OK... I'm working on an EVN plug that is going to end up needing a good deal of custom-made graphics - about 200 ships, 100 or 150 weaps, plus a few stations and landing picts and god knows what else.
I have a very tiny amount of experience in working with 3D graphics; I could probably make some of the ships myself if I wanted to, but it might be a lot better to leave it up to people who do this stuff regularly.
Money is somewhat, but not hugely limited - I could dish out a few hundreds whether it be to developers or for a graphics program. So, from someone who knows:
()Roughly how much time might it take to make each ship / weap?
()About how much would people charge for them to make graphics for me?
(*)Is making some of my own graphics at all a reasonable idea?
Thanks in advance to all ~

------------------
—Joolzman5, that guy with the spikey red hair.
Those who say money is the root of all evil don't have any.
“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass — and I’m just the one to do it.”

Hmmm...a few hundreds you say?
I work regularly with lightwave and I post a lot of stuff on the image gallery. Most ships on average take me around 3 hours to create, fighters and capitol ships alike. I should hope that soon I will be getting lightwave 6.5 soon, so my graphics should improve alot.
As for charging? It really all depends how much time, energy and agrivation has been put into it. If its for instance, a cannon that took like, 30 minutes, it would be low, something like my Titan would go very high, cuz that took me 8 hours (re-make included) Hmm...my price range would be something like...

50 cents to 5 or 10 dollars for sprites/icons/outfitpics/hailing pics/scanpics

I can do intro pics, w/nebulas, ships, weapons, outfits, scan pics staitons etc...but I cant do planets or landing pics

about making your own graphics: It took me a year or more to learn lightwave...but other programs like infini-d you can learn in a month or so. Take Captain Skyblade for example. He has recently been cranking out really good-looking ships out of infini-d. it is said that nova would be coming out in roughly a month or two, so you would have some time to prepare. But, 200 ships, and such is a little high... normally, tc plugins have 90 max ships. My advice would be to lower your amount to produce(mainly because all the ships would begin being redundant, plus it would take forever to make a plug that big) make your own "plugin company" and get a whole bunch of people together. to work on it. Dont count on making graphics unless you want to spend the time to. it takes lots of time, plus they are very expensive (ranging from 100-3800$)

The only thing, is, im currently working on a plug of my own, so i could not divert all of my time to working with you. E-mail me.

------------------
o jsyr upi s;;. o vsmy dysmf upit moy(ovlomh esud pg frhtsfomh ,u eptl gpt ejsy oy od./ o eodj upi s;; epi;f kidy ;rsbr ,u s;pmr/ tssssssssssss

(This message has been edited by Admiral Zombat (edited 08-01-2001).)

I am currently working on the graphics for another plugin. I would be willing to do this, without pay, as i enjoy it. My time is limited, and I would not be able to make 200 ships. I can use a host of diferent modeling programs (lightwave 6.5 kicks ass man, get it soon, incidentally i havent done many ship models in lightwave, but now would be a good time to try.) If you need landing pix, I can generally do them, though, i often find that they can be much more time consuming than the ships themselves. I would be willing to do whatever i can. If you want me to, e-mail me at jdh545@yahoo.com, include concept art or a general description of a ship, if you would like to see what i can come up with. I can do basicly anything, though there might be others with more expierence with ship modeling. If you are intrested send me an e-mail. And dude 200 ships would kick ass, create a true expansive feeling in the universe, but if i may make a sugestion, it may be better to ask each graphical artist to design the ships, weapons, outfits, spobs and stations, and landing pics for a given race, this way the graphics would remain constant for a given race. This also might be intresting in that it would create truely different design styles for the different races, having a large variety of designs. However with 200 ships, You could have like 20 different races with 10 ships each. Or 10 major races with 20 ships. That is a ton of design.
-Joe

------------------

I would also be willing to help (for free but if you want to you can pay me. I have nothing against that). But I'm not that great....the reason is that I could use the experience. Also you can get Infini-D for $30 I forgot the URL but I'll try to find it. An example of my latest work is (url="http://"http://www.reech.f2s.com/diesel.jpg")here.(/url) It's not done yet. I have to do a couple more dealies with it so yeah.......

ImmortalFirefly

------------------
Reech is coming.
Get ready for it.

OK - I was in fact already thinking of splitting up graphics between several people, and I think I'll do that. I'll email each of you with a description of one kind of ship (different ships for each) to see what it looks like, if that's OK.

(If more people are willing to do graphics for me, you can still post here - thx)

Thank you very much all!

