Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Topic started by: maje on November 09, 2007, 12:46:15 pm
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The Hand of God finally makes it's low-poly 3D debut in my little WIP thread. I began this at some point in the morning today and have more or less completed the ship. A big thanks goes out to FUBAR-BDHR, who generously supplied some screen grabs from The Legend of the Rangers movie, To Live and Die in Starlight.
Now, like most of you here, I wasn't too up on the Rangers pilot, but I did think that some interesting concepts and ideas came about from it, and it's a pity that JMS never went anywhere with it, but maybe the Lost Tales will explore more about this race claiming to be more powerful than those who resided at Z'Ha'dum. :doubt: :)
Anyways, this is the fruit of my current 3-4 hours of labour, taking a minor break from my Z-95 Headhunter for the Star Wars conversion (whose respective thread can be found here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,50331.0.html (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,50331.0.html) :p :D ).
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/TheHand01.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/TheHand02.jpg)
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Impressive work :yes:
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Don't know if you could see this from the screen shots but some of the extensions coming out from the core of the ship articulate.
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I look forward to seeing this in action when it's complete
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Cool.how many polies? :yes:
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Very pretty.
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Its a crab :)
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Silly boy. It's a snowflake.
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Isn't that ship supposed to have a hole in the middle, were this red glowing thing was, or am I mixing this up with something else here?
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I'm not sure if it's an actual hole that punctures through one side of the hole or the other as we never see a Hand ship with the glow off. I did go back and make the recess deeper though, so it should be more visible. I'll probably start work on this again after the Z-95 is textured. (UVs are done now, God I hate unwrapping those.
Btw, what kind of method was involved for texturing the Shadow vessels? Did you guys actually go nuts with the UV placement or just kind of hit automap (maya's version of Box in Max) and create a tileable texture from a procedural?
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Thats the most beautiful/terrifying snowflake of death I've seen. Awesome work!
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Brilliant... it will look even more impresive in game! :yes:
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Do I see snowing?
Nice sno... erm ship.
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Silly boy. It's a snowflake.
Where are you from? I come from Colorado WHERE WE ACTUALLY HAVE SNOW, and that looks nothing like snowjust kidding
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He said snowflake. While snowflakes have a 6-fold symmetry and this ship only has 5-fold symmetry, it still looks very much like a snowflake.
I'm from Switzerland, we have plenty of snow, therefore I AR EXPERT!
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Okay Colonel, I was just kidding. May I direct your attention to the small text at the end of my post...
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:) Eh? I don't mind it's cool i know not a lot about B5 since it was on telly in the uk on channel 4 back in the mid 90's :)
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Silly boy. It's a snowflake.
Dude... you Britons never seen snow ... maybe that miserable rain ;)
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So, here we go, update time. Sorry it took nearly a month to get back to this. It took about another few hours of playing around in Max to get the right procedurals going and then to figure out how volume lights work (which is different than from what I remember using Maya; either way I'm not a lighting person). :( :p ;)
Well, here are the piccies.
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/TheHand05.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/TheHand06.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/TheHand07.jpg)
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Holy Crap! :yes:
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He said snowflake. While snowflakes have a 6-fold symmetry and this ship only has 5-fold symmetry, it still looks very much like a snowflake.
I'm from Switzerland, we have plenty of snow, therefore I AR EXPERT!
Whoa, you're from Switzerland?
Jo hoi du schwyyzer!
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The Rangers pilot did have some rather weird deviations from the main plot of Babylon 5, and the infinitely embarrassing minefield scene that I've never been able to watch all the way through because I feel too sorry for the poor actress, but nice work on those ships!
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So, here we go, update time. Sorry it took nearly a month to get back to this. It took about another few hours of playing around in Max to get the right procedurals going and then to figure out how volume lights work (which is different than from what I remember using Maya; either way I'm not a lighting person). :( :p ;)
Well, here are the piccies.
Whoa! Very nice indeed!
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F**k me those look Fantastic. How much longer before the Hand Snowflake of Death is released?
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well technically, I'm not part of the Babylon Project team, and also, I'm using Max version 9, which unfortunately doesn't have a PCS plug-in available, so I would need to get in touch with someone that has Max 8, and then I just need to get the ship in-game and then set LODs, damage models, a weapons graphic, etc. What you see in the screenshots is the main model along with some procedural textures applied (I need to bake them into the actual textures maps that will be used by the game), plus a volume light which I'm not really sure how to replicate in-game. I would ideally like to try and release this in conjunction with TBP 3.4b that's just been announced, but I don't want to hold anyone up on that.
