Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: TrashMan on February 23, 2004, 05:52:26 pm
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C'mon guys...I intend to rap up the several ships I'm working on, so if you have any input at all, let's hear it now!
PIRATE CARRIER (modefied old super-transporter)
VERSION 1
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/TWarship.JPG)
VERSION 2
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/TWarship2.JPG)
AND... The OLD SUPER-TRANSPORT
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/TFreight.JPG)
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Um... brown?
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What can Brown do for you?
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Make it all gray - reoclour the texures if need be. Neither blue nor yellow works, IMO.
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Cause all that blue is too much for my eyes... Blue remnds me too much of military. These are pirates, makes more sense they kitbahes a civillian frieghter for piracy..
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Well, right now the first one is the best of the choices. However, I think its a bit too blue, try finding some other textures that might fit on there to break it up a bit.
For my money, it looks like a TV War era carrier to me. Perhaps the TVWP could use it, eh?
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Is there any way to make the two antennae protruding from the front look any... better? Right now they look too much like sticks shoved into the hull.
And personally, I like the brown variation...
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I liked the second one better, but remove the beam cannon from right under the flight deck: it looks weird.
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I don't know, its a tough decision. I'm a little partial to the old rusty one, since all the ships look too new and prestine. The rusty one gives it personality. Just make sure you take it into account (the rust) when making the specular maps)
But hey all look sweet. Just make a PINK version so I can make a quicker decision.
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Wow. Its a box. ;)
All the versions are missing something, TM. They all look like giant boxes. Sure, you've extruded/beveled bits of th boxes, but they're still giant boxes.
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The cube and rectangle are proven structures. I don't hear complaints that New York City looks like a collection of giant boxes or that the Borg Cube is anyless cool. Its how detailed and complex that structure can get that makes it interesting. I'd choose that "giant box" over giant insects (shivans) any day.
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Brown. Good points on the design, but a ship like this definitely has its place. Just not a front-runner render place. ;)
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Originally posted by Omniscaper
The cube and rectangle are proven structures. I don't hear complaints that New York City looks like a collection of giant boxes or that the Borg Cube is anyless cool. Its how detailed and complex that structure can get that makes it interesting. I'd choose that "giant box" over giant insects (shivans) any day.
See, from an architectural point of view, New York City is so much more than a collection of giant boxes. Perhaps you just haven't looked at those giant boxes closely enough to see that they have a lot of variety and detailing. The Empire State building comes to mind immediately, as does the Flat Iron Building, and the Chrysler Building, and any number of others. The ones that ARE just giant plain boxes are pretty damned boring.
The thing you miss, though, is that ships and buildings really aren't the same thing. One of these things stays put and doesn't go into combat (barring occasional uppity terrorists). The other DOES. Call me crazy, but looking at a giant boring old box just doesn't do it for me.
Oh, and for the record: Borg Cubes are the worst, most boring, most uninspired ships ever. And that's okay, because they're perfectly efficient (spacewise) for a race that goes in for that sort of thing. I still don't want to face off against the SD Cube or the like. I want interesting designs that are dynamic, designs that force my eye to trace their lines and appreciate what I'm looking at.
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Originally posted by Omniscaper
The cube and rectangle are proven structures. I don't hear complaints that New York City looks like a collection of giant boxes or that the Borg Cube is anyless cool. Its how detailed and complex that structure can get that makes it interesting. I'd choose that "giant box" over giant insects (shivans) any day.
You wanna have complaints about the Borg cube? You REALLY do?
Oh, and Mike, the Cube being the most inspired ever, dunno... it's easier to make a sphere in max, 2 clicks instead of three :p
So I suppose the Borg sphere is even worse :D
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blue only in blue this ship looks good:nod:
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I prefer the brown, but grey would look good too.
Also, there's scope for some custom 'patchwork repairs' texture mapping which would give it a delapidated look suitable for a pirate ship.
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But I'd choose the big red insects (Shivans) over big giant boxes anyday!
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touche
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ARGH! It's a tough one...darn...then I'll put both of them in-game..as different models...
I have just one request..
Can anyone do for me a rusty blue Orion texture?
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Rusty and blue?
