spaceship

Tigrestripe

Garstor said:

DaRkWyNdE said:

Dartanbeck said:

Well, now there's the New Battlestar Galactica. Battlestar Galactica re-envisioned with Edward James Olmos, as Adama, was an excellent four season series with great movies to back it up. I'm almost positive that those tutorials are referring to the New Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, which takes place during the original war between Cylon and their creators - before they fled. This is, of course, from the re-envisioned story (and an absolute Must-See for me!!!). The original series had Cylons as coming from the planet Cylon.
It was the Lightwave site, after all, where I learned of Blood and Chrome. I can't believe you're not going to watch it! Sheeesh!

Yes, and they had been organic creatures before machines. I'm quite happy to watch the new stuff but sometimes it tends to take awhile before it gets to Australia. I'll still prefer the original Basestars to the new ones. :)

Oh jeez...look what I started... Geek war! %-P

@DaRkWyNdE: Where about in Oz are you? Closer to Wendy or Headwax? I wonder how many other Carrarists are Down Under...and if I'll join 'em one day?

I'm in the outer suburbs of Melbourne but just a traffic jam or three away from the city.

I'm sure there are a few. I saw a guy using Carrara on his laptop down in the city. He was modeling Flinder's Station. I don't know how he concentrated with the throngs of people passing by. I thought a few photos would have been enough. :)

Tigrestripe

RichardChaos said:

One thing I have never understood about SPACE ship creation is when they make a ship that is racy or streamlined. Unless said craft is going to enter an atmosphere who cares what the shape is! There is NOTHING in space such as air to deal with. One thing I loved about the New Start trek with the whole BORG thing was the BORG ship was one big SQUARE!

That is the most efficient way to go.

Yeah. I know what your saying. Like having a bridge atop a warship. One big target. Of course, in the Star Wars setting, wings were not really needed. Most of the craft had repulsorfields. Oh yeah, I guess you'd still need them for direction.

The Borg had spheres and other shapes but less is more unless their budget for starship models was low. Space, Above and Beyond was a good example. Those fighters did work in atmospheres as well but the wings didn't look like they could provided the lift a heavy warcraft would have required.

I'll mirror, Dartanback. The stuff looks cool.

laynemoore

Hey thanks. I did download it and can't wait to look at all the curves. Very nice. Need to get some tutorials on filling in the blanks now. It's easier for me to learn by seeing someone do it.

Whenever I hear a reference to Oz, I immediately think of Kansas (where I live). Thank you Wizard of Oz!

Hi Laynemoore,

Since you are the original poster, I didn't want you to think we left ya in the dust.. Baby steps are good. You'll have moments in calrity and other days you be calling the glass repair man for a new window.

Have a grab at the following model, it's yours for whatever you wish (and anyone else.) It ain't the greatest, and I did forget to sub-divide it in Carrara before I uploaded it but you should be able to work that. Also, I think I might have creased all the edges on the models. If you have trouble I'll redo it tomorrow. I left the first one I showed you so you can point at it and laugh. :)

http://www.ShareCG.com/v/68457/view/5/3D-Model/SW-like-ship

If you're looking for a more one or two man size ship with more sleek lines I might suggest a free 3d model site. I haven't been quite successful in coming up with somthing I didn't point at and laugh. :)

Garstor

laynemoore said:

Whenever I hear a reference to Oz, I immediately think of Kansas (where I live). Thank you Wizard of Oz!

Smack-dab in the middle of the USA! I'm probably just a (long-ish) trip on I-35 away from you. ;-)

laynemoore

If you're trapped in Texas, you could be right. Only drawback is having to drive through Oklahoma.

Smack-dab in the middle of the USA! I'm probably just a (long-ish) trip on I-35 away from you. ;-)

Dartanbeck

Are you kidding? With a cool starship like the one Garstor made, it shouldn't be a problem going around Oklahoma! lol

Garstor

Dartanbeck said:

Are you kidding? With a cool starship like the one Garstor made, it shouldn't be a problem going around Oklahoma! lol

HA! You're funny Dart!

I think I told you guys once before that I actually don't drive -- never bothered with it. I cycle everywhere (and when the oil runs out, so will you!). ;-)

So that DreamLight Model Master 2 training is pretty good. The trainer (Jason White, not DreamLight...thank goodness!) does a pretty fast bit of modeling -- the spaceship is little more than a cylinder with some extruding. He admits that this is just rough sketch work to test some concepts for a future project...so the speed is understandable. There are 3 videos in this module and they are about 30 minutes each.

I am working on what will hopefully be a much better spaceship myself. I'll definitely see if this one exports to Carrara more cleanly.

