[Raptor]

Funny, when I followed your guide, Karajorma, at first I had to re-read to fully understand it, but when I got it and tried, I found Multi-parts really easy!

I've still got my test ship for that in fact. A ST Marquis raider with one 'standard' turret at the rear and seven (yes, SEVEN) multi-parts.

BTW, Finished making the classes of turrets.  A couple could do with a little extra work though, it's textrue related.  I'll quickly add turrets and a VERY basic (and most likely rubbish) map to the ship.  Just to get the feel for it.

Also, KARMA said that the outer engines need more detail. What does everyone else think?  What's missing, If anything?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Raptor
Funny, when I followed your guide, Karajorma, at first I had to re-read to fully understand it, but when I got it and tried, I found Multi-parts really easy!

It did it's job then Glad it helped you

[Raptor]

Okay, another set of pics.....

<<<>>>

As I expected, my attempts at texturing the model went rather pear shaped.  The turrets are pretty good though, thats what this set is meant to show off, the massed firepower this ship can dish out. (It also shows how badly I need an expert texturer)


Any offers?

[Raptor]

Come on people, I know the texturing is bad, please don't shun this because of it!


'Feeling cranky because of sore throat'

[karajorma]

Judging from the quality of those turrets you don't need an expert texturer at all. All you need is a bit more practice.

If your problem is the bad UV Mapping on the main body of the ship that isn't your fault it's a limitation of TS4 and below. TS5.1 doesn't do the awful job of UV mapping that you can see in the picture. You can get round the problem by using UV mapping per face rather than mapping the model as a whole.

But anyway keep it up. What you've got there is pretty impressive

[Corhellion]

Can...you...get...that...in...game...?



Those turrets rock!

Cor

[Raptor]

Originally posted by karajorma
Judging from the quality of those turrets you don't need an expert texturer at all. All you need is a bit more practice.
 

Why, thank you! I spent quite a bit of time creating those turret maps.  Fortunately they are simple models....

If your problem is the bad UV Mapping on the main body of the ship that isn't your fault it's a limitation of TS4 and below. TS5.1 doesn't do the awful job of UV mapping that you can see in the picture. You can get round the problem by using UV mapping per face rather than mapping the model as a whole.
 

Ah. I've only got TS3.2

Mapping per face? How do you set that?

But anyway keep it up. What you've got there is pretty impressive

Originally posted by Corhellion


Can...you...get...that...in...game...?



Those turrets rock!

Cor

Hope so... currently what you see is want you get.  I'm planing on adding 3 LODs, 6 hull debris and 'destroyed' versions of the six largest beams and the large pulse cannons.

I'll see about geting in game as is (fingers crossed).

'one 2.5km destoryer coming up.....'

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Raptor
Ah. I've only got TS3.2

Mapping per face? How do you set that?

Ah. TS3.2. About the only one I have no actual experience with but since it was in the same place in TS2 and TS4 I'd assume that the button you're looking for is on the same pop up as the button you've been using to choose whether you want cubic or planer mapping (i.e the cube with the blue and white checkered pattern on it).

Click it and you'll see the options pop up to choose between Cubic, planer, cylindrical and spherical mapping. Then simply pick the faces you want to map and choose the type of mapping you want.

BTW the irony of helping someone who will probably be a better texturer than me in a few months time is not lost on me

EDIT : One further piece of advice. Once you've got a preliminary working mesh I always find it a good idea to try it out in the game first to see if it works before you texture it. The problem is that non-flat faces will show up the instant you put the ship in the game and the steps you'll have to do to fix them could ruin your texturing.
 There's no need to worry about all the turrets. Just try a simplified version with 1 turret of each type. Run the ship in FS2 and fly around it to see if you've got any textures that move due to clipping or other problems.

Only once you've got a stable model should you begin serious work on the texturing.

[Raptor]

Ahh, thats how you do it.....

anyway, I've got it in game! just.