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See the First pic? See the ble texture...that one...only rusty
Oh...and since there are gonna be two, I figured they should be a bit different..
So we have the Mamoth, a pirate carrier AND
Mamoth mk2, the personal carrier of the pirate lord
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/MamothMK2.JPG)
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I miss the frontal beam cannon.
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That's a point - where did it go?? :D
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[color=cc9900]It went to a better place.
Was it actually a beam cannon, anyway? Looked like a dockpoint to me.[/color]
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It'd be kind of stupid to have a dockpoint right below a runway :D :p
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Using the dock texture for beam cannons is pretty common (that's how :V: did the RBC turret, IIRC. It looks really bad to me though, so I'd like to see it stoped being used.
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You see the first upper and lower turret? Look closely...they are rotating beam turrets..and it has two more beam cannons on the sides(+ the two that were allready there)...and a extra hangarbay...
I converted it in PCS(LOD's, debris and all), but Modelview won't open it:
"Error #6027:
Too many bounding boxes.
Should be <=4886184" .....W.T.F?
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I liked the second one better, but remove the beam cannon from right under the flight deck: it looks weird.
Pirate Swabby: Cap'n! We be under attack.
Captain Kook: Arrrr, launch the fighters, fire all beam cannons, arrr.
Pirate Swabby: Aye captain.
Captain Kook: Arrr, were be those fighters? Have they launched yet?
Pirate Swabby: Aye captain, but after we launched them we fired our weapons as ordered and blew them all to kingdom come.
Captain Kook: Narrr! Shiver me timbers, get us out of here before they send us to Davey Jones' garage, arrrr.
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Arrrr...the front beam cannon has bene removed...and placed elsewhere...matey!
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AHEM!!!
What does this mean(In Modelview32)?
"Error #6027:
Too many bounding boxes.
Should be <=4886184"
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What if you put those beam cannons to either side of the fore section. I think there are turrets there already, but not sure what they are.
So instead of (for a front on view):
Turret[Hangar]Turret
B Cannon
It'd be
B Cannon[Hangar]B Cannon
Nothing
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Allready changed it...Both ships are now operational (have to add the debris to the first one...Modelview was chrashing becoause of it)..
Now...they need to be pathed (and given docks) before I put them in the DownloadPack I'm preapring... While I was at it, I allso fixed the Phoenix texture(it will allso be in the Pack)
BEHOLD:
The Mammoth
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/screen02.jpg)
The Mammoth & MammothMK2 dunk it out
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/screen03.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/screen00.jpg)
The fixed Phoenix
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/screen01.jpg)
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why not use both of them as "twin pirate flagships"?
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They are both pirate warships. The brown one is a upgreaded version (with a extra fighterbay and more weapons)
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Ironic though that they use the same designation as the GDI ubertanks from CnC. If you're going to call one Mammoth, call the other something similar but not Mk II. Unless it is actually a military ship that was produced in two seperate runs, Pirates wouldn't name any of their ships "Mk. II"
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Could be stolen :)
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Originally posted by TrashMan
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/screen02.jpg)
Ooh. bleh. Planar mapping... :ick:
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What? It looks good...
Hmm...I suppose I could work on that beam cannon extrusion...
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[color=cc9900]I think his point is that it doesn't look good. From what I can see on there, some bits look okay. Others, however, look like they were stuck on with glue. It's all very well using standard FS2 textures, but you need to make them blend together - if they don't, the ship looks tacky and you further emphasise its blockiness.
The planar mapping comment most likely came about because of the sections of it where the same texture is used on two faces either side of an edge, yet they don't match up. Cubic mapping might help there.[/color]
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actually, it's because of cubic mapping that it looks that way.
as i've said many times before - always use planner mapping on a per face basis when texturing cap ships. NEVER on a whole ship basis and then rely on texture reptitions to get the detail right.
3 other points:
1) use trim. the orion lights, or the arcadia trim or whatever, but just _something_ to blend the textures together better.