Depending on my success with getting the Hand ship to work in-game, I may consider doing a few more ships, such as the Streibs vessel, technomage shuttle, Walkers of Sigma 957 ship, Liandra, and a few others not previously mentioned. However, most those ships are pretty obscure and thus difficult to use them in any real storyline, more like to just have the option of using them.
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Oh please do the Technomage Shuttle. I need it for a Crusade Based Campaign that Im planning.
The Technomage Shuttle is essential to the campaign...I cant start FREDing the campaign without it.
I Can Send you the Specs for the the TS...
And its not like the other first-ones ships from TBP 3.4 are any more obsure
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I'm kinda surprised that the shuttle was never done. Seems to me it would be such an easy model. Not that I know anything about modeling, but hey.
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He said snowflake. While snowflakes have a 6-fold symmetry and this ship only has 5-fold symmetry, it still looks very much like a snowflake.
I'm from Switzerland, we have plenty of snow, therefore I AR EXPERT!
Whoa, you're from Switzerland?
Jo hoi du schwyyzer!
Jo grüezi, esch länger här dass do no me Schwizer ome gsii send :)
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At long last! Would you mind if I wanted to use your model for my fanfic? I have the Hand forces as part of a bigger and much nastier conglomerate that reaches before the Vorlons and Shadows.
Anyway I have an untextured Liandra somewhere if you need a reference...
have you treid cross conversion just for testign in game purposes?
I use 3dX/DE for most things like c4d/.max/ conversions to some thing I can then convert to .cob after reassigning textures and mesh checking etc...
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He said snowflake. While snowflakes have a 6-fold symmetry and this ship only has 5-fold symmetry, it still looks very much like a snowflake.
I'm from Switzerland, we have plenty of snow, therefore I AR EXPERT!
Whoa, you're from Switzerland?
Jo hoi du schwyyzer!
Jo grüezi, esch länger här dass do no me Schwizer ome gsii send :)
I bet this looks rather irritating to most readers, aber schiis druuf.
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The only annoying part is that Google Translator doesn't translate Finnish. apparently not important enough jk
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At long last! Would you mind if I wanted to use your model for my fanfic? I have the Hand forces as part of a bigger and much nastier conglomerate that reaches before the Vorlons and Shadows.
Anyway I have an untextured Liandra somewhere if you need a reference...
have you treid cross conversion just for testign in game purposes?
I use 3dX/DE for most things like c4d/.max/ conversions to some thing I can then convert to .cob after reassigning textures and mesh checking etc...
I don't mind, but it might be a while before I sit down and try to work out a conversion into the FS2 engine. the textures you see are just procedurals, though I'm sure I can bake them into a PS file. As for the month of December, a lot of MOD-relates stuff is on hold as more urgent projects are currently in progress and need to be finished before the year is out (primarily, modeling and texturing a decent medium/high-res Sikorsky SH60 Seahawk for my father (X-MAS gift/Portfolio material), resume redux, and website redesign among other things) :doubt:. The moment the Seahawk is done, I'll be rushing to get the new web layout finished and uploaded (along with some new work).
If I do anything MOD related at all for this month and the next, it might just be new base models for TBP and SW:FOG. I've at least two freighters in mind for SW:FOG, and will probably do the Technomage Shuttle as that'll take what, 30 minutes to model depending on how detailed it is? :p
One thing I do need for the Hand ship though would be proper implementation ingame from 3D Studio MAX (I have v9, though I'm sure that's not too big a jump from 8) as 1) I have no idea what the hell I'll be doing and 2), I need to develop a new effect for the Hand's weaponry.
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The only annoying part is that Google Translator doesn't translate Finnish. apparently not important enough jk
You ignorant! It's swiss german.
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Doesn't translate the swiss language either :rolleyes:
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well, learn german!
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This is a thread about a B5 Model, not peoples' language skills. Let's not let this drift off-topic.
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Even if you learn German, you wouldn't understand Swiss German ^^°
Hey ihr beide, da gseht mer wiedermal, wie chli die Welt doch isch.
