[Stealth]

OK... this is one of five threads...

how do you START rendering?

I mean, what programs do you use... and how do you do backgrounds, how do you get engine glows, freespace models, the 'subspace' vortex thing, and all other cool things shown in renders?



 :: Other Tutorial Threads ::
Tutorial: Skinning/.TBLing Ships
Tutorial: Rendering
Tutorial: Turrets, Engines, etc.
Tutorial: Creating Ships
Tutorial: Anything Else (anim, etc.)

[Riven]

For backgrounds and post processing Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro are a must. For backgrounds I recomend the Flaming Pear Plug ins called Glitterato and Lunar Cell. 2 week demos are available. Glitterato does nebulars and stars at the touch of the button and Lunar Cell does planets which can be saved as pics/bump maps/surface maps/cloud maps/cloud bump maps and composite.

Many cool post processing things can be done in Photoshop or Paintshop Pro such as nebular effects, adding lightening, explosions, weapons fire etc. just try out using the various filters to get new effects. Play around and have fun. (You can see my work on the Combat Federation Website and a few on my own site Riven)

[Stealth]

now explain how to make nebulas like in FS2

(i mean nebula backgrounds, not thick nebulas like where you find the Iceni)

[Riven]

like i said, get the Glitterato plug in and choose a couple of colours and mess with the bars a bit and voila.

Failing to have Glitterato you can remove the neb PCX files from the vp then convert them to RBG rather than index colour. Now on a black canvas add white noise and a tiny amount of gausian blur this makes a good star field. Then add a few larger stars with a white soft airbrush. Now place some of those FS nebs onto the canvas and apply screen to the layers that they are on (this removes all the black from the image). Once you have a nice composition save as a format that your 3D package can use.

[Stealth]

oooh :0

[Anaz]

Actually, if your rendering in TS4.2 (other proggies have this too...) save your nebula as a .bmp, texture a plane with it in TS, and set the little transparency ball in the shaders to be 'plain color' or 'color' and then render them! It looks very nice, and you can see any background starfield through them.

[Riven]

one of the options in glitterato is opacancy anyway and you could increace the opacancy of the layers with the non Glitterato also.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Analazon
Actually, if your rendering in TS4.2 (other proggies have this too...) save your nebula as a .bmp, texture a plane with it in TS, and set the little transparency ball in the shaders to be 'plain color' or 'color' and then render them! It looks very nice, and you can see any background starfield through them.

TS4, is that Truespace 4 i'm guessing?

Where can i download that?

[Riven]

u can get the demo from www.caligari.com/ but the full version will set u back around $79. I use TS2 which i got 4 free years ago off of a mag CD. Its not very good for rendering or animating so i have to use a lot of post processing. Also if a texture name is longer than 8 letters then TS2 wont apply it as default so i hav to manually retexture all models i want to use.

BTW the TS4 demo doesnt allow saving, rendering to file, and the screen render has a watermark over it.

[an0n]

You can be really devious and find the temp file TS uses to store data you're working on, but I'm not sure how well it'll load back into a 3D prog. It used to work with RayDream trials though.

[an0n]

I still maintain that anyone who uses Lunarcell is retarded but, for the purposes of demonstrating it to newbies (and because I was bored off my ass):


EDIT: The stars kinda got lost in the JPEG compression process

Also, note the time difference between this post and the last one.

[Fineus]

Originally posted by Stealth
OK... this is one of five threads...

how do you START rendering?

I mean, what programs do you use... and how do you do backgrounds, how do you get engine glows, freespace models, the 'subspace' vortex thing, and all other cool things shown in renders?

FYI My latest website will focus around this matter as it's core - alongside my render collection. I've not had a chance to access my FTP due to dodgy ISP issues but rest assured that I'll have an improved edition of how to do various things as easily as possible with "cheap" programs... no 3D Modelling packages here... Photoshop is the most expensive thing you'll need.

In the meantime SOT houses my old tutorials on the topics - as found here:

Beam Tutorial

Engine Tutorial

Explosion Tutorial

However they're pretty dated now...

[an0n]

And the boredom continues:

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Thunder


In the meantime SOT houses my old tutorials on the topics - as found here:

Beam Tutorial

Engine Tutorial

Explosion Tutorial

However they're pretty dated now...

yeah, they're all 404 errors

[Thorn]

Lightwave Tutorials
The Better Space tutorial is for making starfields and nebulas with Lightwave 6+

[Fineus]

Originally posted by Stealth
yeah, they're all 404 errors

Look again, seems the page I copied the links from didn't get updated with the server change so the links weren't functioning... these ones do though

[Stealth]

ahhh much better

[Starfury]

Thorn, have you done that tutorial?  Where's the points2polys plugin, I can't find it!

[Stealth]

well i'll be damned if i'm going to pay for Lunarcell, which looks awesome!

Does anyone have the full version to send me?  or could they perhaps give me the crack?

[Thorn]

I'd edit your post before an admin does it for you....
You can get a 30 day trial of the thing at www.flamingpear.com