------------------
—Joolzman5, that guy with the spikey red hair.
Those who say money is the root of all evil don't have any.
“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass — and I’m just the one to do it.”

Quote

Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
**but other programs like infini-d you can learn in a month or so. Take Captain Skyblade for example. He has recently been cranking out really good-looking ships out of infini-d.

**

I'm honored.Glad to hear my images have earned a good reputation.

I couldn't create all the ships Joolzman, but I'd be happy to make a set or two for a few of your governments if you like. Free of charge.

------------------
~Captain Skyblade

(url="http://"http://members.home.net/e-gamerguy1/ev/bfs2/TheUnfinishedWarMap.jpg")Map(/url) | (url="http://"http://members.home.net/e-gamerguy1/ev/bfs2/human/HumanConfederationWeapons.html")Human Confederation Weapons(/url) | (url="http://"http://members.home.net/e-gamerguy1/ev/bfs2/pirate/PirateWeapons.html")Pirate Weapons(/url) | (url="http://"http://members.home.net/e-gamerguy1/ev/bfs2/alien/AlienWeapons.html")Alien Weapons(/url)
(url="http://"http://members.home.net/e-gamerguy1/ev/bfs2/human/HumanConfederationShipyard.html")Human Confederacy Shipyard(/url) | (url="http://"http://members.home.net/e-gamerguy1/ev/bfs2/pirate/PirateShipyard.html")Pirate Shipyard(/url) | (url="http://"http://members.home.net/e-gamerguy1/ev/bfs2/alien/AlienShipyard.html")Alien Empire Shipyard(/url)

i suppose i could do a few now that i'm done with the ships for the first steps from earth. i mainly use infini-d, which i've finally figured out after over a year of trying, giving up, and using mechanisto (i did cave and read the manual once, but i only read one section). let me see what kinda stuff you're looking for before i tell you how much i can do. to answer your questions:

1. on some days i pushed up as high as 6+ ships or 10+ outfits per day when working on the first steps from earth, but it doesn't have the big pics that nova does, so it's not quite as time consuming (expect a day or two of 1-2 ships, increasing over a few days to about 4-5 per day). of course, this is for a plug which has been ignored by all, myself included, so i wasn't exactly motivated to work quickly
2. people will charge what they want. if i'm going to spend a several hours shouting at my computer b/c it's not being nice to me, i'd like to at least get a meal out of it, but if things go well and i get into a nice swing it can be pretty fun to do. that said, prices will probably range from 0-$10 per model
3. making your own graphics is quite reasonable. i had never done any kind of graphics beyond a few sketches when i started making ev graphics. i made some pretty crappy stuff and also some fairly decent stuff early on. but once you find your rhythm, you can do all kinds of graphics w/ relatively little trouble. of course, any help you can get is great; the only reason i did all my graphics was that nobody else wanted to, and on a project this size you'd probably take a month or more of nothing but graphics. but if you're up to it, it does feel pretty good to finally finish all your ships and be able to say "i did all that myself"

------------------
if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

I'll probably dump some work on the two of you, then...

nighthawk: there's no way in hell i'm gonna do all the graphics myself.

------------------
—Joolzman5, that guy with the spikey red hair.
Those who say money is the root of all evil don't have any.
“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass — and I’m just the one to do it.”

Cool. Now we all doing work. BTW, sorry I did not get in the missle last night, I had to go to an concert. At the moment, it is almost finished with the modelling stage.

------------------
o jsyr upi s;;. o vsmy dysmf upit moy(ovlomh esud pg frhtsfomh ,u eptl gpt ejsy oy od./ o eodj upi s;; epi;f kidy ;rsbr ,u s;pmr/ tssssssssssss

Two things...

First, you might want to wait before diving into plugin making because the newer engine may need a lot of different approaches to plugin making. It will be especially hard because in order to make a good plugin your ships will have to look real good, because the EVN ships on the original scenerio kick butt.

Second, I am a C++ programmer, and web designer but I'm trying to learn how to do good 3-d graphics so I can make EVN plugins myself. It would be kindove nice if I could practice on my 3-d skills using some of your ideas. I'm sure the results won't be good, because I only have Bryce and StrataVision but I'd like to try anyway. (and of coarse i'm definitly not charging)

So please send me some ship ideas, and I'll see what I can do.

