[Remo]

Can anybody give me a link (or a few links) to tutorials about ship moddeling in freespace 2? and maybe also which programs I have to use?

I already have truespace 3.2 is that good?


(still, the tutorials are #1 priority )

[Bobboau]

sig

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[IPAndrews]

Karajorma has some in his sig too I believe.

[TopAce]

TrueSpace is good, but more professional modellers don't normally use TS. For a start, TrueSpace is favourable because it's easy to learn.

[Black Wolf]

Grab GMax (or 3ds max if you have money (or bandwidth) to spare. The net is crawling with general Max tuts, and it's really easy to pick up. Moreover, I'd say it probably has a (slim) majority among the modellers in the community, so there'll be plenty of assistance from around here if you run into trouble.

There are very few restrictions to getting ships ingame with FSO, so specific FS2 tuts aren't really required until the poffing stage.

[TopAce]

But he will need TS anyway to build the hierarchy, will he not?

[Black Wolf]

Not with the Max exporter plugin. It's a tad easier, probably, to follow Kara's Trueview tut - that's what I do - but just because one may be, at some point, forced to use TS, does not mean it should neccesarily be reccomended as a modeller.

[aldo_14]

Plus the max exporter is probably better to use than TS and a convertor IMO, because you don't need to go through 2 stages to change a model.  Also - and this IMO the major benefit - max supports the full range smoothing angles whereas current cob tools only do 0 or 90 degrees.

[Col. Fishguts]

Originally posted by aldo_14
...max supports the full range smoothing angles whereas current cob tools only do 0 or 90 degrees.

Not that I like TS (frankly it's turd), but to fair I have to point out that TS' smoothing controls are a tad better than you think.

It supports autofacet angles from 0 - 180, which can either be applied on a per-texture basis, or alternatively you can apply a seperate angle to each polygon. You just have to use the PCS version which supports autofacet to see the effect ingame.

3DSMax' smooth groups are still far superior, but TS is more versatile than some people might think.

[aldo_14]

In my experience PCS autofacet only does straight fixed-angle (might be 180 rather than the 90 degrees I said).  

I know people have done some stuff with breaking up polys and texture faces or similar, but it's simply not as easy or straightforward as max.

[Col. Fishguts]

Originally posted by aldo_14
In my experience PCS autofacet only does straight fixed-angle (might be 180 rather than the 90 degrees I said).  

I know people have done some stuff with breaking up polys and texture faces or similar, but it's simply not as easy or straightforward as max.

I've tested it once with a sphere with different autofacet angles for different groups of polys, and everything worked as expected.

[Remo]

is 3D Studio Max 7.0 any good?

[BlackDove]

The best currently.

[Remo]

ok I'll get myself that progam as well then... just finished my very first fighter... damn, it looked like flying spacejunk but I'm proud of it... its my first model... *cries*

[MicroPsycho]

I find Modo very easy to work with, its (seems) good for UV mapping too.

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by TopAce
TrueSpace is favourable because it's easy to learn.

I would disagree there. Plus switching from TS to Max is harder than starting from scratch in Max, IMHO.
Also, as someone round here pointed out (aldo ?) TS is something of an oddball in the wider Rendering community.

[TopAce]

I found it easy to learn, so it's completely man-dependant.
For me, GMax is awkward. I don't doubt that I would be able to make better models than in TS, I simply don't WANT to learn GMax.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by IPAndrews
Karajorma has some in his sig too I believe.

Yep. I'll have even more once I get some time to work on the FAQ. Till then the modding page of it has links to just about every modding tutorial I've seen in the community.

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by TopAce
I found it easy to learn, so it's completely man-dependant.
For me, GMax is awkward. I don't doubt that I would be able to make better models than in TS, I simply don't WANT to learn GMax.

Indeed. I will say this though, Max is far superior than TS for unwrapping and uv editing (and I'll brook no argument on that one)

[WeatherOp]

Originally posted by karajorma


Yep. I'll have even more once I get some time to work on the FAQ. Till then the modding page of it has links to just about every modding tutorial I've seen in the community.

Yep, just about every one. But, mine, *points to sig.
I really need to start on the advanced Tutorial.