Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: TrashMan on February 03, 2005, 03:38:25 pm
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Get it while it's hot:D
I tweaked it a little and finished it (5lods, debris, paths, docks, nameplate...)
The only thing that bugs me is that LOD 2 only has the turret sbases so it might look a bit odd... I do have a version with multi-part turrets on LOD 2, but when importing turret data, PCS screwed thing totaly up, so I'll have to manually set up all 80 or so turrets again...Ugh...
I would give screenies, but something is terribly screwy with my FS2, as every FS2 and FRED2 build I tried chrashes (and I didn't even change anything...strange...)
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80 turrets ? isn't that overkill ?
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8 Heavy Main batteries, 4 Heavy Beam cannons, 1 Meson missile Launcher + 62 terran tueert/flak/AAAf...
Nope.. I don't think it is...remeber, the thing only carries 2 squards of light fighters.
EDIT: Crap...crap...crap..can't install FS2 again.. guess all my models and my campaign are going in the freezer.
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Why? You can always install the HOTU version and copy over your VP files.
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Eh? The what?
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Back up your Vp files. Install HotU (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=4150) and then copy the VP files back over.
Since you're not using the install program on the FS2 CD you might manage to get around the problem you've been having.
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ERm.. I have FS2 on CDs... and a 56k connection.....
I didn't put anything I made into VP's, but I have backed up all the thig I made (maps, models, effects, tables, squad insignias, interfeca, missions)..
however, deinstalled Fs2 (read: deleted the foldr and removed any registry keys)
I can't start the installer...some wierd bug.. my fried told me to re-install windows, so I'll guess I'll have ot do that...bummer
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So..... Anyone tried it yet? Any comments on it?
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Umm, might be an idea for you to post it first ;)
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Indeed.
For a start, it's here (http://freespaceserver.cjb.net/trashman/Models/Archangel.zip). ;)
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screenies?
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Aha. Cheers mitac :)
TM: Nice model. Not tested it or anything, but it looks good from modelview. :nod:
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Originally posted by TrashMan
ERm.. I have FS2 on CDs... and a 56k connection.....
Basically the suggestion was to download HotU and install using that instead of the FS2 CDs. If you don't have broadband then it's probably easier just to reinstall windows.
You could try making the intaller run in compatibility mode though. You'd need to extract it from the CD to do that of course.
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You may also try googling the windows component that's giving the error (and it should tell you). You can find legit sites that offer most of the core windows components for download in the event that something gets corrupted.
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Originally posted by pyro-manic
Umm, might be an idea for you to post it first ;)
Notice that >>My Stuff<< link in my siggy?
How else could I even ask for an oppinion.
Aheh..as I was saying...approx 8000 polys, 5 LOD's, 74 turrets.
Has two dock point (pathed), 2 hangarbays (pathed with 2 paths each), exchangable nameplate and comes with several new weapons.
Like I said, i can't post screenies, since I don't have FS2 on my HDD anymore (untill I format & re-install)
The only thing that surprises me is how little interest people are showing for it after the "ah.. ohh, drool over screenies phase"..
B.T.W. - are there any tangable criteria for getting into the highlights? I don't want to sound like a primadonna or something, but I've been here for....what?...3-4 years?... God! I don't know.. (this place really holds your soul :devil: ) and despite all the models I pumped out I never got there... (and I've seen 3 mission campaigns there)
Oh well...guees I have to work harder.... (thinks of making a 1000000 poly uber-ship, 100km long with 200 uber-beam turrets that can shoot at bombs, fighters and caps)
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Mind if I change the name for my campaign, I already have an ArchAngel and it is vitally important for my campaign.
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You mean the one with the bigass cannon?
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I'd assume he means mine, since it's been the only Archangel in circulation for some time around here.
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8000 polys?!!?! you heartless bastard! LOOK what you've done to my poor computer! it's gonna die! GAH!
actually, i'm afraid i'm not impressed... generic ubership...