------------------
"If you can't take a little bloody nose—maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous—with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross—but it's not for the timid."
- Q

This good enough for oyu, Buii?
(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/nocternal_supremacy/.Pictures/missle.jpg")http://homepage.mac....ures/missle.jpg(/url)

he asked me to do a missle typed thing. this is what i sent back.

------------------
Whats small and green
and grows in towers
if you want it big
it takes more than hours

(quote)Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
This good enough for oyu, Buii?:D Fk yeah.

And jdh545 are you still here? Did you get my email?

------------------
—Joolzman5, that guy with the spikey red hair.
Those who say money is the root of all evil don't have any.
“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass — and I’m just the one to do it.”

(This message has been edited by Joolzman5 (edited 08-03-2001).)
**

Quote

Originally posted by Buii:
**First, you might want to wait before diving into plugin making because the newer engine may need a lot of different approaches to plugin making. It will be especially hard because in order to make a good plugin your ships will have to look real good, because the EVN ships on the original scenerio kick butt.

**

True... but... waiting for EVN to come out won't influence it all that much. Plus, there's some graphics designers with 1337 sk1llz here.

As for the plug itself, I'm probably gonna be remaking it a couple times, but hey! That's life. I've got a couple outlines done anyhow, so I know what I want in general.

------------------
—Joolzman5, that guy with the spikey red hair.
Those who say money is the root of all evil don't have any.
“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass — and I’m just the one to do it.”

Quote

Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
This good enough for you?

Well, the bump mapping is a bit overdone...
You did ask.

I do like the shape, though.

------------------
(Insert Signature Here)

yea sorry i havent had a chance to do the model yet, i had to do some graphial work for the e-mail client that we are designing over here (I work at an isp.) hopefully i will be able to do it over the week end. By the way, that missile kicks ass, Liightwave? Ill try to get it all done as soon as i can sorry for the delay. I may send you some of the stuff i have already done. By the way, would you be intrested in any landscape pics for the landings as well, i can send some of that to you as well.
-Joe

------------------

No problemo, there's no rush...

------------------
—Joolzman5, that guy with the spikey red hair.
Those who say money is the root of all evil don't have any.
“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass — and I’m just the one to do it.”

If you want to make a TC that really sticks out, then you need to think probably more about non-ship graphics than about hundreds of ship graphics. Personally I think fifty different kinds of ship is way more than most stories will ever need, although if you're big into multi-governments you might want to a bit higher.

On the other hand, having outfits that look totally different from anything in any other game will mean a lot.

Landing pics get looked at far more closely than ship graphics. If you create fifty ships you'll probably want ten times as many planets, and the more unique you can make each one, the more they will stick out.

Remaking the interface is (I think) becoming a must for a TC, and you might then want to think about redoing the explosions and the weapon graphics to stamp your own mark on the universe.

Just my thoughts.

Martin

------------------
M A R T I N • T U R N E R

All right all right I was wrong, I grossly overestimated the number of different ships I would need. Looking back over my outline, I'll only have about 100. I don't know where I came up with 200; maybe I was thinking of number of systs instead.

Martin Turner - Yes you have a number of points. Indeed one of the main points of this plug is quite a number of different governments and ships (something I personally like).

However when you say "Landing pics get looked far more closely than ship graphics," I'd have to disagree to some extent. I'm sure there are many people like you who vastly appreciate quality in landing picts more than ship graphics, but I, although I do consider landing pics important, don't appreciate them as much as some others do; I'm sure there are plenty of people like myself in that respect as well.

I'm definitely going to have remade explosions / weapons / interfaces in my plug, and (correct me if I'm wrong) other than the weapons, I think that will end up needing a lot less work.

Don't worry, while I say all this, I take any advice from the likes of you to heart.

------------------
—Joolzman5, that guy with the spikey red hair.
Those who say money is the root of all evil don't have any.
“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass — and I’m just the one to do it.”

Normally I would voulenteer to help you with graphics, but seeing as how school is starting soon, I won't have much time.
-----------
Do you need "organic" graphics for any of your governments? I know that a lot of people find it easy to make "mechanical" graphics and hard(er) to make "oorganic" graphics.(myself included, and not to say there isn't anyone who has it the other way around or does both easily) If you need "organic" graphics in your plug, you may heve to ask specifically for someone with skills to do "organic" graphics. Just a tip.

-Kevin

------------------
Check out the brand new (url="http://"http://pub101.ezboard.com/bstarbasedelta")Starbase Delta(/url) webboard.
Feel free to contact me on AIM or ICQ, for any reason at all, it doesn't really matter.