Ambrosia Garden Archive
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    • strata questions

       EV Developer's Corner
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      I'm learning Strata (3.0, thanks Jules!) and I've got several questions:

      1. I have a highly curved shape, is there some way to apply one texture to the concave face, and another to the opposing convex face?

      2. I don't have Photoshop, are there any free/cheap programs I can use to make my own textures, or any web resources that I could download from (I already have the ones from Ewan's Lair--again, thanks!)

      3. Symmetry1: tutoritals talk about a mirror function to replicate objects, I can't find it

      4. Symmetry2: lets say I want to make a sphere with uniform dimples (like a golf ball), is there anyway to do this better than reshaping and pulling point by point with low gravity? There's not enough points, and doing by hand makes them all uneven.

      Sorry for the length/many topics, beautiful work you all do in the image gallery.
      Thanks in advance....

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      I am not a beautiful, unique snowflake.

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      Quote

      Originally posted by zero_gravity:
      **I'm learning Strata (3.0, thanks Jules!) and I've got several questions:

      1. I have a highly curved shape, is there some way to apply one texture to the concave face, and another to the opposing convex face?

      2. I don't have Photoshop, are there any free/cheap programs I can use to make my own textures, or any web resources that I could download from (I already have the ones from Ewan's Lair--again, thanks!)

      3. Symmetry1: tutoritals talk about a mirror function to replicate objects, I can't find it

      4. Symmetry2: lets say I want to make a sphere with uniform dimples (like a golf ball), is there anyway to do this better than reshaping and pulling point by point with low gravity? There's not enough points, and doing by hand makes them all uneven.

      Sorry for the length/many topics, beautiful work you all do in the image gallery.
      Thanks in advance....

      **

      1. Yes, but I'd have to go mess with Strata to be able to explain it any good. And right now my comp is a $500 paperweight, so I can't help there.

      2.I haven't found any, if you do, please tell me too! 🙂

      3.That's because there isn't one in Strata 3.0. What you need to do, is duplicate the object/group you want mirror and change the dimensions to negative. For example, if you wanted the "mirror" to be a vertical wall on the x-axis, then you make the x dimension of the copy negative.

      4.You might want to try use anti-matter shperes, but those slow renders down and aren't really that great. I'd just recommend making the sphere a bezier/polygon mesh and adding points as necessary. While the depths of the dimples won't be exactly even, you should be able to get it close enough so that it doesn't matter.

      (edit)Almost forgot! Good luck modelling and have fun with it! 😄

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      (This message has been edited by Ernimtir (edited 06-17-2003).)

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      from what I've heard, (url="http://"http://www.gimp.org")Gimp(/url) is a great, free alternative to photoshop. I haven't tried it, but you might look into it. It's available for Mac.

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      Quote

      Originally posted by zero_gravity:
      **1) I have a highly curved shape, is there some way to apply one texture to the concave face, and another to the opposing convex face?

      1. I don't have Photoshop, are there any free/cheap programs I can use to make my own textures, or any web resources that I could download from (I already have the ones from Ewan's Lair--again, thanks!)

      2. Symmetry1: tutoritals talk about a mirror function to replicate objects, I can't find it

      3. Symmetry2: lets say I want to make a sphere with uniform dimples (like a golf ball), is there anyway to do this better than reshaping and pulling point by point with low gravity? There's not enough points, and doing by hand makes them all uneven.**

      Ok...

      1. Yes, although Ive never been able to manage this satisfactorally (is htt even a word?) enough to use it. I will have a look at strata later and write up how to do it.

      2. (url="http://"http://download.com.com/3120-20-0.html?qt=Graphic+Converter&tg;=dl-2003&search;=+Go!+")Graphic Converter(/url) is pretty good... Its the top two on that link.

      3. Not in 3.0.2 free :frown:

      4. The easiest way is through texturing. Make up the dimple (make them quite high res), and put it into the texture as the bump map.

      ewan

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      (This message has been edited by Jules (edited 06-18-2003).)

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      it sounds like I need to learn a lot more about texturing (I have no clue what a bump map is). Thanks for the advice all, I'll check out those downloads and see how it goes. If I can get funding together perhaps I'll invest in real software.

      One more texturing question, if I download other people's models, is there some way to import their textures and save them for future use? And, if so, would you all consider it unethical?
      Thanks.

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      I am not a beautiful, unique snowflake.

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      I dunno... just ask the people first, unless it is specifically said that anyone can use them. Just try making your own... it's ten times more satisfying.

      Quick Answers:

      A bump map is a black and white (or grayscale) texture that a rendering program uses to give a surface extra texture... hard to explain. Basically, darker bits will be indented, and lighter will be flat. This is how people add an extra dimension to their models. As Meowx says "If you want it to look real, use a bump map." "But what if..." "No! If you want it to look real, use a BUMP MAP."

      Speaking of which, Meowx's site has a decent guide to texturing which will get you onto the basics of it all, but not really the specifics, and it's geared towards photoshop. Tycho (This guy is the king when it comes to texturing) has some good advice and inspirational textures that should get your creative juices going... I don't know the exact links, but someone will...

      Good luck, and stick with it!

      ~A~

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      "How can I make it go faster?" -Me-

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      Okay, I was just browsing down the other topics, and someone mentioned onyx's website (He's Tycho, don't get confused here :)) so here's the link: (url="http://"http://www.pacifier.com/~kkey/shipyard/index.html")http://www.pacifier....yard/index.html(/url)

      It has some old ships of his that you can download, but just take a look at the textures, and if you look through you should find the texturing bit... it's worth it.

      ~A~

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      "How can I make it go faster?" -Me-

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      You all probably know this one, but just in case, StrataCafe has a whole bunch of free texture downloads: (url="http://"http://www.stratacafe.com/textures/textures.asp")http://www.stratacaf...es/textures.asp(/url)

      I know how to turn a PICT into a surface map, but is there anyway to actually convert a PICT file into a strata texture file (I think its .sft), so I don't have to create a new texture everytime I want to use one? I'm guessing this is what GraphicConverter does, but I haven't had a chance to check it out yet. Thanks.....

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      I am not a beautiful, unique snowflake.

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      Not really, but once you make a texture you can export it to a .sft file (or whatever it's called) and import that into another model.

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      you don't even have to import to another model. I don't really remember how, but I think you export the texture to your Strata texture folder and then it will show up in that texture bar. If you make folders in the folder, you'll end up w/ tabs. I think. Jules can probably tell you.

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