Milo

Garstor said:

Dartanbeck said:

Are you kidding? With a cool starship like the one Garstor made, it shouldn't be a problem going around Oklahoma! lol

HA! You're funny Dart!

I think I told you guys once before that I actually don't drive -- never bothered with it. I cycle everywhere (and when the oil runs out, so will you!). ;-)

So that DreamLight Model Master 2 training is pretty good. The trainer (Jason White, not DreamLight...thank goodness!) does a pretty fast bit of modeling -- the spaceship is little more than a cylinder with some extruding. He admits that this is just rough sketch work to test some concepts for a future project...so the speed is understandable. There are 3 videos in this module and they are about 30 minutes each.

I am working on what will hopefully be a much better spaceship myself. I'll definitely see if this one exports to Carrara more cleanly.

I debated on getting MM2 or not, as I have one and am already on the spam list. Do you find it worth the investment? (not wanting to hijack the thread, you can PM me if you think that owuld be better)

de3an

I like to rock it (rocket) old school.
Flash Gordon knew how to travel in style.

This was modeled in Hexagon.
Combining lots of separate parts makes the modeling much easier.

Garstor

-_Milo_- said:

I debated on getting MM2 or not, as I have one and am already on the spam list. Do you find it worth the investment? (not wanting to hijack the thread, you can PM me if you think that owuld be better)

I certainly do not blame you for being wary. MM1 was interesting in that DreamLight looked at several modeling packages -- that helped solidify my positive opinions about Carrara (and got me curious about LightWave). The man's LightWave and Daz Studio bias cannot be hidden...

As mentioned, MM2 is being delivered by Jason White of 2 Create. He and DreamLight collaborated on the La Piazza model. In fact, the first module of MM2 shows how he build some of the La Piazza structures in LightWave -- including UV Mapping.

I have fallen behind on watching the videos (but I have downloaded them all):

Module 2 - Modeling a dragon head (honestly, not a very interesting model, but some polygonal modeling practice here)
Module 3 - Painting Stunning Details In Z-Brush (not viewed - appears to build on the previous dragon head)
Module 4 - Super Fast Modeling and Texturing A High Rez Mountain Range (EDIT: I just learned that this module is delivered by DreamLight...)
Module 5 - Super Texture Enhancer (talks about occlusion maps)
Module 6 - Car Modeling (3rd video in this module models a tire in detail apparently)
Module 7 - Space Craft Modeling

Apparently there will be Modules 8 through 10; these are yet to be released and there are no titles on them yet.

Is it worth it? Yes, I'd say so -- as long as you know how to deal with the DreamLight spam and you don't mind LightWave. Generally speaking, much of what has been discussed (at least what I have viewed) is transferrable knowledge to Carrara.

Garstor

Here is the progress on my current spaceship. The engine nacelle pieces are using sub-division (and a couple of hard polygon models for those "nose cones" and some grilles on the rear "exhaust"). Clearly there is much work to do on the main body still -- I haven't decided if I'll sub-divide that too yet.

I think to get this into Carrara cleanly I'll have to "freeze" the sub-division -- in other words, convert it into polygons. If you've tried this in Carrara's vertex modeler, you know that it can very quickly boost the polygon count into the stratosphere. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to experiment with this.

I'm taking opinions on whether to keep that third nacelle on top of the ship...

Tigrestripe

de3an said:

I like to rock it (rocket) old school.
Flash Gordon knew how to travel in style.

This was modeled in Hexagon.
Combining lots of separate parts makes the modeling much easier.

That he did. This great work!

Tigrestripe

Garstor said:

Here is the progress on my current spaceship. The engine nacelle pieces are using sub-division (and a couple of hard polygon models for those "nose cones" and some grilles on the rear "exhaust"). Clearly there is much work to do on the main body still -- I haven't decided if I'll sub-divide that too yet.

I think to get this into Carrara cleanly I'll have to "freeze" the sub-division -- in other words, convert it into polygons. If you've tried this in Carrara's vertex modeler, you know that it can very quickly boost the polygon count into the stratosphere. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to experiment with this.

I'm taking opinions on whether to keep that third nacelle on top of the ship...

It's a good start. Leaving the top nacelle is probably what you personally like to see in a starship design. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere in ultimate-trek-geekdom that having more than two nacelles was not required. That's just hardcore geek. :)

Me, I always want to put something on the top, an equipment pod or the nacelle can stay. Perhaps you can place two vertical nacelles. Can I assume you intend to have the ship land?

If so, and you want to jump to four nacelles then maybe just behind the horizontal nacelles with something that rotate them to even out with the horizontal ones.

Having said all that, I think it would be just fine with two nacelles. Run with it!

Garstor

DaRkWyNdE said:

Can I assume you intend to have the ship land?

