[Petrarch of the VBB]

For those of us who lack the skills and the software (read: money) to make Thorn, Setekh, or Thunder quality renderss, here is a good way.
Open up your paint program, I use PSP 7 (trial, reinstall every 60 days, hehe). Make a space background, gradient tool for suns and coronas. Open up pofs in FS2View, print screen, copy the ship image into PSP, position it, hey presto!
I have got quit good results with it, i'll be posting one on my website within a week.
My messed-up site

[Ace]

Actually what I did for a while after learning it from Dark (his old site, the GTD Pheonix, had all of it's pics done this way) is setup your scene in FRED, take a screencapture at a high monitor resolution, scale it down for anti-aliasing, and then tweak it with lighting, glows, backgrounds, etc.

Looks very good but is more time consuming then a real rendering. (now if all of the FS2 ships are in .3ds on HLP I'd start doing FS renders again, but as it is I'm too lazy to convert them myself, too much of a hassle...)

[Redfang]

I don't think that'll look too good... but maybe okay.

I've also tried rendering (today), with a freeware landscape render program, but my computer is too slow, and it takes ages to do high quality. And I don't even want to practice using that program at the moment. And it would be boring to do only landscape renders, and I don't know do people over here even like them.
 
Psst... Venom has very good renders too... and Ace, and darkage... and there are more.

[Windrunner]

how do you convert FS2 ships into .3ds?

[Windrunner]

what software can i use

[Darkage]

Originally posted by Windrunner
what software can i use

First you need PCS to convert from pof to cob then you need 3Dexploration ( deepexploration ) to convert the cob to .3ds then batch convert all the textures to .bmp and in RGB colors, then load them into 3dsmax;) Hope that helps abit:)

[Windrunner]

Originally posted by darkage



First you need PCS to convert from pof to cob then you need 3Dexploration ( deepexploration ) to convert the cob to .3ds then batch convert all the textures to .bmp and in RGB colors, then load them into 3dsmax;) Hope that helps abit:)

Thanks that helepd a bit but where do i find all these software

[Petrarch of the VBB]

This is a bit irrellevant, but...
What are all those files in the models directory in the FS1 vp file, the ones that aren't pofs, p3d aren't they. What are they for?

[Stunaep]

They were supposed to be model information files (kinda like tables, perhaps?) but were not used.

[Ryx]

Originally posted by Windrunner
how do you convert FS2 ships into .3ds?

Take a peek here, as well.

[Vertigo1]

Originally posted by Windrunner


Thanks that helepd a bit but where do i find all these software

www.google.com

run a search.

[Ulundel]

Petty's idea is good but I'll better stick to max. *hatred* *pain* *anger* *suffering*...

[Ryx]

I'll just quote myself...

Originally posted by Ryx
PCS

Descent Networks tools

...or check HLP downloads

Might want to check out VW's files too

3D Exploration

So what did I forget...

[Vertigo1]

hahah

[Black Wolf]

Unless you've found a way to get both good backgrounds and get rid of the "slapped on" look (which looks very fake), something I have been trying for a fair while now, this method doesn't work too well. I've been trying for a long time, but the lighting is all wrong.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

You're right (if you're on about my method) the lighting is all wrong, but for a starting path into FSart it's quite good.

[Black Wolf]

Yeah, I agree pretty much. It's a good way to do it if you can't render, but quality is lower than renders.