey/

I think you actually meant for the Grey areas to be docking ports, and, of course I can't try it out on the model, but I thought it may at least break up the texture a little?

Let me know if you don't like people fiddling with your textures and I'll remove the page :)

Flipside.
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 07:16:57 pm
humm it turned it into a borg ship....

not what I was looking for!:lol:

Its actualy armour pads.... (tech for 100% damage death)


The lights n stuff on the other hand work quite well... I will put some on my texture and see what happens:)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/new3.jpg)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Flipside on August 08, 2003, 07:22:14 pm
LOL Damn! I always do the greens too bright, and without the model to check textures against, it was all hit and miss anyway :)
Ah well, it was worth a try :D

Flipside
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Taristin on August 08, 2003, 10:02:07 pm
Better, but no on the green...
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Krackers87 on August 08, 2003, 10:05:33 pm
2 things

1 add engines that pos out of the side.

2 make the green stuff dark blue (with glowmaps ;7 Hint: presure containment field for unstable objects or large ones) or dark silver that stands out against the other siler. Also make the main silver part darker. Its way to bright of a color for a freighter.

Edit: 3 make 1 fighter bay near the top of the front instead of four and add some gubins to the bottom part or make it slant backwards. Like this (ignore the ----) :

_______
--------l
--------l
-------/
_____/

4 round out the front
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 08, 2003, 10:56:39 pm
yeah.... no

thanks but its staying the way it is blue, boxy and it has enough engines! Do you want me to exceed the limit and crash FS2???;) :p

yeah Raa the green was flipside's 'experiment':nervous:
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Flipside on August 09, 2003, 05:24:56 am
LOL Not quite experiment, just the result of trying to design up a texture scheme in the whole 15 mins I spent on that one at 3:10am :D It wasn't really so much designed to show my texturing abilities, as to show that a non-symmetrical will help to 'untile' repeated-looking textures, and look on the bright side, at least I had a pop at 'something'

I've de-greenified the texture now, but no matter what, textures alone wouldn't break up the surface enough. Still a nice model though.


Flipside :)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 09, 2003, 08:14:27 am
thats right! so what do you think of the latest 'bits and bobs'?

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/latest1.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/latest2.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/latest3.jpg)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Black Wolf on August 09, 2003, 08:15:51 am
What you need to do is put a similar but different texture in the middle somewhere, so that it's not always the blue section repeated over and over so close toether.
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 09, 2003, 08:28:46 am
Another daring adventure for Captain obvious and his sidekick Duh...:rolleyes:


Its a repeating texture... it took me ages to align correctly (15mins:D )  and putting one in the middle would mean breaking up the side (UV too) to put in a bit of extra texture - all in all too much work for a small amount

so im just going to hope people are too busy shooting at it to notice... mabye the cannon tracers will distract them?
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: StratComm on August 09, 2003, 12:13:08 pm
Quote
Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER
thanks but its staying the way it is blue, boxy and it has enough engines! Do you want me to exceed the limit and crash FS2???;) :p


Exceed the limit?  Freespace limits engines?  I've never seen any evidence of that :p

It looks much better with the other stuff attached, I think the big killer was the large expanse of box that ran from under the bridge to the front of the ship; it may seem fine but in conjunction with the obvious tiling it made the ship look too plain.  As for the front, I know it's not done but you need something to break the symmetry (plus the fact that the hanger bays look like they were poured out of concrete) to improve that.  I would suggest that you take off one and turn it into a group of antennas, but leave the other three as they are.
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 09, 2003, 02:32:24 pm
It has enought anttenas...

it supposed to be a 'cheap' (compared to TSC) company civilian carrier... its not the saviour of the universe:p


I was thinking about putting large pads of geomartry that are really thin and textured diffrently that basicaly cover up parts of the texture but the polys are going up its about 900 now and I still need to add a few things inside and those pads... gonna have to make the engines destroyable it seems mabe the eniter bridge area too...
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 12, 2003, 08:31:39 am
ok can yous see an glaring mistakes? ugly parts? well? (I dont remeber modeling any wells on it though)



(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/fin1.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/fin2.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/fin3.jpg)

(http://www.armouredstar.com/pics/other/fin4.jpg)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: FreeTerran on August 12, 2003, 08:43:24 am
Nice how long is it ?
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 12, 2003, 08:47:34 am
err... I dont know, I havn't converted it yet... (:D) but those doors should be about 30m wide to accomidate medium bombers which it can carry (fighters are about 5-10m wide)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 12, 2003, 03:19:21 pm
bump...


wounldn't mind some opinions/ideas ya know....
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Flipside on August 12, 2003, 03:25:55 pm
Well, since this is to be a carrier, you will probs need radar and a few point defences. And how about a large landing pad on the top for freighters and other things that are too big to land in the fighter bays. After all, the things gotta resupply somehow? ;)

Flipside :)
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 12, 2003, 03:41:24 pm
turrets are installed sepratly before LODs and debris etc its got lots of radar.... see those attena? they are sensors... read my tech refrences when my MOD comes out for further information;)

its dock will just be on the side shuttles can land in the hanger
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: Flipside on August 12, 2003, 03:50:58 pm
I would say it's pretty much done then, most Aircraft carriers are quite literally Runways with a ship under them, this ship looks perfectly functional and believable as a Carrier.
I suppose the SCP could let you do some cool things with the textures as they are ;) Are you going to use an animated glowmap for the landing lights along the side of the bays? That would be cool :D Another nice little texture effect would be to use a specular map that is very bright for the light gray panels, and quite dark for the rest of the texture, that would help add that 'Armour' feel to them :)
The only other thing I might suggest is maybe put some lights on the lower bridge section, sort of crew quarters?

Flipside
Title: Need some help from your minds!
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on August 12, 2003, 04:07:11 pm
ah yes! Windows, lights! Thats why it looks so bland up there! Thank you!


Yes SCP stuff will be used in my Gamma demo (in joke - thats obvious as well)

(waiting for a stable release that has everything before test/demo gets underway with missions but scripts and models is coming along nicly now)