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Yes, yours StratComm the Bigass cannon is key to the blockade of the Cape...
Ack! I've said to much.
*Gets dragged off by SOC agents*
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Originally posted by TrashMan
B.T.W. - are there any tangable criteria for getting into the highlights? I don't want to sound like a primadonna or something, but I've been here for....what?...3-4 years?... God! I don't know.. (this place really holds your soul :devil: ) and despite all the models I pumped out I never got there... (and I've seen 3 mission campaigns there)
Ha! It seems that if you tantilize with a mesh that won't be released *cough*SwampThing*cough* you'll get into the highlights, but if you make alot of ships, completely finished, like the two of us have, you get bupkiss. I guess it works on the favorites system, and we've fallen out of favor.
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:wtf:
You mind leaving me out of this?
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I know they're a pain in the ass, but 2 paths per bay isn't really enough. I think the Retail standard of 4 paths is the minimum. :)
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Relax, when you launch a wing he will use both fighterbays.. Fighterpaths are named Bay01 to Bay04 and it's parent is Detail1.
I did it for the Orion MK2 with a total of 2 fighterbays and 8 paths. If you're launching something big, the game uses both fighterbays so the ships wouldn't collide.
Immagine my surprise when I saw only two Athenas come out of the bay! I went "WTF?.. What' did I do wrong this time" only to fly around next time and see the other two coming out of the other bay....
ERm.. I think it's 8000 polys total for LOD1 with turrets. The main ones are 116 polys each, others are about 12, so the ship hull itself is about 4000 polys...
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Originally posted by Grimloq
actually, i'm afraid i'm not impressed... generic ubership...
Ubership? I wonder as what would the Gigas and Icanus qualify then?
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Originally posted by Rson
screenies?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
ERm.. I think it's 8000 polys total for LOD1 with turrets. The main ones are 116 polys each, others are about 12, so the ship hull itself is about 4000 polys...
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Ubership? I wonder as what would the Gigas and Icanus qualify then?
I really wish I had that "Ghost of proper maths" quote right now...
That's not even close to accurate. The main hull, and I'm sure of this without even seeing the final mesh, is closer to 6500 polys. That's still not that many in HTL, admittedly, but your calculation is way off.
Oh, and the Gigas and Icanus are Uberships. They are supposed to be campaign story elements, and at least somewhat unique within their universe. And keeping ship sizes and roles reasonable is not something that Inferno can be accused of.
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The Gigas and Icanus are profoundly stupid ships. But then they don't exactly get used much because they're so ridiculous (what with taking up a good percentage of the play area and all) so that's a redeeming feature. This, OTOH, is of a size that could be reasonably used in lots of missions, so it is on more dangerous ground, so to speak...
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Originally posted by Rson
screenies?
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Yeah, where are screenies ? ;)
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don't make a thread about a new ship without screenies!
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Originally posted by Carl
don't make a thread about a new ship without screenies!
:yes: :yes: :yes:
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I've download it, i sawi it and can say only this:
Get rid of those box turrets..realy you could do something much better:nod:
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Instead of whining, I decided to get some screenshots. :rolleyes: And here they are. ;)
I forgot to edit the weapons.tbl accordingly, so most of the guns are missing and there's holes where they're supposed to be :rolleyes:. But you get an impression on what the ship looks like.
Edit : well, putting in the weapons.tbl didn't work. Maybe somebody else has more luck.
I'll get new screenshots with the guns later this evening.
(http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-muenchma2/screen00.jpg)
(http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-muenchma2/screen01.jpg)
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RTFT!!!!11one :D Looks daft with the barrels all sticking up like that...
I've had a thought: That designation is waaay too long. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it? GTBs would work better for Battleship, or perhaps GThD for heavy Destroyer. And it's not exactly very Vasudan, is it? I say lose the V. :nod:
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Only 2 textures used?!? Needs a better paint job. As is, the textures blocks out any details it might have.