2) the side bits on the front change texture for no reason at all. don't do that. it doesn't look right. recess the middle bit or replace the outter texture with trim, but as is it looks quite ugly
3) be very careful with texture repetitions. the human eye is quite good at picking up repetitions where it's not supposed to. sure it may make something look big, but it also makes it look ridicules most of the time.
and the modview error is because yo're using the wrong one.
download this one:
http://www.geocities.com/vasudanad/modviw32.zip
and put the exe in it over the one currently in your C:\DMTOOLS\MODVIW32 folder (or wherever it is)
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The texturing and the turrets could be better, but I like the design, it looks simple and functional, which adds (pseudo)realism to the thing.:yes:
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Cubic mapping only works so long as you have an incredibly simple shape, and are willing to hide the texture alignment problems with different textures. The other thing is that you can't easily manipulate the cubic map (i.e. rotate it to stop stretching), as it'd affect evey other texture.
If you actually want the thing to look right, it's essential to actually use per-face planes, and best to just dump the tiled textures and go onoto drawing templated maps from scratch. In a few cases, you may be able to get away with using a cubic or even cylindrical maps on a selected section.
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Actually I was just referring to how the forward faces are mapped nicely, but the faces that are at an angle from it are stretched. Some by alot. I, personally hate that... ut it's not easy to work around all the time.
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Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Actually I was just referring to how the forward faces are mapped nicely, but the faces that are at an angle from it are stretched. Some by alot. I, personally hate that... ut it's not easy to work around all the time.
Uv unwrapper can fix that in max, actually. Just scale the outer vertices a bit.......well, should be able to fix it. UV unwrapper is the best tool for this sort of thing, can use it to fix 90% of problems. Other 10% of times is a problem, though...which is the reason I'm not going to use tiling from now on (or at least not over contiguous sections)
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I haven't quite figured out how to use the texturing tools in Max. I usually just make the mesh in Max and transfer it to TS for texturing and conversion.
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Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
I haven't quite figured out how to use the texturing tools in Max. I usually just make the mesh in Max and transfer it to TS for texturing and conversion.
That's how I started off, but Max is infinately more powerful and useful :nod:
Not to mention you can actually go back and move UV planes without having to restart that area from scratch.......
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I'm still trying to lern to connect two parts of a hull or make holes in the meshes (a la arcadia)
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Vertex weld is your friend.
Just remember to delete the face/s at the 'end' where you're going to join it, cos max won.t.
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1. I was using both Cubic and planar mapping on this one.
2. Yes, I see that there are several "stretched" textures on the sides... I will fix those.. this was a merely a test to see if the geometry and PCSing are done right.
3. The turrets themselves are probably the best textured bit on the ships..so far...
4. I think I got the texture repetitions quite right here (alltough those strethced ones on the sides still need fixing)
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FIXED:
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/Mam1.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Trashman/Pics/Mam2.jpg)
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"Alarm! Rakete!"???
Is that some german version or something, heheh
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sure ;)
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Free Terran sent me some registy fix and suddenly everything is in german (which is o.k. since I know german), but the Ship descriptions in the techroom don't show up...
*reminds himself to re-install FS2 one of these days*
B.t.w. - Anyone want to join DOTA?
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I think there's a registry flag for english or german. Just switch it to english if you want. :p
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[color=cc9900]I can't see a darn thing in those pics, sorry. What have you changed, exactly? From what I can see, you still haven't addressed the issue of texture blending. As Vasudan Admiral said, trim is probably the easiest way to go about it, seeing as you seem to dislike choosing textures that blend well with one another.[/color]
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I did trim the sides on the front (like Vasudan Admiral said) and I fixed the texture stretching (between those downward-facing wing-like extrusions)
Blindy!
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[color=cc9900]Ah yes, I see. Good start then, I'd suggest the next area to trim/blend would be those grey sidepods. The grey-blue boundary isn't cutting it at the moment.[/color]
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Nice. Very nice. This thing is perfect for the TVWP. I mean, its so..boxy. I mean that as a good thing :D:D It fits the era very nicely. I'de go with the blue Orion plating.
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Both ships will be available for download shortly (along with EVERYTHING else I made).
If any campaign wants some model for themselves only, then tell me so...
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Fantastic, it looks like it's working very well in-game. Have you a download link, or did I miss it? :)
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Not yet..I inted to put all my ships in one big pack...Or maby I'll devide it into 2-3 packs...
Don't worry...it will be available soon...