I played around with animating my ships earlier in the week, I'll try to sort a gif of it.... It definitely helped show off the scale. I'm thinking I'll not go that route though, and doing the standard mixture of writing and pictures. I've got a fair idea what to do, just need to crack on with it
HS, it seems you are pasting objects (cannons) on another object (ship) in Wings 3D. how do you do that? I know only a bridging, but that requires lot’s of work as everything must be first positioned correctly and tesselation of appropriate size and shape must be created.
Thanks for any hint!
Happy to help! Just make sure what you want to paste is saved as a separate file and use the merge option under 'File'.... Easy as that
You've also got the duplicate function once the model is in there, it'll duplicate it on any axis. I've also found a clever way to scale and rotate multiple part objects around the same point, just right click on the relevant option and you can select a point/edge/face to use. Makes resizing stuff much easier.
I am (only now) investigating this - as I can see, the "merge" allow to call a saved object within another object.
Then you have two independent objects - they are not actually "merged", but both in the same workspace.
This means that the placement (incl translation, scaling, rotation) must be made manually?
And then when it's ready, you can with "bridge" paste the shapes together as one.
I was hoping to have a function where I can select a shape, and then select one of its face and a face on another shape and it would automatically position correctly... Actually, my main hope was to be able to select an arbitrary number of faces, and automatically paste another shape on each of them in the appropriate plan. Would be a great way to make greebles...
Guess it would be too simple - or that I really should read the manual as I have problems to understand the rotation options beyond axis
Re: Limit Theory Fan Contest - Discussion
Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:24 pm
by CSE
Thesleeve's shape made me think of a luxury liner for passengers.
(it's full HD - don't watch embedded )
So here it is, as a bonus in a movie form. This actually hides some imperfections in the model
This model, as opposed to the industrial ship, is done in Wings3D. While this is so much more effective, somehow it looks much less natural; so I must be doing something wrong!
Thesleeve's shape made me think of a luxury liner for passengers.
(it's full HD - don't watch embedded )
So here it is, as a bonus in a movie form. This actually hides some imperfections in the model
This model, as opposed to the industrial ship, is done in Wings3D. While this is so much more effective, somehow it looks much less natural; so I must be doing something wrong!
I think it'll just take practice. I usually start with a cube and keep cutting and extruding faces until I get a vaguely ship-like shape I use the extract function to create separate models for when I need a different texture.
HS, it seems you are pasting objects (cannons) on another object (ship) in Wings 3D. how do you do that? I know only a bridging, but that requires lot’s of work as everything must be first positioned correctly and tesselation of appropriate size and shape must be created.
Thanks for any hint!
Happy to help! Just make sure what you want to paste is saved as a separate file and use the merge option under 'File'.... Easy as that
You've also got the duplicate function once the model is in there, it'll duplicate it on any axis. I've also found a clever way to scale and rotate multiple part objects around the same point, just right click on the relevant option and you can select a point/edge/face to use. Makes resizing stuff much easier.
I am (only now) investigating this - as I can see, the "merge" allow to call a saved object within another object.
Then you have two independent objects - they are not actually "merged", but both in the same workspace.
This means that the placement (incl translation, scaling, rotation) must be made manually?
And then when it's ready, you can with "bridge" paste the shapes together as one.
I was hoping to have a function where I can select a shape, and then select one of its face and a face on another shape and it would automatically position correctly... Actually, my main hope was to be able to select an arbitrary number of faces, and automatically paste another shape on each of them in the appropriate plan. Would be a great way to make greebles...
Guess it would be too simple - or that I really should read the manual as I have problems to understand the rotation options beyond axis
Have you tried pressing tab when rotating and moving stuff? It means you can type a value, so there's much more precision there.
As for rotation, you can select custom axis by using the middle or right button, you can rotate around a point, edge or face. I've found that useful, especially if you have multiple objects because it'll rotate them all around that, instead of each one using the standard axis independently.
I've found the select random face option is ok for greebles if you're using flat planels.
Re: Limit Theory Fan Contest - Discussion
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 5:57 am
by Catsu
Accidently posted the WIP in the submissions
Re: Limit Theory Fan Contest - Discussion
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:58 am
by Talvieno
Love the shape and the detail, Catsu! Biggest thing I think you could do is change the lighting. I think that would have the biggest impact of anything you could do to that ship. As it's WIP, the textures and so forth are likely to change in the future, and you're probably already aware it looks a bit flat, so I won't bother you with that. I really love the general design, though.
Re: Limit Theory Fan Contest - Discussion
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 3:08 am
by Catsu
Thank you very much Tal. texturing sucks... but i might have to bite the bullet and dive into Mudbox.... maybe. the shape is potentially not finished (more greebling required) but im still workshopping the idea... might start over.
Thank you very much Tal. texturing sucks... but i might have to bite the bullet and dive into Mudbox.... maybe. the shape is potentially not finished (more greebling required) but im still workshopping the idea... might start over.
Looks good - actually it goes almost too fast to really enjoy the details in the interior. Any still shot?
For texturing: are you using a software where you can generate procedural textures? It is less work and require less artistic talent... and can replace with bumps quite some greebleing...
Re: Limit Theory Fan Contest - Discussion
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 5:51 pm
by Cornflakes_91
some detail along the front wedge would be nice maybe :V
right now its just a couple of big smooth plates without any detail
Re: Limit Theory Fan Contest - Discussion
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:08 am
by Black--Snow
I think I'm ready to post a WiP of my submission for this one.
The exhaust plume is probably my favourite (And the part I put the most work into) part of this submission. That may well change depending on how the actual hull goes.
Edit: Updated image
Re: Limit Theory Fan Contest - Discussion
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 10:28 am
by Talvieno
The thruster trail is magnificent, except for the glow: it stops short abruptly at the ship instead of bleeding over, making it look a little "off". What software are you using? I get the feeling it was part of the render.
Here's a gif I threw together in photoshop that better explains what I'm trying to get across:
Note: Doing this in-render rarely a good idea except as a test. You get a lot more control with photo editing software.
Apart from that, excellent job! Very beautiful thruster effect.
The thruster trail is magnificent, except for the glow: it stops short abruptly at the ship instead of bleeding over, making it look a little "off". What software are you using? I get the feeling it was part of the render.
Here's a version I threw together in photoshop that better explains what I'm trying to get across:
Whoaw - I absolutely love the exhaust plumes!
How did you do it? What software are you using?
Thanks!
I'm using ole' reliable Blender. It's about 25000 particles in a point density cloud. Emission effect and a bit of post-processing glow on the top.
The ship itself looks nice, but thin - somehow it needs something to give it scale so that it looks like a "capital" ship.
Yeah, I'm struggling with this one. I'm not sure how to properly give it scale. If you have any tips, I welcome them with open arms.
Re: Limit Theory Fan Contest - Discussion
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:58 am
by thedamngod
My go to reference for scale is usually the average size and amount of windows that you can see on the ship. To me it seems like a thing that almost all (human) ships would have in common. Maybe airlocks could also be some kind of reference, as well as visible nametags and something like navigation lights.
For more specific types of vessels it could be size of hangar bays, turrets size, etc.
Especially turrets could give a hint about the size as there might be some sort of standard size for smaller turrets that are attached to most ships. Then capital ships would have a lot of those and some additional heavy hitters.