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Need to line up the texture edges & orientation, I think. Makes it look messy & overtiled (maybe is overtiled anyways) otherwise, y'see,
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WTF? Where are all the other textures? I've put them in the ZIP pack for christs sake!
Checking...
****...Allright..some of the textures I used for archy are in the tex.zip file (also available for download) Christ..I allso forgot the nameplate map.
Ugh....I'm gonna re-upload the Archangel.zip with everything in it, jsut to be sure...DAMN!
*BTW - What buld are you using and which settings? It looked much better for me ...
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Phreak's latest build. 1024*768, 32 bit with OpenGL.
Let me know when you re-uploaded the file, so I can try again. :D
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Originally posted by StratComm
I really wish I had that "Ghost of proper maths" quote right now...
That's not even close to accurate. The main hull, and I'm sure of this without even seeing the final mesh, is closer to 6500 polys. That's still not that many in HTL, admittedly, but your calculation is way off.
Oh, and the Gigas and Icanus are Uberships. They are supposed to be campaign story elements, and at least somewhat unique within their universe. And keeping ship sizes and roles reasonable is not something that Inferno can be accused of.
I didn't have Modelview opened so I just pulled a aprox. figure out of my head...Modelview sez 5920 polys, but in Truespace it was 8000 or so...
Anyway, the Archangel is 4500m long, so there's nothing uber about it. (Gigas and Icanus are way abouve 20km) - It's smaller that the Colossus. Since it's a battelship it has thick armor (900000 hp - allmost as colossus), and has massive firepower (even better than Sath), but it's only 1 ship with no fightercapacity .
EDIT - I uploaded the new zip. Even put it the glowmaps for hte new textures
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New screenshots.
(http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-muenchma2/test/screen00.jpg)
(http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-muenchma2/test/screen01.jpg)
(http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-muenchma2/test/screen03.jpg)
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You should have turned glowmaps on...:D
EDIT: Why everyone has better engile glows than me? where hte hell do ou get them form?
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Glowmaps ARE turned on.
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One word. Big Box...Oh wait...that's two.
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Originally posted by mitac
Glowmaps ARE turned on.
Then why aren't the windows showing? the ship has several "bumps" with windows.. They are small so onc can't see them unless someone is close (or uses glowmaps).
This is a "normal" version, not the HT&L (I don't have apowerfull Pc and I was making it for my campaign needs, so putting uber-detail was not a priority), but DON'T call it a box.
(http://img142.exs.cx/img142/7451/archy30mb.th.jpg) (http://img142.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img142&image=archy30mb.jpg)
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
:wtf:
You mind leaving me out of this?
That's what you get for being such a tease.:p
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I'd call that thing a box any day. It's got no definition of shape and the textures eat every bit of detail you've given it. And those deck guns... eww. I can't really elaborate on them any more, they are just that bad.
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And we dont wanna know how may polies it's got either.
Seriously man, stick with Fighters. :)
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The thing is, Trashman really has a decent hold on modeling. His style just isn't what most people around here want to see, which is fine, so I'm not going to criticize him for that. Now we do still have a few things to go over with him on regarding the use of textures - both properly matching them and using them in a way that brings out detail - but that is beside the point.
Oh, and I just saw this guy and therefore must use him. :arr: Arrrrrr!!!
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Originally posted by StratComm
I'd call that thing a box any day. It's got no definition of shape and the textures eat every bit of detail you've given it. And those deck guns... eww. I can't really elaborate on them any more, they are just that bad.
You're just jelous!:D
the thing is supposed ot be a battleship, thus that means LOTS of armor, less windows. Most FS ships use 2-3 main textures (like the Orion - the blue pannels and hte bluish part with lights).
The thing is - the only way to increase detail on it would either be bumpmapping, or modeling all those metal pannel bumps.
