[Roanoke]

no offence but some of the detail just looks kinda generic (just my opinion)

[Cobra]

it's generic because it uses the original maps.

[Col. Fishguts]

The model is good ( is to blame for the ugly design IMO), but the stock maps are sucking up a lot of the modelled detail. I'd say, take more artistic license with the mapping.

For starters, increase the tile factor on the big grey hull plating map on the side. It makes the ship look way smaller than it is. Or use another map instead.

[StratComm]

I disagree.  Don't increase tiling factors if you can help it.  It's very easy to overtile something without realizing what you're doing.

Other than the aforementioned sucking up of detail, it looks good.  You might borrow a page from the Fenris book and use a special trim map around the sides of extruded/inset parts.

[Turambar]

i like the way the grey is used on the sides, it makes it look like an actual texture more than a tile, which is always a good thing

here, when theres shines on it, i believe that this tex will enhance the model the way its used

[knn]

I disagree.  Don't increase tiling factors if you can help it.  It's very easy to overtile something without realizing what you're doing.

Other than the aforementioned sucking up of detail, it looks good.  You might borrow a page from the Fenris book and use a special trim map around the sides of extruded/inset parts.

Good idea, thanks. Actually, I think my first try will be cut'npasting a certain section of the yellow Colossus texture, and inserting the black superstructure texture in it.

i like the way the grey is used on the sides, it makes it look like an actual texture more than a tile, which is always a good thing

That was actually , not me, the mapping on the original is almost the same.
Anyway, I've changed the neck, it looks much better now IMHO, fits in with the texture, and has a conveniently placed extruded box for the neck turrets. Speaking of which, I checked the tables to see what kind of turrets go there (I wanted to make blob turrets that don't look like octagonal beam turrets), and I noticed that on the left side, the weapon is a Terran Huge Turret, but on the right side it's a standard Terran Turret. 

Looking good   I assume the blue and red are placeholders?

Thanks. The blue engine exhausts are probably final, the red ones are turrets from the original, they make it easier for me to imagine how the final model would look and make it harder for me to forget that I have to place turrets there

no offence but some of the detail just looks kinda generic (just my opinion)

None taken. Do you mean the textures or the geometry?

[Petrarch of the VBB]

I like it with a passion.
And as for the weapons, well, the weapons layout on the Iceni has always been a mess. It doesn't help that the turrets seem to be numbered entirely at random, either.

[Cobra]

OHMIGAWD!

I have two words. Finish it.

i am loving the way this thing looks.

[StratComm]

Having used differentiated turrets for beams and blobs in the past, I actually have to recommend a generic approach.  The Iceni especially is a strange animal (it's weapons are bizarrely imbalanced from one side to the other, for one thing, and its configuration is never really firmly established) so it's hard to know exactly how it is used.  Remember that for mission purposes, especially with that ship, that it's likely modified in the mission files rather than the tables because its true power is never really adequately shown.

[bfobar]

I'm guessing Violition set one of the side beam turrets to a blob turret for the mission where you are supposed to protect the icini and the vasudans jump in. The icini beams would have shredded the vasudans really quickly were they left there. I don't know why they just didn't beam lock the iceni though. Of course I don't know why they made all those waypoints for a disabled colossus in "their finest hour" either. I'd say just design both points like a heavy beam and let it be set to a huge turret in the tables.

[StratComm]

The thing is, the weapons really should have been altered in the mission file, not the ships table.  I've never been able to come up with a good reason for its imbalance.

[bfobar]

I agree. Blame ETAK?

[Cobra]

The thing is, the weapons really should have been altered in the mission file, not the ships table. I've never been able to come up with a good reason for its imbalance.

my guess is that got lazy.

[StratComm]

That's the thing.  The lazy way - and the correct way - would have been to change out the loadout in that one mission, as it can be done via FRED, where you can see the turret and are sure to get a valid weapon.  Swapping in ships just seems like a bad copy-paste error.

[knn]

Sorry for the long absence, but I was fed up with Windows and decided to get rid of it. Don't worry, I backed up all my files. I now have Ubuntu Linux 5.10 installed. After Red Hat 7 and Suse 9, this is my first Linux that actually works, and I'm quite satisfied, so I don't feel like reinstalling that bloatware Windows XP, then reinstalling every program I need, updating, configuring, etc.
That's all fine but Max7 will not run under Wine. Blender could be an alternative, but I don't like the way mouse selection works in Blender and I haven't found a program that can load max files yet. There are also some features in Max I absolutely need, like STL check, and I'm unsure if Blender has them. Hopefully, I can get Max7 to work with some Windows emulation software with minimal slowdown, otherwise I'll have to install WinXP 

[S-99]

Try checking out qemu.
It does emulation.
And it's not wine.

[taylor]

VMware is also a possibility.  I use it for Windows programming, testing, and quite a few other things for that matter.  If you don't want to fork over the money for the full version then find someone to make you a disk image of XP and then you can just use the free Player version which allows you to use virtual machines, but not create them.

[knn]

I tried VMWare, but it's too slow. I'm going to install Max on my Win98 installation (yes, I know, it crashes all the time, but at least it's faster), if I can install ie6 (Why does max need ie6 anyway?). I can't find a full download of ie6 (edit: found it) only the stupid 460 kb online setup version, but I can't install my ethernet card on W98 because it spits out a very informative error 136. Only ten minutes have passed since I booted W98 and I'm starting to lose my temper already.

Edit2: Okay, now that I've got everything working, max tells me it will only install on W2k SP3 and WXP

[neoterran]

The moral of the story is, don't move to linux before you've finished work on a project requiring Windows applications.

[knn]

Problem is, I'll need max even after I finish the Iceni