LANDING! ::doh!::

I haven't really got my head around morphs and such. I've seen them used and by following PhilW's instructions, I've managed to use them to correct poke-through in some of my Carrara renders. I know, that sounds like I should be totally comfortable with the concept -- but a little voice in the back of my head is whispering, "you're not ready Garstor!"

One day, I'll take that little voice behind the barn and shoot it... :-D

But you did put the bug in my head -- what about four nacelles that rotate vertically for landing? Meditate upon this I shall...

laynemoore

Dumb question - on the screen view that show four angles, how do you get them all perfectly centered in frame? Most often time, my views are all over the place. Is there a quick mac hot key to snap them front and center?

Garstor

laynemoore said:

Dumb question - on the screen view that show four angles, how do you get them all perfectly centered in frame? Most often time, my views are all over the place. Is there a quick mac hot key to snap them front and center?

Not a dumb question at all. Do keep in mind that is a LightWave screenshot -- if I stray too far in that direction DAZ might excommunicate me or something...

Also, I use Windows...but the OS functions appear to be kept completely inline with each other.

In LW, the viewports are synched automatically. You can turn this off though and have each viewport be independent -- I tried it once but it completely messed with my head. Press the "a" key to zoom out to show the whole model. Shift+A will zoom to show the selected items (points, edges or polygons).

evilproducer

laynemoore said:

Dumb question - on the screen view that show four angles, how do you get them all perfectly centered in frame? Most often time, my views are all over the place. Is there a quick mac hot key to snap them front and center?

There's a couple ways to recenter your view. In the isometric view you would want to use the hand icon to track the camera to the right, left, top or bottom if the model is filling your view due to being zoomed in or something. If you want to center a selection, select a polygon and type 0 (zero). This will work with all camera views and also in the assembly room when you select a model or group.

If you're using the director's camera or another camera in your scene the 0 key works as well by centering the camera on a selected model or group (or if in the vertex room, selected polys). You could also reset the view by setting the camera to reference, which will reset the camera to the director's camera default position.

The hand icon I mentioned in the first paragraph should only be used in the isometric views of top, bottom, left, right, front and back!

laynemoore

I tried my hand at coloring and texturing. Overall color is okay but, how do you make specific areas different like a tinted window or a side hatch. It would be cool to animate landing gear and a ramp opening on the side. So many questions...

Garstor

laynemoore said:

I tried my hand at coloring and texturing. Overall color is okay but, how do you make specific areas different like a tinted window or a side hatch. It would be cool to animate landing gear and a ramp opening on the side. So many questions...

Learning is a never-ending process -- so I hope you like learning! ;-)

To answer your first question; this is where "shading" domains come into the picture. In the vertex editor, select the polygons that you want to shade separately. Note the region of the screen I have highlighted. Choose "New Shading Domain" and give it an appropriate name.

Note that under the Selection menu, you can select or deselect polys by Shading Domain as well as invert your selection. I won't go into those details here. But you can poke around yourself and experiment. Do not start building Shading Domains until you are sure that your model is finished -- adding polys and such can mess up your domains.

The last thing you'll want to do; once every polygon is in a Shading Domain that you have created, is go into the Shading Domain List (see picture #4 - sorry I uploaded out of order!) and remove the Default domain. Any polygon not assigned to a Shading Domain gets the Default shader, so be sure you haven't missed anything.

Once you are done, you can take your model into the Shader room and start having some real fun with it (picture #3).

Garstor

Oh Carrara! Must thou vex my spirit so? :down:

I thought I'd import my new (but probably still incomplete) spaceship into Carrara. First picture is LightWave. The engine nacelles have sub-division but the rest of the model is polygonal.

I bring it into Carrara from OBJ but the whole model is polygonal (picture #2)! Well, I have shading domains for the nacelles...so I select them and turn on smoothing...

AAAAARGH!!! The entire model gets sub-divided! Note the difference with the cockpit windows. That's just gross... :sick:

I guess my answer is to freeze the subdivided polys in LightWave and take the polygon count hit in Carrara.

Dartanbeck

Should be much of a hit at all for Carrara. It can handle a lot more than that. I wanna ride in it when it's done... can I?

Garstor

Dartanbeck said:

Should be much of a hit at all for Carrara. It can handle a lot more than that. I wanna ride in it when it's done... can I?

I know it can...I was just venting a bit. ;-)

The part of the spaceship body immediately behind the cockpit has ended up being non-planar...so it is catching the light differently. I'll try to fix that. Now to decide whether to model a hatch/door or just put it in with a texture.

If anyone wants to use this model, PM me...happy to share it.

3DAGE

In Carrara, you have either Creased, or Smooth edges,.

when you add subdivision smoothing to a cube with creased edges,.. there's no apparent effect,
if the cube has smoothed (default) edges, then the sub-division smoothing becomes apparent. (see pic1) both cubes have 3 levels of subdivision smoothing. one has creased edges.