All those recesses and stuff would simply make the overall frame look weaker. I mena, who the hell builds a ship with a kazzilion openings in the armor for hte sole purpose of looking cooler.
If you think you can texture it better, you are welecomed to try. in fact I DARE you to try.
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Jealous? Of that? I can't help the box, but I'd take a stab at the textures. And I could do a better job on the turrets any day.
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Allright then... It's a win-win situation for me anyway.
In which format you want the model (is truespace scn fine?) and where do you want it sent?
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I'm not trying to be overly harsh on you, and not to say that I know everything about making models, but I've seen this same layout and structure in about 50,000 different models that show up on this site. The problems isn't just the textures. The Orion only has 3 or 4 textures, because it has enough change in its surfaces that makes it stand out. This ship could look good with a single map for the whole thing. Though I can't wait to see what is Stratcomm is going to do with it. The main thing is that it is too big for the amout of detail it has. Not the amount of polies. There is a difference. I'm hoping that thing is no more than 600-800 polies w/o triangulation. You have a ship here that should have a lot more breaks in its surfaces. Not just making stupid little bumps in the tiles, but add more structures that stick out of those long placed of nothing or shrink the ship down in size. I'm not attacking you it's just I've seen your models before, and I know you have a lot more potential than that.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
You're just jelous!:D
WTF? In order for him to be jealous, you would have to be better at modding than Stratcomm, which simply isn't true. You throw that word around a lot, and frankly, if it were directed at me, I'd be more than a little offended.
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Trashman: I'd actually prefer cob, since I can import it more directly. You've obviously already gotten it grouped so that shouldn't be a problem. I can't work miracles, but I'll see what I can do. You won't need the textures as I can see you've used stock ones (and I'll want to do them for myself anyway) so you should have no trouble uploading the files for me.
Originally posted by Black Wolf
WTF? In order for him to be jealous, you would have to be better at modding than Stratcomm, which simply isn't true. You throw that word around a lot, and frankly, if it were directed at me, I'd be more than a little offended.
Trashman and I have bantered back and forth for a while over his models, so I simply take his statements to that effect as sarcasm. If it's intended otherwise, I'm just ignoring it. But thanks Black Wolf for the compliment :)
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Egads!!! I love that freaking ship BUT you made it longer than SDF-1? What are the crew shivan-sized? Anyway, shrink it down to a respectable 1-1.5KM. I can't find any fault with the design (Hmm have you been inspired by BSG meets starblazers?) anyway one thing so don't freak.. Those turrets kill it. If you don't mind I will post one I'd like to see you use for the main deck guns. It's tri-barreled and you can use one texture for the base and one for the turrets. I'd recommend keeping the names seperate so you can change them out later as I am looking for texture that make the turrets look cool.
If you don't mind later (in a week or two most likely as I am in the middle of some Rl stuff) I will play around with the textures of the hull (like I always do to any DL here he he he) and if I find an interesting combination I'll let you know) ;)
As always I am a big fan of the Trashman-esque design, so never stop!
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I thought Kazan bagged it for Ferrium ? I seem to recall asking about it a while ago.
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And Trashman then proceded to refuse to allow him to use it when he realized that Kazan's intentions on how battleships would be used conflicted with his own. Based on what I see there, it's probably a good thing.
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Actually, Kaz changed him mind on tah.....
but you all are missing the issue here - the "breaks in the surfaces" as Thrilla pointed out, might look good for a old teraan research ship or somehing, but for a battleship?
the poin it making such breaks is a horriby ineffective way of building ship - you loose volume as integrity, and loose the feeling of a solid armor. In effet, you break the armor into different sections, but that is just not... wise..
Like I said, I COULD make the breakes that would simulate the metal panles, but that would send the polycount skyrocketing.
I know what you would like to see, but that's not just how I picture a battleship. It's not that I can't make it like that, it's that I wont..
I like designes to make sense, not only look beautifull.
Besides, beauty is relative...
