Starters for 10... I'm British, sorry. It's a line from a UK quiz-show called 'University Chalenge'.
(The quiz master first asks a starter question which awards a correct answer with 10 points. Hense 'starters for 10'...
...anyway...
1. How do you make your textures?
Technique, mouse only. If you're working with organic textures, you're best off stiking with the default textures and monipulating them.
As far as more mecanical stuff goes, my prosses goes something like this...
The sort of texture I produce is normaly effected by two factors. The first is what the final image will be used for (this effects the detail level, colours, etc. of the texture) And the second is what the actual shape of the modle is its self (eg, it's pointless putting an organic texture on a blocky, squared off vessel, because it just won't look right. Some things just fit, it's kind of hard to verbalise. I think it's just an intuitive thing.)
In the case of a texture such as the ones in 'composite ship', I start by producing an outline for the more hard edged bits in Illustrator, pannels, logos, vents etc. The shapes of these elements are normaly informed or lifted from the shapes of the model.
This done, I'll import the texture into Photoshop and add graines, dirt, bullet holes, that sort of thing. A make a habit of producing square documents, all the frames that you fllow imported textures into in Bryce are always square. I don't know weather it makes any difference, but through force of habbit, it's the way I work. It also helps the textures to wrap at the edges.
That's another iportant thing, where possible, try to make a line that flowes off the edge of a texture, flow back on, on the opposit side, it makes tiling easier.
REALISOM, don't be too presiouse with your textures, make them dirty, leave in the poverbial thumb print, it gives textures an earthy quality. The people who produce the graphics for StarTrek do the same thing, through trial and error, they have found that imperfect models look more realistic than highly polished ones.
2. How do you get your textures to line up just so?
Trial and error mainly, though the more you fiddle on one project, you lern how to do things quiker, and after a while you gain an instinktive feel for wrapping textures. Sorry I can't be more helpfull.
One thing though, If your trying to match up pict textures in bryce, try using the different wrapping methods on the component texture windows in the textures editor console (the four smaller windows down the right of the screen marked A B C & D) There in the pull down menu. Also for fine tuning, open the editor. It's the green button on the top left corner on each of the A to D windows. They give you the option of scaling, rotaiting and shifting the textures around the serface of the object.
3. How do you do your modelling?
Infini-D, mostly using the Spline editor, some fine tuning in the mesh editor. My best models are a combination of both. The other thing to do is up the mesh resolution, I do it automaticaly, so I'm not entirly sure where it is, but I think it's in the preferences menu.
If you look at ships like the ones on 'composite ship', the central frames are made up of no more than about 60 polygones. I produced these models spasificaly to look like computer game models, so I relied heavily on implied detail using the textures, it's possible to make a modle look far more detailed than it actualy is, just through clever use of textures. The way I made these mods was to produce a simple 2D spline profile view (like a cilinder, but with nobs on) in infini-d, converted that into a VERY simple mesh and then pulled the resulting points around until I had the desired effect.
4. How'd you get some of those special effects?
The warp gate was produced by pasting one of the default textures (I think it was a cloud type, semi-transparent one) onto a cone in Bryce in such a way that the distortions got more intence, the closer you got to the pointy end. The cone was then rotated to the desired angle so that the camera was placed inside the cone, pointing into it, and then rendered by its self (the ships and the space scape were rendered separatly). Then with heavy use of the effects asigned to layers in photoshop, and layer masking if memory serves me correctly, I produced the image you see there. (just for reference both this image a the 'dogfight' image are part of on panorama that was eight feet wide. It was part of my degree presentation. It is BLŘŘDY big!)
The engin flares are just simple layer effects in Photoshop (Layer effect: Multiply, I think) and then several of the same layer staked up on each other to produce the saturated colours you see there.
The important thing to remember is that it's not what you use, but how you use it.
5. Any tips on general rendering realism?
See the texures bit above and the rendering tips in the post one or two up the string.
6. If it's a detail, tell me how you thought of it and executed it.
Heavy experimentation and many many hours infront of a Mac, is all I have to go on (it's what I do for a living, so I had no choice but to get good realy, and I'm only 21 too!) also see the hint and tip posted earlier.
7. How do you import from Infini-D without getting a whole bunch of facets?
by upping the mesh resolution (see above), be carfull though, this is VERY memory intencive.
I hope this is of some help, if not, come back with more questions after trying the above.
Any more for any more?
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PED
new media, new ideas.
"Palm Pilot, that sounds like a w@nking machine!" Brian Blessed
(This message has been edited by Hudson (edited 12-15-2000).)
(reference: that complex ship in fleet...but not limited to that)
