[The E]

Positive proof that the Colly is at least partially crewed by Zentraedi?

[Luis Dias]

Hello, long time lurker, immensely grateful to your community for providing me with awesomeness for the past months since I downloaded the latest builds (I was a fan of FS2 when it came out, never had played a better game since).

And what more awesomeness do I witness here? But I should ask Galemp two things. First, is this finished (apart from the fighter bay, which is outsourced as I see), and second how many polys does it have? A million? Isn't that too much?!?

I mean the Hattie has 26k and you criticized the man because he spent 10k on the engines (which I agree, it is slightly abusive!), but man, it seems you're not modeling the Colly to put it ingame, but to make awesome movie shots!! The model is hollywood quality...

So I just wanted to post my drooling at the model as well as my n00by concern... keep up the good work!

[Raven2001]

Luis (outro tuga? ) don't fret, Galemp has been doing this for years, he knows where to put detail and whatnot, what to transform in detail boxes and etc. The model will end up pretty good and fast in-game I'm sure

[Luis Dias]

(sim, tuga aqui  )

Yeah, I know Galemp is da masta here, I'm not really "worried", more amazed at the modelling process, something that a newbie like me wouldn't dare to go into.

I'd really like to contribute with something, so I'm trying to learn about TrueSpace (never heard of it, but from the looks of the manual pdfs, seems like too easy compared with 3ds, so I'll give it a try), and understand these strange formats to me (dds and the likes). I've been modelling and texturing things, but more on the architecture front, so this would be something of a new territory to me. I don't promise anything, but I'll see if I can deal with the .pofs and the .cobs and etc., and see if I can make a new Rakshasa, before any pro tries to do so!

But this is the Colly thread, sorry about the OT.

[colecampbell666]

Don't learn TrueSpace, please. It's a garbage program, and learning Blender is slightly harder but worth it. TrueSpace makes simple tasks complicated.

[Luis Dias]

Don't learn TrueSpace, please. It's a garbage program, and learning Blender is slightly harder but worth it. TrueSpace makes simple tasks complicated.

Wish someone else had said that previously. I tried to convert pofs to cobs and Truespace just messed up with the mesh, and the program with 1k faces is slower than max with a gazillion faces on screen. Crap program, I'm sure. I'll post later on a question in the right thread on how the best procedure is to export a pof to a 3ds file or a skp file (sketch up seems straightforward to me).

I'll see about Blender. Is there any exporter to Blender? I don't like the prospect of hacking through filetypes A to B to C to D ... to eventually arrive in Z, with all the errors involved in the process... Well like I said, I need to ask these noobish questions in the right forum.

[NathanP]

Epic  - truly epic

1 question - the original colly was supposed to have 80 odd turrets - will there ever be a version with these extra turrets put back??

[Commander Zane]

Possibly balance / limitation issues with Retail.
Make that version though and I could make it unstoppable with BSG-style firerate and speed weapon tables.

Flying through the barrage of blobs in a fighter is fun.

[Flaser]

Don't learn TrueSpace, please. It's a garbage program, and learning Blender is slightly harder but worth it. TrueSpace makes simple tasks complicated.

Wish someone else had said that previously. I tried to convert pofs to cobs and Truespace just messed up with the mesh, and the program with 1k faces is slower than max with a gazillion faces on screen. Crap program, I'm sure. I'll post later on a question in the right thread on how the best procedure is to export a pof to a 3ds file or a skp file (sketch up seems straightforward to me).

I'll see about Blender. Is there any exporter to Blender? I don't like the prospect of hacking through filetypes A to B to C to D ... to eventually arrive in Z, with all the errors involved in the process... Well like I said, I need to ask these noobish questions in the right forum.

The community has been pressing for DAE support for quite a while, so converison should look like this:

Blender --> Save as DAE
PCS2 --> Open DAE --> Set up game model --> Save as POF (for game use)/Save as PMF (for further PCS editing).

[colecampbell666]

PCS2 is the program used to add firepoints and the like to FS2 ships.

[Raven2001]

Wish someone else had said that previously. I tried to convert pofs to cobs and Truespace just messed up with the mesh, and the program with 1k faces is slower than max with a gazillion faces on screen. Crap program, I'm sure. I'll post later on a question in the right thread on how the best procedure is to export a pof to a 3ds file or a skp file (sketch up seems straightforward to me).

I'll see about Blender. Is there any exporter to Blender? I don't like the prospect of hacking through filetypes A to B to C to D ... to eventually arrive in Z, with all the errors involved in the process... Well like I said, I need to ask these noobish questions in the right forum.

Don't fret about the converstion just yet. I'd focus on the modelling\texturing aspect for now. You'll be able to convert stuff flawlessly with collada.