Anyway, I have nothing to loose here. If StratComm does a good job I(and you) get a better Archangel, if not I lost no swaet over it:D
*your E-mail Strattie?*
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Originally posted by Getter Robo G
Egads!!! I love that freaking ship BUT you made it longer than SDF-1? What are the crew shivan-sized? Anyway, shrink it down to a respectable 1-1.5KM. I can't find any fault with the design (Hmm have you been inspired by BSG meets starblazers?) anyway one thing so don't freak.. Those turrets kill it. If you don't mind I will post one I'd like to see you use for the main deck guns. It's tri-barreled and you can use one texture for the base and one for the turrets. I'd recommend keeping the names seperate so you can change them out later as I am looking for texture that make the turrets look cool.
Uh, wasn't this an FS-universe ship? The SDF-1 would be corvette size by FS standards, so I don't see what your problem is. An Orion, never mind a hugeass battleship, absolutely dwarfs the SDF-1.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
You're just jelous!:D
No, I think you're jealous of him.:p
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Uh, wasn't this an FS-universe ship? The SDF-1 would be corvette size by FS standards, so I don't see what your problem is. An Orion, never mind a hugeass battleship, absolutely dwarfs the SDF-1.
The SDF-1 would be destroyer-class. (With the Main Gun, the closest analogue would be BWO's Golgotha.) In fact, at 1.7 kilometers, it's remarkably similar in size to an Orion.
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(http://img184.exs.cx/img184/4480/a10kl.th.jpg) (http://img184.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img184&image=a10kl.jpg)
(http://img184.exs.cx/img184/2271/a22dr.th.jpg) (http://img184.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img184&image=a22dr.jpg)
(http://img184.exs.cx/img184/6260/a34ai.th.jpg) (http://img184.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img184&image=a34ai.jpg)
(http://img184.exs.cx/img184/5007/a47do.th.jpg) (http://img184.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img184&image=a47do.jpg)
Dunno....Looks good to me.:D
Hmm..I overdid it a bit with the ambient factor...
@Willie Wool - actually that would be hard since I don't know what he made... I have...problems...remembering names ( but strangely I can remember some trivial things instantly..go figure)
I'm sure I saw some of his work, but I just can't connect a model with a name...
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Woolie, no disrespect but, if you had been following the Robotech Mod it was decided that 4KM was the proper size in relation to the player's veritech in game...
The problem with animation was in various shots it was only supposed to be 1.2km long BUT in relation to the skyscrapers and other city landmarks of Macross isle it was friggen HUGE also the inside shots of HOW the 70,000 civilians lived and reconstructed a lot of the city from slavaged buildings that was floating in space after the fold incident. Ther was so much space inside you could fly around the city with very careful manuevering. It had so much room inside civilians even had cars as luxuary items and traffic was quite heavy so the auto industry was doing great business apparently. When Trashman finishes the inside of the civilian sector (mission related areas) there should be a military base, a ampitheater, small skyscrapers, a strip mall, a major hospital, A tri level PARK that overlooks the city (minmay almost fell to her death there, darn we almost got lucky ;) )and a few other places of interest as was shown in the series (don;t forget the movie theater!!! "Litte White Dragon" was the first movie in space!
There are plenty of screens around so I won't repost but if you looked you'd see they now appear very close to what you saw in the show as far as the veritechs in relation to SDF-1, especially the landing bays and around the control area. True there is minor descrepancy with the carrier decks but overall play factors are more inportant than pure cannon. With that said now you know why I made that comparison.
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I think the SDF-1 had weird magictech that increased interior space relative to exterior dimensions. Besides, the Archangel is not a Robotech ship. It's an FS ship, and it could make a fine dreadnought or juggernaut.
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Trashman, I will say, having actually seen this thing's geometry, that you are still making waste of a ton of polys because of all of your square details that aren't aligned. There is no reason that a ship of this complexity should be registering at over 3000. That said, I have some basic shots of the mapping that I used.
