[Akalabeth Angel]

    How do you get the fighters looking so smooth? Even when I put a lot of detail into my models they still look very geometric http://knossos.firenebula.com/temporary/saxum/saxum_01.jpg. Is that due to the normal maps?

[brandx0]

Smooth groups are your friend.  You need to find the faces that you want to not have sharp edges and assign them to the same smooth group.

[maje]

You may also want to experiment with lighting, background, and anti-aliasing quality.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Okay cool I'll look into it.

Thanks

[brandx0]

Personally, I use the VRay renderer for my images.  I use the catmull rom samplet and the adaptive haltron supersampler for my maps.  My scenes usually have 3 lights, a main light, a backlight and a fill light (I don't believe in ambient light)

[chief1983]

I use the catmull rom samplet and the adaptive haltron supersampler for my maps.

If I didn't know you better I'd swear you were making that up.

[brandx0]

The first part should say "sampler" which can also be called a filter or anti-aliaser for the rendered image.  Catmull-rom is a sampler which gives that sharpness to my renders.  Adaptive Haltron is a supersampler, which is a filter that anti-aliases the maps themselves and prevents jagged edges.

[Titan]

    How do you get the fighters looking so smooth? Even when I put a lot of detail into my models they still look very geometric http://knossos.firenebula.com/temporary/saxum/saxum_01.jpg. Is that due to the normal maps?

what IS that anyway? it looks pretty cool...

[Akalabeth Angel]

    How do you get the fighters looking so smooth? Even when I put a lot of detail into my models they still look very geometric http://knossos.firenebula.com/temporary/saxum/saxum_01.jpg. Is that due to the normal maps?

what IS that anyway? it looks pretty cool...

          Eh, don't want to derail any Star Wars thread here. But basically that's just a fighter for the Renegade Legion mod. Some Star-Wars esque universe FASA created when they didn't get the SW license for their boardgame. Couple more screenshots of models I've done are here: http://knossos.firenebula.com/temporary/renegade/ (ignore the laserbay).

 
          In a while I need to start texturing some of my models. I hope I can get them at least half as pretty as these Star Wars ships look. I'll be looking at some of the Star Wars WIP screens for textures that for sure (hey guys, a tutorial would be super! hint hint). Though Scoob's got a nice tutorial in the modding forum already.

[brandx0]

You want a modeling tutorial or a texture tutorial? 

[Akalabeth Angel]

You want a modeling tutorial or a texture tutorial? 

      Hmmn. I'm sure a lot of people would love both. Though personally, I'd prefer a texturing one.
      My models seem to be 'okay', or at least no one is saying they're garbage yet. I just might be going a bit overboard in the curvature department, and could potentially represent it with lower polies and dif options perhaps like the smooth groups you mentioned.

[brandx0]

Well, what aspect of texturing would you like to see?  There's a lot of varied techniques I use for different things and so you'd need to break it down a bit more, it'd be too big of a tutorial.

See if you can look over my models and find a bit of the texture that you're unsure of how to achieve.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Well, what aspect of texturing would you like to see?  There's a lot of varied techniques I use for different things and so you'd need to break it down a bit more, it'd be too big of a tutorial.

See if you can look over my models and find a bit of the texture that you're unsure of how to achieve.

       Hmmn, yeah that's probably the best idea. I'll give texturing a shot and then get back to you, ask some questions in an individual thread on how you get something just so. I want to finish a certain batch of models first though, so it might be a while

        That Deathseed ships looks pretty damn cool btw, dunno if that was yours or someone else's.

[brandx0]

It's my TIE cockpit with Turambar's X-wing's S-foils.

Tell ya what, I'll break it down into a few areas I could do:

Workflow
Normal Mapping
Weathering
Rendering WIP images
Rendering Final images

If you have any other ideas lemme know, I've had a few people asking for various tutorials so maybe it'll be something I can do in my spare time.

[Akalabeth Angel]

It's my TIE cockpit with Turambar's X-wing's S-foils.

Tell ya what, I'll break it down into a few areas I could do:

Workflow
Normal Mapping
Weathering
Rendering WIP images
Rendering Final images

If you have any other ideas lemme know, I've had a few people asking for various tutorials so maybe it'll be something I can do in my spare time.

       Hmmn, I think general Workflow might be the most helpful to start off with for most people.  And then one could build up from there. Thought the internet is populated with quite a few tutorials already, it would be cool to have some Freespace specific ones. I noticed that there's not really much of anything on the Wiki. I could volunteer to throw any tutorial you make on the wiki after it's done.
        That's something I can do in my sparetime, put some more stuff on the wiki. There's basic FS2 modelling tutorials from years past floating around on different websites but most people don't seem to know about them. I think I'll grab a few of them and throw them up there when I get the inclination.

[brandx0]

Well for texturing I can't really tell you anything specific about Freespace.  Texturing usually isn't too engine-specific.

As for general workflow I can definitely do something like that.  I'll start coming up with it.  They'll be photoshop specific, but I'm sure most of what I'll talk about is pretty universal.  I take more of an artistic approach to things than a technical one. 

[Akalabeth Angel]

Well for texturing I can't really tell you anything specific about Freespace.  Texturing usually isn't too engine-specific.

       Yeah that's true. But what I meant moreso was that, texturing something mechanical (specifically spacecraft). I think most, general modellers gear their tutorials towards humanoid characters and the like. Or perhaps environments. And while there are certainly basic principles that apply to both, texturing say an Orc and a B-Wing require slightly different approaches I'm sure (or different tools).

[brandx0]

Absolutely, my tutorials will focus on what I do best, technical stuff like spaceships with greebles.

Now I just gotta start writing.

[Vidmaster]

DIEs to die for.  Oh and the X-Wing Novels rock, I got all. Best StarWars book series.

[Titan]

lucky. the nearest library to me as the 1st and 4th ones; every other library in my county ha none, an the local barnes and nobel aren't expecting any for at least 2 months...