I made a few sprites by having mechanisto render 36 teeny weeny images and compiling them into a big file, but that is time consuming even with a very simple ship. The rendering part, that is.

Now I have come to a point where I must make sprites for a few very very complex models. It will take hours to render 36 images of one of them, so I was hoping for a way to render one, duplicate it several times and rotate it. How, more specifically, woud l go about doing such a thing?

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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)

Remember that you are a unique individual - just like everybody else.

If you don't make 36 separate images, the shadow won't change, and so it will look like the light source is moving with the ship. Set the computer rendering sometime when you won't need it for a while.

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"There is enough life on earth to fill fifty planets. Be prepared for anything."
K-Pax
(url="http://"http://www.adventuredog.f2s.com")Adventure Dog(/url)

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I have come to a point where I must make sprites for a few very very complex models. It will take hours to render 36 images of one of them, so I was hoping for a way to render one, duplicate it several times and rotate it. How, more specifically, woud l go about doing such a thing?

You're right, it would take forever to do that. I have at least a partial solution though.
I don't have any experience with Mechanisto (I use Strata3D), but it should render movies. Now, to make a sprite file:
Set the frames per second to 36 and make the movie length one second (There should be 37 frames). Now you should manipulate your model so that it rotates 90 degrees every quarter-second and on the 37th second it returns to it's original position (facing straight up). Then render the movie so that the movie only includes frames 1-36.
Sorry if you can't do this, perhaps a Mechanisto user can give you details.

Now to make your sprite file, you need to download (url="http://"http://www.sutherland-studios.com.au/family/evo_software.html")Movies2Sprites(/url). Movies2Sprites makes sprite & mask files out of Quicktime moviesŃall you have to do is specify the size of each square and the name of the files. Read the instructions for details.
So that's how you make a sprite file. By the way, if you can't make a movie, render those 36 images (rotating as was told above) as PICT files, and instead of downloading Movies2Sprites, download PICTs2Sprites instead. PICTs2Sprites makes a sprite and mask file out of a folder of PICT files. It's available at the same web site as Movies2Sprites.

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ŃCafall

(This message has been edited by Cafall (edited 12-08-2001).)

Yes, I know how to make sprites that way. I was hoping for a faster solution, but I forgot to consider lighting. sigh I thought modelling would be the hard part, but it seems that taking that model and making it ready for use in the game is much harder and time-consuming.

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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)

"A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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Originally posted by ares1:
**I made a few sprites by having mechanisto render 36 teeny weeny images and compiling them into a big file, but that is time consuming even with a very simple ship. The rendering part, that is.

Now I have come to a point where I must make sprites for a few very very complex models. It will take hours to render 36 images of one of them, so I was hoping for a way to render one, duplicate it several times and rotate it. How, more specifically, woud l go about doing such a thing?

**

Render all 36. You spent all that time on the model, you want the proper lighting to show it off.

Seriously, talk to some folks who do full screen ray-traced stuff -- drop by the Bryce Forum or Renderosity web-board sometime -- and you'll find all-night renders are practically a norm. What I often do for an animation is set up the render before I go to work; then it's got 8 hours and change to render and I'm not using the computer anyway. I also set up another computer at work, although I haven't used it yet; that one I can run all night without it keeping anyone awake.

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

Quote

Originally posted by ares1:
**I made a few sprites by having mechanisto render 36 teeny weeny images and compiling them into a big file, but that is time consuming even with a very simple ship. The rendering part, that is.

Now I have come to a point where I must make sprites for a few very very complex models. It will take hours to render 36 images of one of them, so I was hoping for a way to render one, duplicate it several times and rotate it. How, more specifically, woud l go about doing such a thing?

**

Well if each sprite image is in fact 'teeny-weeny' as you said, you've turned off all the things that you probably can't see at the small scale, like really complex tiny bump maps and so forth, right, and maybe even deleted various little greebles on the bottom of the ship that can't be seen in the ship's rotation ? Does Machanisto have variable anti alias settings? If you've cranked them up way high perhaps the image would be able to tolerate a slight decrease? Well, I suppose you've already thought of these things.

I'm not a total expert with 3d rendering, but I wonder, do you have a whole lot of light sources in the scene, all casting shadows? That would probably take up a lot of time renderwise.

Sorry if you've already done these things.