You can select the entire model, and change the edges to creased,.. then select the sections of the ship which should be subdivided, and Smooth those edges.
Or, the opposite,.. select the areas which should be rigid, like the windows,.. and crease those edges

quick example ship windows.

Also,... adding more definition to areas will restrict the apparent subdivision smoothing

:)

Garstor

3DAGE said:

In Carrara, you have either Creased, or Smooth edges,.

when you add subdivision smoothing to a cube with creased edges,.. there's no apparent effect,
if the cube has smoothed (default) edges, then the sub-division smoothing becomes apparent. (see pic1) both cubes have 3 levels of subdivision smoothing. one has creased edges.

Thanks Andy! I was figuring that the creased edges might be the key. I didn't have the patience to crease everything that I wanted to though... ;-)

The closest equivalent in LightWave would be using weight-maps on the sub-divided polygons (I've seen this demonstrated, but not tried it out myself).

Tigrestripe

3DAGE said:

In Carrara, you have either Creased, or Smooth edges,.

when you add subdivision smoothing to a cube with creased edges,.. there's no apparent effect,
if the cube has smoothed (default) edges, then the sub-division smoothing becomes apparent. (see pic1) both cubes have 3 levels of subdivision smoothing. one has creased edges.

You can select the entire model, and change the edges to creased,.. then select the sections of the ship which should be subdivided, and Smooth those edges.
Or, the opposite,.. select the areas which should be rigid, like the windows,.. and crease those edges

quick example ship windows.

Also,... adding more definition to areas will restrict the apparent subdivision smoothing

:)

That's a excellent looking ship. Would you be able to show what it looks like without sub-d?

briandaz_3e696c2bd8

Garstor said:

Oh Carrara! Must thou vex my spirit so? :down:

I thought I'd import my new (but probably still incomplete) spaceship into Carrara. First picture is LightWave. The engine nacelles have sub-division but the rest of the model is polygonal.

I bring it into Carrara from OBJ but the whole model is polygonal (picture #2)! Well, I have shading domains for the nacelles...so I select them and turn on smoothing...

AAAAARGH!!! The entire model gets sub-divided! Note the difference with the cockpit windows. That's just gross... :sick:

I guess my answer is to freeze the subdivided polys in LightWave and take the polygon count hit in Carrara.

Instead of subdivide, try using fillet.

laynemoore

All very nice work. 3DAGE, if you threw that model together on a whim, I'm going to go sulk in the corner :)

Side note (since it's my thread anyway) -
I've looked all over the internet at other software packages. Like most, I don't have unlimited money so I have to plan purchases thoroughly and sometimes save up. I've been to a few user forums for things like recording software and other visual effects stuff - I've gotta say, this forum is very accepting and genuinely helpful. I just get a really good vibe here. That's a big positive coming from someone who doesn't know anything. So, as sincere as you are in your efforts to help me, please know my gratitude is equally sincere.

3DAGE

Hi all :)

Thanks for the sincerity Layne :) it's appreciated.
there's a very helpful bunch of people here, with lot's of knowledge, and that''s a great resource to have.

Darkwynde :) glad you like.

here's a non smoothed, and smoothed version for comparison.
it's very low poly at this point,. but it was just a quick messing around thing.

laynemoore

Where are YOUR tutorials?

Dartanbeck

laynemoore said:

Where are YOUR tutorials?

Yeah! I'd pay good money for them! You do have a great educational way of illustrating the point, Andy. Where do we need to sign? Tapped right now, but I'd pay in advance. I keep begging Phil Wilkes to do a Carrara How To TV show. Perhaps You(3dage), Holly W, Cripeman, PhilW, Wendy Loves Cats, should have a weekly (or even monthly) TV show. Have it like those News programs with all of you being the hosts in an Anchor room environment all discussing a common topic at the beginning, then each of you break into your own subject for a few minutes before passing the shoe to the next, with an occasional mid spot here and there where you're all back at the anchor room discussing another topic. Get all sorts of Carrara guest gurus in there, Tim Payne,Marcelo Teixiera, Howie Farkes, Mike Moir, Manley Stanley, Koukotsu, Jeffrey Felt, D3an, Magaremoto, 3DLust, Age of Armor, Hunt down Mec4D, get her in there, Mark Bremmer... have a whole show!
(Missing many names, but you get the pint, right?)

Poop. I'm going on again, huh.
I sure am grateful for you helpful folks around here Andy, I really am! Just prior to the release of C8, I barely new which button to push.
Thanks, all of you!
Wow...
go from carrying on to getting all sappy... What ARE you gonna do with me?