I had to remove the really cool gatling turrets to get it in (with those, the model had too many vertices (>4000) )

Comparsion with the other Terran destroyers (Orion, Hecate, and the Hades Superdestroyer)

I used a Shivan:eek: texture to high-light certain elements of the model.

There are a few faces that didn't show all the time. So I'll need to go in and fix those:mad:

I'll also need to find one particular face that, somehow, has ended up with more than 20 vertices in it (so hence modelview will not display model)

Then it's time to cut down on the vertices used by the turrets....

THEN I can attempt to texture.
Thanks for the tip K....

[Taristin]

I know I'm late, but those are some awesome turrets, I must say. Maybe one day I'll steal.. err... get inspired by the design of a few of them.

[karajorma]

No problem Raptor. I'd hate to see you spend ages working on the model and then ruin all your texturing when you stablise the model.

As for fixing faces I had to convert my own Charon 4 times before I was sure I'd caught all the non flat faces (I had a hell of a lot of them on that ship!).

[J.F.K.]

Yeah, this looks better than the Hades. This could really punch up someone's ass.

[Raptor]

Originally posted by J.F.K.
Yeah, this looks better than the Hades. This could really punch up someone's ass.

When you consider the forward firepower...

UPDATE

Hull mesh is now completely free of any missing faces (caused by having 3 vertices in a row rather than non-flatness).  It is now stable. :thepimp:

Found out  that the faces that modelview hates were in the large barrelled turrets. No wonder I couldn't find it!  Since I'm redoing those anyway, I can fix that (they were the only ones that I was unhappy about.) They will be even bigger.

After that, I have got to cut down the number of vertices in the gatling turrets barrels. Each turrets has 458 vertices each, with 438 of those in the barrels themselfs

Time for a little rethink.

[Raptor]

Okay.....

How do you set mapping by face again?

I click on the 'Select UV Projection' button (shows a cylinder with a green square to one side)
Next I select the UV mapping,
But I cannot highlight any particular face.  It's all or nothing.

[Thor]

I definately like!  Could be a little bit more contoured, but otherwise very nice!

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Raptor
Okay.....

How do you set mapping by face again?

I click on the 'Select UV Projection' button (shows a cylinder with a green square to one side)
Next I select the UV mapping,
But I cannot highlight any particular face.  It's all or nothing.

You don't want UV projection. There is another button on the same pulldown called UV projection per face or somesuch. Use that instead.

[Raptor]

Originally posted by karajorma


You don't want UV projection. There is another button on the same pulldown called UV projection per face or somesuch. Use that instead.

Ah.  The menu has three buttons from the drop-down:

Material Library
UV Projection
Material Rectangle

So I guess I'm stuck.  Bummer.

Anyway, the ship is now in game, with her full complement of turrets, all working, no mesh bugs, almost.  Modelview dosn't like me adding more that 6 of the large dorsal/ventral pulse turrets (half of the total), keeps saying that there are more than 20 points in a polygon .  So I hashed out the turrets in PCS.  They need a little more work, couple of main beams firing though hull etc, but things are progressing.

I'll post pics once I sort out the final turret bugs, and get some good battle sences set up.

I've also created it's persific weapons, and it's just as deadly, if not more, than the Ravana, with good broadsides too.

Be afraid, be very afraid....

[Taristin]

Right click on the model, and hold down the shift button while selecting faces, when you have done that, click the paint brush button, and apply the texture, then while the faces are still selected, hit the UV mapping button for the cube, and set all of the coordinates to zero, rotation too. Then you can scale and move the cube as you like it to change the appearance of the tiling.

Or atleast that's how I do it in TS5...

[Anaz]

argh...ts4 won't let me use coord entry for manipulating the cube  
annoys me to no end

[Raptor]

Raa Tor'h, that work for you, but I only have TS3.2, a much more basic system.

Analazon:

Quick poll: which name do people prefer:

GTD Saturn (current)
GTD Hera (since FSURP says there isn't a Hera around)
GTD Mars
GTD Ares (I could get away with this, as in my campain, the GTF Ares, as it is, dosn't exist )
GTD 'Something else' (suggestions?)