(http://www.duke.edu/~cek6/trashman1.jpg)
(http://www.duke.edu/~cek6/trashman2.jpg)
(http://www.duke.edu/~cek6/trashman3.jpg)
(http://www.duke.edu/~cek6/trashman4.jpg)
(http://www.duke.edu/~cek6/trashman5.jpg)
I didn't finish mapping it because the geometry is an absolute nightmare to come to terms with for texturing; and because I've lost the original mapping and texture groups in conversion I just wanted to quickly point out some suggestions.
First, the turrets. Disregard the style of the turrets I plopped on as deck guns; they are the turrets I'm using for my terran fleet and I had them handy. Yes, they are a couple of hundred polys each, but they are also single texture and are thus highly optimized for HTL. With the SCP we can specify a starting rotation for things, so depressed turrets (and those rear-facing ones) need to be done to not look stupid on a ship this large. Anyway, the big point there is that they aren't technically tile mapped (ok, so those actually were before I baked the texture as I'm sure someone will point out, but even then they still weren't a single overtiled texture) and that there is detail in them that will be important when they are blown up to several hundred meters long. Make the small turrets more detailed as well; 10 tris isn't worth rendering the subobject, quite frankly, and those squares have to be huge given the rediculous size you're assigning this thing.
Second: contrast. I changed the base texture because the one you were using (either TCov1a or Capital7) is probably the most hideous of all the stock freespace textures when tiled (it's not seamless top-to-bottom, so it bands like hell), but I also took the step of changing the central structure to a different texture than the main hull, and one with a fairly large contrast to said base texture. This is important, because it visually sets the superstructure apart from the mass of the hull. The rest of the plates I also made darker; I didn't bother with the gaps because you've already got those mapped on the original and I think they stand out fine as they are. But change them to a darker texture as well and they will become much more apparent.
Finally, I'd like to give a few critiques of the model itself. For all of the so-called detail this ship has, it's got a lot of places that are quite frankly boring. The fact that you've got as many polys as you do but are still using 8-sided engines is one big point, you can afford a few more polys there at the expense of some of the little recesses and bumps that don't contribute in the grand scheme of things. Also, those square headlights on the front just don't work, so think about what options you have up there.
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Originally posted by StratComm
There is no reason that a ship of this complexity should be registering at over 3000.
:yes:
It shouldn't even be more than 1000. Except maybe with those turrets.
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Erm..since this ships was orginally planned for the Third Chapter of my campign (the first being about 20% complete and the second will prolly be skipped) I still have at least 2-3 months before I start FREDing it, I figure I have enough time to redo it.
I might add more detail (but no, I will not put recesses on the front) and I will certanly give it another go at texturing.
You have a point about the superstructure....
The main texture you are using looks far more overtiled than the original one tough... otherwise you have good general idea.
About the turrets - yeah..it's prolly best I make a specific map for them...
As for the polycount - it's the lowest possible, trust me on that. It looks like there's too many of them in wireframe top view, since they aren't perfectly mirrored and they don't overlap.
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Trashman makes great models, makes crappy textures.
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I know that map looks overtiled, but it looks much better tiled than the other one. Truely we need better maps than the stock ones, because most of them get overused way too easily. I don't care if you don't recess the front (in fact, that's not what I'm advocating) but right now it looks like a primitive car grille model. Doesn't fit the rest of the ship at all IMHO. And I actually do know what I'm talking about with the polys; there are better ways to incorporate details that don't involve fracturing a face up into 25+ polygons than what you're still doing. Those rows of windows in particular irk me, as do the random little steps scattered about, simply because they are so terribly wasteful of polygons with little or no actual purpose. If you're going to go high-poly, go high poly. None of this piddling around with basic forms.
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You allways have to start with basic forms.
And I never fracture faces into tons of polys. I have no idea whatsoever what the hell you're talking about htere....
