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Originally posted by ares1:
I've gone through the tutorial about 5 times, and everytime I do it it doesn't look the same as yours.

Hmm... My apologies! The only thing I can suggest is that you weren't meant to to taper the second group, the one that makes up the real of the ship; perhaps I could have made that more clear. I would try to go through my instructions myself and figure out where I went wrong, but since I knew what I meant that probly wouldn't work. Does anyone have any specific points where the instructions were confusing or wrong?

Anyways, it looks like you don't need me anymore! You're away and experimenting on your own. Maybe I'll just finish the tutorial for future generations...

Oh and Macavenger, did you read the Mechanisto documentation and the Dossier Mechanisto helper? Those things explain the basics, probably better than I could do.

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Originally posted by ares1:
Hey, do you know where I might find some ev-ish textures?

Make your own! Stock textures look terrible on Mechanisto ships.

I added a tutorial on making wings to the (url="http://"http://home.earthlink.net/~squibix/ev/")site(/url) if anyone is interested. The model currently looks like this:

Hey, Squibix, I am still very interested in reading the rest of your tutorials. As soon as I am done with this post, I will go through the first again and then the new tutorial.

Keep up the good work.

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--ares
(url="http://"http://www.saberstudios.f2s.com/")Saber Studios(/url)::(url="http://"http://home.cfl.rr.com/aresev/")The Legion(/url)

I made the "ship an intro" tutorial work perfectly. My problem was that I was tapering the second group. Thanks.

Ok, I have gone over this over and over... I went through the directions several times, and this is what I keep coming up with. I must be reading it wrong... Look at this and tell me what you think I am doing wrong:

Note: I know that I do not have a decent shader on there yet...

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--ares
(url="http://"http://www.saberstudios.f2s.com/")Saber Studios(/url)::(url="http://"http://home.cfl.rr.com/aresev/")The Legion(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by ares1:
I went through the directions several times, and this is what I keep coming up with.

Hmm... are you trying to make the first wing on the new tutorial? I couldn't get anything like what you came up with... the only thing I can suggest is checking the order on the transforms.

I tell you what. I'll add the wing objects to the tutorial, and you can compare mine to yours. Then, if you can find where either you or my directions went wrong, let me know and I'll rewrite that bit. It's very possible I made a mistake; but like I said, I have a hard time checking cause I know what I meant so even if an instruction is unclear or even wrong I may do the step right anyways.

Okay, I've gone through it a few more times, and it always looks like this. Do you think you can take a look at my scene file? Its right (url="http://"http://home.cfl.rr.com/aresev/scene.sit")here(/url) Take a look and tell me what I have done wrong...

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--ares
(url="http://"http://www.saberstudios.f2s.com/")Saber Studios(/url)::(url="http://"http://home.cfl.rr.com/aresev/")The Legion(/url)

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Originally posted by ares1:
Take a look and tell me what I have done wrong...

The problem is indeed that the transforms are in the wrong order. Take that squashed cylinder, for example; the reason it looks like that is cause you rotated it before you scaled it--that is, the rotate transform is further up the list. Remember that Mechanisto does the transforms in the order they're listed, so unless you're looking for a squahed shape (like those cube ships we saw earlier in this thread) always put a 45 degree rotation after your scale transform.

Hope that helps a bit; I'll write something explaining the situation more clearly later today.

----

I added another section to the tutorial... unfortunately it's not what you were looking for. but don't worry, I'll get to that eventually.

For those of you following along at home the tutorial ship now looks like (url="http://"http://home.earthlink.net/~squibix/ev/shipdem/3-5.jpg")this(/url).

(This message has been edited by Squibix (edited 10-23-2001).)

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Originally posted by Squibix:
(like those cube ships we saw earlier in this thread)

Those would be mine you're referring to, correct?

I've been working on that a bit more, playing with the textures and such. I also finally got a good transition from the rotated squashed part to the plain squashed part.

That's far from the final textures on it now, I'm going to throw in a bit more detail and thenfigure out some good ones to put on. One of the reasons that I have it mottled like that is because the ship is intended to go in a group with some of Skyblade's work seen (url="http://"http://members.home.net/e-gamerguy1/ev/bfs3/hcshipyard.html")here(/url), notably the Carrier, Battlecruiser and Cruiser. Since it's in a group with those, I'm going to matching textures with that as close as I can, or maybe even seeing if I can get some of Skyblade's old ones.

<edit - fixed image tag>

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- Macavenger | e-mail: (url="http://"mailto:e-gamerguy1@home.com")mailto:e-gamerguy1@home.com(/url)e-gamerguy1@home.com

Big improvement, MacAvenger. It looks much better now.

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You would have to be ignorant, derranged, demented, or dead to turn down the oppurtunity to fly an Azdara.
(url="http://"http://www.saberstudios.f2s.com/") Saber Studios (/url)-Your source for original EV/O/N graphics. the Confederation Graphics Expansion Set: Coming soon

<edit - argh, those "Details" boxes seem to hide well... O well, found this one, ignore message :)>

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- Macavenger | e-mail: (url="http://"mailto:e-gamerguy1@home.com")mailto:e-gamerguy1@home.com(/url)e-gamerguy1@home.com

I suggest that you change the texture on the wings. You were probably going to do this anyway... Make a red/grayish black gradient (dominantly red) and do a mottler on that, or turbulence, or noise, or howevery you want to do it. It will go nicely with the wings, because right now the wings sort of stand out. The rest looks amazing, though. Keep up the good work.