The model btw is very impressive! Good work! ;7
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You said: "hey you two, now you can see again how nice the world is" :p
Question about the Hand: What kind of weapons to they use? Beams?
And by the way, nice model :yes:
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If I remember correctly it was more of a big fast moving energy blob. Might have even been guided.
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If I remember correctly it was more of a big fast moving energy blob. Might have even been guided.
Yeah, it was a green energy bolt.
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Of course that doesn't mean they didn't have beam weapons that was just the one they decided to use. Remember they were only trying to cripple the Valen and Liandra so they could rescue that ambassador. They may have possessed much greater firepower and were holding back.
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@Vidmaster: Not exactly ;7
I said: "hey you two, now you can see again how small the world is"
I never saw: "Legend of the Raiders" I would love to see this ships in action, they look powerful *G*
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Didn't they have an explosive projectile weapon as well? Or was that the Liandra? I only saw the movie twice.
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They had that mine field but I don't remember missiles. If I get time I'll scan through the battle scenes.
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Just scanned through a couple of the fight scenes. Looks like no missiles just 2 types of blob weapons. First one is a green, rapid fire, energy ball. Second is a bluish green, long charge, slow fire, heavy damage energy ball. The first one was used ship to ship. The second was used to destroy the colony on the planet in one shot. Looked like the second one curved a bit so it may have been guided like a missile or it could have just been a planetary gravity effect.
First pic is the green, rapid fire. Second is the heavy one charing and third is it after firing.
Again this doesn't mean they didn't have other types of weapons. There was that mine field that was launched like a missile so a missile launcher is possible.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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Remembered one more detail on the green energy ball. It could be destroyed by shooting it; although I only saw one instance of this.
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Interesting. Well, I just need to finish getting all the stuff I need to finish this guy up. (and to read the essential tutorials to get this in-game of course).
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So, it's been a while since I last posted in this thread and wanted to bump it with a small, but nevertheless, important update as I have the graphics for weapons created.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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"Alpha 9 to Babylon Control..... we've picked up what looks to be a ship of some kind."
"This is Babylon Control, Alpha 9. Can you get a read on the ship's status?"
"That's a negative, Control. There doesn't appear to be any power readings that I can detect, nor any life signs. The ship is just kind of dormant."
"Okay Alpha 9, we're going to be sending a boarding team over there to investigate. Stay there and wait for further instructions when the shuttle gets there."
"Roger that, Babylon Control, Alpha 9 out".
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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To help Alpha 9 and Babylon Control find out what this strange new craft, help maje unlock the secrets of getting the pof converter for 3D Studio Max to work so he can find out just what the hell he's doing as he's a hapless noob who's stuck in the mud, :confused::( which can found here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,52073.0.html (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,52073.0.html) ;7
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That's very beautiful work. Sorry I am unable to help with the max conversion.
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To help Alpha 9 and Babylon Control find out what this strange new craft, help maje unlock the secrets of getting the pof converter for 3D Studio Max to work so he can find out just what the hell he's doing as he's a hapless noob who's stuck in the mud, :confused::( which can found here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,52073.0.html (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,52073.0.html) ;7
You'll probably have to convert it to cob or another format, what with all the problems with the max converter.
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One thing I do know is that would be a spectacularly bad idea.
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Okay, is there any good reason why my .eff file doesn't work in terms of playing the texture animation.
My textures are set correctly in that they're labled handa_0000.dds through handa_0019.dds and the eff file is essentially renamed handa.eff. The inside of the .eff file is exactly the same as the shadowa.eff.
Is there a special directory this all needs to be in? Currently it's in C:\Program Files\The Babylon Project\data\maps, as I've extracted the textures to that directory from the Core.vp.
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You can't just rename a file and expect it to work...
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I'm not sure I follow. All you need to have is:
$Type: DDS
$Frames: 20
$FPS: 30
There's nothing else in the shadowa.eff file. The texture images themselves need to match the sequence name of the .eff (hence shadowa_0000, shadowa_0001, shadowa_0002, etc.)
All I did was change shadowa.eff to handa.eff so that handa_0000, handa_0001, etc. would play in sequence.
Should that not work?
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Does a single texture called handa.dds work if you remove the eff file?
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I don't have a single texture called handa.dds I don't recall any mention of this being made in the wiki discussing animated textures via *.eff section. And just so it's clear, in 3DS Max, I imported the textures as a file sequence starting as handa_0001.dds and ending at handa_0019.dds.
