[JGZinv]

Made up my very first ship, somewhat reminds me of a carrier from
StarFox in one of the Zones.. or maybe White Base from the original Gundam.

Had a tutorial handy so I thought I'd take a shot to see what the Max tools
were like for geometry. Applied a basic/simple 6 color set of textures. I deviated
from the tutorial quite a bit actually.



Didn't particularly have a goal or end thing in mind when I started. The wings are invisible
on the bottom shot there due to them being painted black... There's no cockpit to make it a fighter
or bomber, I wasn't able to make anything I liked on the front, so I left it as a blank for whatever
future purpose may come. Ship itself took about 4 hours total, texturing might total a single hour.

Evidently I need to learn a lot more about creating shapes and what affects what...
If I was to revisit it sometime later with better skills, I'd probably make it more of a proper carrier.
Delete the cones to either side of the main shaft, make 3 bays, add a secondary set of
wings with rounded edges as extensions of the first. Get some greebles and proper texturing on it.

But there it is, if you'd like a copy of the Max file for some reason or use, I'll post it.

I'm open to suggestions or advice.

[takashi]

if its not a texture applied by a UV map (AKA painted on) freespace will read it as invisible. but spot on getting the starfox style! thought of joining shadows of lylat?

http://game-warden.com/starfox/

yes, i know its not like im an *official* devoloper, but i can still direct people.

[Turambar]

taka, you aren't a developer at all.  stop misleading people.


as for that ship.  got it in-game yet?

modelling is the fun, easy part.  error checking, uv-mapping, and conversion to working pof are the hard parts.


i'd say, for now, convert it to pof now, using all the resources lying around here (look at karajorma's faq) so you have an idea how it works.

also, make sure you save before you use the max plugin.  it gets... tempermental

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

if its not a texture applied by a UV map (AKA painted on) freespace will read it as invisible.

Ever heard of cubic mapping, planar mapping, spherical mapping or *gasp* cylinder mapping? No? Thought so.

EDIT: JG, for your first ship the model looks quite decent. You should try to break up the boxy shapes more and add some detail to various areas.

[takashi]

bump mapping

[Unknown Target]

Bump mapping is something completely different and is unrelated. Congratulations.

[Bobboau]

I was just thinking something, then I saw his title, then I noded.

[takashi]

bump maps=detail

see, its not unrelated. it corresponds with the post before it.

[FlareBaffled]

bump mapping and UV mapping are definitely not the same thing, directly related. A bump map is a way to add detail...but you also have to UV map FIRST. It simply allows for some visual trickery to simulate fine detail without using polygons. Do not worry about that!

It is definitely worth getting this into a POF and making it workable in game.

If you are building this in Max, check the WIKI for the Max plugin to convert to POF. It has it's foibles, but is basically quite effective for those of us who do not model in Truespace! Just follow all the steps exactly, and save your model before you attempt to export the POF. If it doesn't work, Max crashes..... It's not too hot on error trapping

[JGZinv]

I'll try and get a longer post in here later after dinner, but the topic title
suggest that the Max plugin is for versions prior to 7 or 6 I believe.

I'm using Max 7.

Basically don't have any other plugins installed, although I went
and got the greeble one finally.

As to textures and detail, no I probably didn't uv map it
or really do anything in that regard. I just applied the texture to
show it and keep it from looking "naked."

[takashi]

hey, im using MAX7 too.

thats why us with newer copies of max use PCS to convert.

[Turambar]

takashi

you have no idea what youre talking about, and you continue to prove it.

the max 6 plugin works for max 7 and 8, but not 9.  we use modelview to place the guns and get coordinates for the engines, which we have to place in PCS.  bump mapping is not the same as uv mapping or texturing, and it was not corresponding with your earlier post.  either you have some sort of learning disability, or youre some kind of freakish perpetual noob.  between this and your 'unofficial dev' status that you think you have at SoL and your 'long awaited' meshsmooth nightmare, i'm not quite sure what to think of you at all.

[Getter Robo G]

[Minor tangent]

Congrats Takashi: as posted mere hours ago on GW

"this is only happening on game warden...strange. must be the OTHER troll of the year guy...
anyway, notice that crapfest happens with lack of anything to properly discuss."

You've constantly pissed people off on both boards and still don't have a clue. Why must you keep on talking about procedures that are more advanced than you OWN apparent skills? You started off on the wrong foot and since then kept sticking your foot in your mouth instead of settling in.

Is this some sort of attempt at impressing people or passing off your abilities as higher than we think they are (proven works) or merely convincing yourself? I nominated you for "NOOB of GW" and it looks like your quickly claiming that title for HLP as well...

[Tangent Ends]


Great first ship JGZinv!

[Unknown Target]

Yea, it's not bad for a first ship. Certainly better than anything I can do with Max - I can't figure out how to do anything other than rotate/pan the view in that program

[Minor tangent]

Is this some sort of attempt at impressing people or passing off your abilities as higher than we think they are (proven works) or merely convincing yourself? I nominated you for "NOOB of GW" and it looks like your quickly claiming that title for HLP as well...

[Tangent Ends]

He apparently thinks that he will somehow impress us with each successive post. The best part was when he claimed to be a former Volition employee and developer of Freespace.

[JGZinv]

Takashi -
Even though I may be an StarFox junkie, I'm already on my own mod with RazorsKiss.

Others -

This was the tutorial I was using at the time -
http://www.oman3d.com/tutorials/3ds/spaceship_aziz/

Thanks for the comments.

I'll look into getting the Max plugin, but I really need to get my modeling skills built up. RK has the conversion/rigging
from Max to FS2 down, but we both need to learn modeling at this time - he being somewhat ahead of me already.

We've decided to remodel all of the fighters in our Tachyon mod, due to geometry errors that
some of you are aware of. That would be my first major goal skill and capability wise.

On the personal side of things, I'd like to eventually get up to the point where I can model these:


Typically you could say that's far-fetched, but I'd rather aim high.
I wish that Adobe had a modeling suite, due to the toolset and standardized system.
I am fairly decent with Photoshop CS.

Have any links to favorite tutorials that deal specifically with "getting the shape you want"
and the mirroring feature? RK and I both have tried to use the mirror without getting it to
function. I'm already reading through what books I have that cover these subjects,
but more information never hurts. Tips help, but I'm fairly visual and often need to do it with my
own hands to really grasp the function/use.

Thanks again.

[Turambar]

you'll get there, just keep on tryin'


make sure to convert to editable poly instead of editable mesh, and keep draggin those verts and cutting when tou need to.

[Mongoose]

That's far better than I'll ever be able to do.   I have a lot of respect for people who start down the path of learning skills like this.

(Also, excellent choice of the Gekko there. )

[Admiral Cheater]

That's a nice first model. The front looks a bit too simple but other than that, it looks good.

[Getter Robo G]

Screams out "GECKO!" *Dies*...   

[JGZinv]

Technically - it's the "Gekko-Go" or "Midnight" 
I did find out there's a tech guide with prints, so it's a possibility.

The one below it is the "La Muse" and there's 9 names for different
versions depending on color and weapons package.

I've got a few others in mind that haven't been modeled before
unfortunately, but that'll make it all the more worth while to finish out.

Looking over the Max plugin, what benefits are there to using it?
Obviously you don't have to use TS... but it seems that it's either
going to crash or cause much trial and error to figure out where you made a mistake?

Maybe that's a blessing in disguise, figuring you'd end up with a tuned model..
but it seems like you'd still be wiser by using TS?

(which yes I've briefly tried TS, LU, and Maya, the interface is... odd)