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Actually every model that I've ever seen of yours suffers from this. What I mean is that instead of placing your extrusions and recesses into areas where there is already a corner, you place them in the middle of a face. The result is that where you had one polygon before you now have at least 4 (more if you're triangulating) plus whatever the extrusion entails. And, by the way, I've finally come to the realization that you're counting triangles instead of polys (what you should do for HTL, for the record) so your polycounts are expected to be somewhat higher than average. Still, for the level of detail the isolated recesses add you'd be much better off adding a larger design element in.
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I add tings where it is suited in the design. wether it's in the middle of a face or on an edge or in a corner...
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Now see, there you go again assuming your designs are infallible. I can readily point out an unncecessary corner in the closeup shot that I posted that could be changed without significantly changing your design. I feel like you're using boolean modeling, which is not only dangerous for model stability but also tends to be VERY wasteful of polys in general.
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What he means is this. When you make exstrusions in the middle of a flat surface you are not deleteing the unnecessary polys that form up as a result. If I was at home I would show you with some Screenshots, but I'm not at home.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
The thing is - the only way to increase detail on it would either be bumpmapping, or modeling all those metal pannel bumps.
At the risk of starting a flame war, you don't actually believe that, do you ?
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Originally posted by StratComm
Now see, there you go again assuming your designs are infallible. I can readily point out an unncecessary corner in the closeup shot that I posted that could be changed without significantly changing your design. I feel like you're using boolean modeling, which is not only dangerous for model stability but also tends to be VERY wasteful of polys in general.
There is no such thing as a wrong design.
Teh ship looks exactly like I wanted it to. Sure, there are a few places where I could have made some thing different and saved a poly or two. To you it might be a minor change, but I want the ship to look like it looks - to the very last bump.
Now, a good modeler makes a model that looks exaclty like he wants it to with no unecessary polys. I have detected 2 such places on my ship (mostly due to me not placing parts well before boolening) and I allready removed them...
Yes, I do use boolean (selectivly... I carefully choe where to put them and I prepare the area before booleaning by removing any ecess vertex) but that doesn't create more polys than needed.
My point is - Can you make a ship that looks EXACTLY like this one when rendered with less polys? hardly.
Since I am re-doing it (I allways redo my models... there's allways room from improvement) I may cahange a few thing...but that reamins to be seen...
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Originally posted by Roanoke
At the risk of starting a flame war, you don't actually believe that, do you ?
I ment on the nose of hte ship - I want the flat and smooth surface to reamin...
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If you set up the heirachy correctly, you don't need to boolean as much. Saves a few polies too.
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For crying out loud - Booleaning only cost polys if done incorrectly!
As for adding more detail:
(http://img117.exs.cx/img117/1193/wip19sh.th.jpg) (http://img117.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img117&image=wip19sh.jpg)
To tell the truth, I don't like what I added to the front...still experimenting..
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I hope I'm not being annoying by asking this, but is there a way I can view these new ships (Archangel and others in Trash's webspace) with the Model Viewer? It always complains to me about the poly count.
I always like to look at new ships I download in Modelview before playing with them in FRED.
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You'll need to install Modelview Beta5 and then download the increased limits exe (which you simply replace with that one)...
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Wrong version of Modelview most likely.
Look here (http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/index.php?pagename=Download%20Tools)
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Aha, got that increased limits version and it works now.
The Archangel looks really nice, but I think the front would look better a bit rounded. But that's just my opinion, and this is your model of course.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
My point is - Can you make a ship that looks EXACTLY like this one when rendered with less polys? hardly.
Well, um yeah
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Ummm...NO..
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Well, to make one exactly like that, not easily. But close enough, absolutely. There are tons of optimizations that can be done on virtually every point on the model. Oh, and booleaning NEVER saves polys, for the record.
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That depends....
I made a little test in which I made two ships that looked the same. One made without booleans, the other with.
Polycount was the same.....