Also, I recomment Max. Harder to learn at first, but in the end its a ferrari

[Luis Dias]

Don't fret about the converstion just yet. I'd focus on the modelling\texturing aspect for now. You'll be able to convert stuff flawlessly with collada.

It's just that I have little spare time, and I really wanted to skip the first modelling part and start with a "Rakshasa template" on the go, that is, start with the original mesh. No can do, it seems. Oh well.

Also, I recomment Max. Harder to learn at first, but in the end its a ferrari

It's more a question about visual confusion. Never appreciated modelling in 3Ds, in sketch up it seems simpler (and I like to learn new programs as well), although I've been messing with 3DS since '96 (!!), in its DOS version 4.0 (not to confuse with MAX 4.0)

But it seems that yes, I'll probably go by your advise and stick with max...

[Galemp]

Greetings Luis. I'm glad to see you have an architectural background as well. What CAD programs have you used so far? AutoCAD? SketchUp? REVIT? If you've been using 3DS Max for that long, there's an exporter for Max which I've used for years. If you're looking to get started in Blender, perhaps we could arrange a date and time for lessons over IRC.

Raven's comment is, I believe, directed towards your comments on the Colossus, and not your own work on the Rakshasa (i.e. don't fret about converting the Colossus just yet, focus on the modeling/texturing of it.)

I agree that this is going to be one of the heaviest models in the engine, probably the heaviest of all, but remember that there will only ever be one in the mission at a time. All the greebles you've seen so far are going to be either detail-boxed or normal mapped. Further, the whole thing will be UV-mapped, and so will actually use less memory than the existing Hecate or Orion models.

Aside from the aforementioned hangar, I've finalized the geometry. Currently I'm working on the slow, painstaking process of unwrapping the model for texturing. This process alone can take over a year, as Vasudan Admiral's Hades can attest to. Once it's unwrapped, one party can paint the texture while another prepares it for conversion into the game. By the time this actually makes it into the Media VPs, we will be at 3.6.11 and you'll probably have an upgraded computer.

The Colossus does have over 80 weapon turrets; look over its table entry to see what they are.

[Luis Dias]

Greetings Luis. I'm glad to see you have an architectural background as well. What CAD programs have you used so far? AutoCAD? SketchUp? REVIT? If you've been using 3DS Max for that long, there's an exporter for Max which I've used for years. If you're looking to get started in Blender, perhaps we could arrange a date and time for lessons over IRC.

I'd appreciate that exporter immensely, where can I find it? I already started modelling in 3DSMax on my own though, and I feel rusty as hell (though I understand the basics of it and am fast to learn), but I'll post a pic in a different thread so I can have feedback on whether I should continue or not.

I've used max only in University, and only after I had modeled everything in autocad, which is not friendly to organic meshes as max is. I now use Archicad which is similar to revit. It's very intuitive, but unfortunately, it adores ortogonal things too much as well. Then I use Art Lantis to render the models, which is also very intuitive - (so I'm rusty at more mathematical tools, like max, but I'll get over it).


In relation to Collossus, well I'm looking forward to see that beauty UV mapped (another hellish enterprise I'm sure !! ) 

[colecampbell666]

Also, I recomment Max. Harder to learn at first, but in the end its a ferrari

I found Max immensely easy to learn, far more than Blender. Only problem is, my trial ran out and I have not 600$.

[Raven2001]

Raven's comment is, I believe, directed towards your comments on the Colossus, and not your own work on the Rakshasa (i.e. don't fret about converting the Colossus just yet, focus on the modeling/texturing of it.)

Actually was directed towards his choice of learning Blender just because it has a perceived better support for converstion. I belong to the school of "learn the creative stuff first, good 3d package second, and the technical conversion stuff last"

[Lyk]

Oh. My. God the Colossus is so sexy, beatiful details

[Kolgena]

Wow.

Sometimes I forget how big the Colossus really is.

I just noticed this after deciding to run through the thread again to get a sense of what this thing looked like again. The rear "leg" that contains the girders on either side of it has a sharp cut-away from the front side. That might have been a stylistic choice, but I'm not sure if it looks good. It kind of makes the thing feel a little flimsier than it should.

[Syder]

Well I like the overall look but what I don't buy is that space frame. Any military vehicle engineer will say that leaving vital parts of a superstructure without the armour is a total nonsense.

Frames are always designed to make the structure tougher without losing any vital kilograms. They will withstand stress from acceleration, gravitation, hard manoeuvring etc. but no one designs them to withstand direct weapons fire that's why they are covered with armour plating. I've never seen a modern tank with part of its frame or structure uncovered/unprotected.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Well I like the overall look but what I don't buy is that space frame. Any military vehicle engineer will say that leaving vital parts of a superstructure without the armour is a total nonsense.

It's called "Rule of Cool" Besides, the bracing also appears on the textures.