Interestingly enough, when I copied, pasted, and edited the handa_0001.dds to handa.dds, something got fubared as I could no longer see my model (though the original handa_0001.dds was still in the same directory and I DID remove handa.eff).
When I took that file out and reinserted the eff file, my model still wouldn't render for whatever reason, and thus I trashed the texture files, then pasted my backups from another directory and my model rendered in-game.
The only thing I can think of is that apparently I need to create a file called handa.dds that will be attached to the model in Max, THEN export and bring my animation sequence into the maps folder with the eff file.
Also, something to note, does it matter if my textures that are being used for the animation sequence are color maps, or should they be gray scale?
I ask this because when looking at the textures for the Shadow vessels, I notice that the files used for the animation sequence are in gray scale yet the file, SHADOW-01a.dds is a color map.
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You don't need to do that to make it work but when an animation doesn't work the most sensible thing to do is to replace it with a static texture you are 100% will work so as to figure out where the problem lies.
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okay. Well I know that the first texture works. It's not so much that I'm not getting anything at all as it's that nothing is moving, and I have tried playing around with frame rates, but alas, I get nothing.
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Okay, fixed the texture problem. Apparently, for the animation sequence to work, you have to the texture file name match that of the eff, like Karma said, BUT you need to have said texture applied in MAX, where I had the first in sequence applied (handa_0001.dds) where it should've been (handa.dds).
I just had to do this, I really want to show a Shadow ship squaring off against the Hand. Too bad battlecrabs aren't flyable. :drevil: ;7
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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this is looking really cool. I'm looking forward to seeing a Legend of the Rangers mod in the probably distant future. (yes it was aweful but it would have made a cool story. if they just hadn't have used that damned holographic weapons system thingy.)
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How long before this ship can be used in game?
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How long before Project: Crusade is finished? :D
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oooh! BURN!!!!! ;)
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Well i want to finish the Storyy before i start FREDing... BTW IPA...When does TBP 3.4b final come out?
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:eek2: Wow. He got me good. :shaking: Sorry Terran. Just ignore me. Please return to your regular nagging for stuff.
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I keep thinking that this is all somehow linked in how the projects can't move ahead without the other moving ahead.
I'll see about finishing path setups and try once again to POF this bad boy. Still have table edits to do and the like. Beta-testing should be ready some time tomorrow night if not sooner. There are *lots* of animated parts on this ship, so I'll have to make creative use of turrets, even though a good chunk of those are for the moving appendages. Oh, and I still need to do at least one more weapon effect. I swear, I think getting this thing accurately rigged is going to be the biggest challenge as I'm trying to make the ship behave as closely to what we see in LOTR.
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You're right. I need 3.4b final before i start FREDing my Crusade project...I also need a bunch of other ships modelled...However, i will be using place holder ships until they are...Unfortunatly I cant model beyond reskins, editing of POF data and TBL hacks
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I'm pretty sure that the Hand are defeated before the events of Crusade take place. Not sure how though. I've actually considered making this into a campaign that would introduce other allies of the Shadows that aren't affiliated with the Drakh.
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I've never said that it was to be invoved in my Crusade campaign. I think the "Deathflake" is a cool looking ship (no pun intended) and would like to have it ingame.
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btw, do you happen to know anything about successfully porting ships in FS2 using PCS? Because I'm hitting all kinds of snags for things that should be relatively easy, like rotating subsystems. In fact, I'm pretty much up against a wall as it is and have considered uploading what I DO have done in the hope that someone might be able to find out why things don't work.
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No...im having trouble with that myself. I found a bunch of models that i want to import, including the Technomage Pinnace at http://sf3dmodels.boom.ru/models.html (http://sf3dmodels.boom.ru/models.html). I've converted the .lwo files into .cob files, but i'm having trouble conversing them to .pof.
Did you make the the model as a Lightwave Object then covert it to .cob ....if so, what conversion program did you use?
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No, I created the Brittlestar in 3D Studio Max, and then used the POF Exporter. Since I've been having trouble doing the initial setup work in Max, I just decided to do most of the editing in PCS. Of course I've been referencing other ships for doing things like rotating subsystems, my primary reference is the Omega-class destroyer's rotating section. I did the necessary table edits and setup work in PCS 2.0.1, and still nothing actually happens.
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Any progress on getting this ingame?