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--ares
(url="http://"http://www.saberstudios.f2s.com/")Saber Studios(/url)::(url="http://"http://home.cfl.rr.com/aresev/")The Legion(/url)

Ok, ok... this is driving me nuts. I tried it again, squibix, and I got another messed up.. thingy. (url="http://"http://home.cfl.rr.com/aresev/wingscene.sit")Here(/url) is the project file... I don't quite get what i have done wrong, but I did get confused at the end of the third paragraph. I am not very good at taking directions, but I think that the 3rd paragraph could se simplified a bit. Other than that, it's fine...

Take a look at that project and tell me what you think is wrong...

Note: I have scanned breifly over the newest edition (details) of the ship tutorials, and it looks great. I am glad to see a tutorial for adding guns...

Keep it up.

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--ares
(url="http://"http://www.saberstudios.f2s.com/")Saber Studios(/url)::(url="http://"http://home.cfl.rr.com/aresev/")The Legion(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by ares1:
**I suggest that you change the texture on the wings. You were probably going to do this anyway... Make a red/grayish black gradient (dominantly red) and do a mottler on that, or turbulence, or noise, or howevery you want to do it. It will go nicely with the wings, because right now the wings sort of stand out. The rest looks amazing, though. Keep up the good work.
**

The texturing will be completely redone. Skyblade is going to send me some of his texture files tomorrow, so I can match it up very well to what it's supposed to match, and some of his ships do have mottled red markings, so I'll probably use those on the wings.

Of course, you haven't seen it with the w00t Heavy Rocket Launchers I've added yet. Great detailing tutorial Squibix, that's going to greatly improve what I can do to this thing I think, especially the part about point lights.

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Originally posted by ares1:
Take a look at that project and tell me what you think is wrong...

On your first translate--the one before the rotation--you changed the y az well as the x. Since you then rotated the thing 90 degrees, that meant it was offset in the x direction. You can fix the problem by making the first y translation 0. In general, I recommend always putting initial position the rotations--typically, rotations of 90 or 180 degrees--first, to avoid confusion later on.

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Note: I have scanned breifly over the newest edition (details) of the ship tutorials, and it looks great. I am glad to see a tutorial for adding guns...:p

I knew you'd like that. Thanks!

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Originally posted by Squibix in the tutorial:
One problem with this wing, though, it that the outside edge is a little messy. To fix this, add a new translate transform and make the x value something like '2.4.' Then add a 'scale 2' transform with a +x value of '0', chopping off all the unpleasentness. Unfortunately scale 2 produces its own upleasantness, but this can be dealt with as well. Add another cylinder with hemishperes on both ends (you should have one of these saved for general use) and scale it to .25, .25, .7. Then position it on the end of your wing: a z translation of .25 should do this nicely. Now all that's left is creating a new group for the wing and the pod, and saving it. It should look like this:

When I did an X translate at 2.4, it moved it off the page. Later when I tried ot add the pod, a .25 did not move it to the appropriate place, as the wing was then way off center.

When I did a X+ scale2 at 0, it made the wing turn into a single line. Litterly, it made the wing 1 dimensional.

When I tried to add the pod, I moved it over, but it was not lined up with the wing, because the wing was angled because of the ring transform, and the pod does not line up with it at all. Should I post a project file for you to look at?

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--ares
(url="http://"http://www.saberstudios.f2s.com/")Saber Studios(/url)::(url="http://"http://home.cfl.rr.com/aresev/")The Legion(/url)

Oreste can be found (url="http://"http://perso.wanadoo.fr/vincent.bernard/")here(/url). If you click on the ships link you can see the new ships. There are also some in the screenshots. But, if you go to the 'Other Links' section, you can download several models. They are really small and all include textures.

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Visit my (url="http://"http://www.madman80513.vze.com")Website(/url) -Newly redone
THE PENGUINS! THE PENGUINS! THEY'RE HERE! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Heh...

Ship made last summer... after I saw preliminary designs of the ship (NX-01 Enterprise). Dug up the file after I read the graphics challenge topic and decided to post something here for you new mechanisto users to look at. NOTE: this is somwhat more advanced that what you're doing so try not to ask me how it was made... This is one of the VERY few ships that survived my HD crash a few months back... It's obviously not done... and would need a few more hours of work (full texturing, bump mapping, glow effects, etc...) but it does show some capable modelling on Mechanisto's part (mine too ^_~)

PEACE YO!™ The Mechanisto Master™

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It's ok to be naked, girl... I'm an Artist...
(url="http://"http://home.earthlink.net/~kwanza26")Kwanzasoft Graphics and Design(/url)

(This message has been edited by Kwanzar (edited 10-25-2001).)

Quote

Originally posted by ares1:
< lamentable difficulties>

Oops. You should, of course, have seen that I actually meant ' - 2.4.' :embarassed grin: I'll correct the mistake in the tutorial right away.

And don't listen to Kwanzar, he's just a bit high on himself with all those '™'s.

Kwansar, you want the front of the ship curved, right? Did you forget to make the subdivision higher on the big front disk? About how many objects is that anyways? It looks awesome.

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You would have to be ignorant, derranged, demented, or dead to turn down the oppurtunity to fly an Azdara.
(url="http://"http://www.saberstudios.f2s.com/") Saber Studios (/url)-Your source for original EV/O/N graphics. the Confederation Graphics Expansion Set: Coming soon