not sure where to go...

hi there im a long time player of the series and absoulutely love Nova and have played with rescource files only a little.. changing values on variouse ships for fun and seeing what happens but now that i got my dander up.. can anyone point me in the right direction of a board or way to start creating my own ships.. i.e. changing the appearance and colors? thank you all! i do have the mission computer program and am slowely finding my way through it.. and the nova bible has places where i can start but i still havent found a good handhold yet.. thanks!

Welcome to the boards! You will need a 3D application to create a ship, and a 2D app to texture it. Look at the pinned Member Run FAQ for some free, cheap, and expensive examples of each for your downloading pleasure. You may also enjoy the All the Important links you ever wanted but never asked for (or something like that) thread, which is also pinned. Also, not to be nitpicky, but please strive to use propper grammer and capitalization (and words like strive :)) in your posts. It is really appriciated here. I don't really mind, but down the road you may get flamed by a disgrunteled board member;). Trust me. It HAS happened, many times.
watches back for mods who may have heard that

@cosmic_nusiance, on Aug 7 2007, 05:44 PM, said in im new!:

Welcome to the boards! You will need a 3D application to create a ship, and a 2D app to texture it. Look at the pinned Member Run FAQ for some free, cheap, and expensive examples of each for your downloading pleasure. You may also enjoy the All the Important links you ever wanted but never asked for (or something like that) thread, which is also pinned. Also, not to be nitpicky, but please strive to use propper grammer and capitalization (and words like strive :)) in your posts. It is really appriciated here. I don't really mind, but down the road you may get flamed by a disgrunteled board member;). Trust me. It HAS happened, many times.
watches back for mods who may have heard that

Well thankyou very kindly. I will strive to be more gramatically correct in the future. So will any 3d app work? I only ask this question because i am a 3d modeler with a background in lightwave and photoshop and i wonder if that will work? Creating the ship is only half the battle, but the plugin coding is where i feel im going to struggle as this will be my first attempt into the programming universe.

@ronin4114, on Aug 7 2007, 09:49 PM, said in im new!:

Well thankyou very kindly. I will strive to be more gramatically correct in the future. So will any 3d app work? I only ask this question because i am a 3d modeler with a background in lightwave and photoshop and i wonder if that will work? Creating the ship is only half the battle, but the plugin coding is where i feel im going to struggle as this will be my first attempt into the programming universe.

Oh, sure. I'm pretty sure that there's some guys (gals?) on here using lightwave. The origional graphics were done in Bryce, but many other apps are used such as Blender, Wings3D, etc. Mainly what you are trying to get is a 3D render of the ship spinning, like in the rlëDs in the Data Files. I wouldn't be the best person to ask for a how-to, but there's lots of people who will tell you how, maybe even add it into the game (don't quote me on that, there's also a lot of people who have "better things" to do). Anyway, with a background in Lightwave and PS, I'm sure you'll do fine.
Also, this (<-- click) might help.

This post has been edited by Cosmic_Nusiance : 07 August 2007 - 08:58 PM

@cosmic_nusiance, on Aug 7 2007, 05:57 PM, said in im new!:

Oh, sure. I'm pretty sure that there's some guys (gals?) on here using lightwave. The origional graphics were done in Bryce, but many other apps are used such as Blender, Wings3D, etc. Mainly what you are trying to get is a 3D render of the ship spinning, like in the rlëDs in the Data Files. I wouldn't be the best person to ask for a how-to, but there's lots of people who will tell you how, maybe even add it into the game (don't quote me on that, there's also a lot of people who have "better things" to do). Anyway, with a background in Lightwave and PS, I'm sure you'll do fine.
Also, this (<-- click) might help.

Well that definately helped. That gives me a pretty good idea of how to get started but i still have a billion questions. But there is a time and a place. the only other pressing idea i have is if there is a way to change the onscreen interface like where the radar and current target ship is

@ronin4114, on Aug 7 2007, 10:08 PM, said in im new!:

the only other pressing idea i have is if there is a way to change the onscreen interface like where the radar and current target ship is

Yes, yes and YES! This is the ďntf resource in MC and requires an image file for the side bar. You plug in the numbers for the different fields (radar, weapons, fuel, shields, etc.), and mess around with text colors. You could even shy away from the standard field configuration and have the radar on the bottom, or anywhere you like!

Also: Grammar, Punctuation, bd (thumbs up)

This post has been edited by Cosmic_Nusiance : 07 August 2007 - 11:26 PM

@cosmic_nusiance, on Aug 7 2007, 08:24 PM, said in im new!:

Yes, yes and YES! This is the ďntf resource in MC and requires an image file for the side bar. You plug in the numbers for the different fields (radar, weapons, fuel, shields, etc.), and mess around with text colors. You could even shy away from the standard field configuration and have the radar on the bottom, or anywhere you like!

Also: Grammar, Punctuation, bd (thumbs up)

I hate to sound dumb.. but whats MC?

MC = Mission Computer, which you have.

@mackilroy, on Aug 7 2007, 09:47 PM, said in im new!:

MC = Mission Computer, which you have.

Indeed thankyou, it occured to me after I made the post. So now I have a personal graphics bar on the side. Which is always good but i have deviated from my original path as far as making a personal ship.. all in good time i suppose.

@ronin4114, on Aug 8 2007, 12:31 PM, said in im new!:

Indeed thankyou, it occured to me after I made the post. So now I have a personal graphics bar on the side. Which is always good but i have deviated from my original path as far as making a personal ship.. all in good time i suppose.

Have you actually made one yet? Usually it takes a few hours to figure out the coordinates alone <_< . Not very fun, at that.

Actually, you don't need a 3-D application to make a ship. You can just stitch any image together into 36 frames .pct, convert to a rleD, and use it in Nova (Teacup anyone?). Given, the high quality stuff typically comes from 3-D apps.

@joshtigerheart, on Aug 8 2007, 05:28 PM, said in im new!:

Actually, you don't need a 3-D application to make a ship. You can just stitch any image together into 36 frames .pct, convert to a rleD, and use it in Nova (Teacup anyone?). Given, the high quality stuff typically comes from 3-D apps.

How do i take my 36 images and compile them into a sprite pict?

@ronin4114, on Aug 8 2007, 10:03 PM, said in im new!:

How do i take my 36 images and compile them into a sprite pict?

stares blankly
I... actually don't know. I've never tried.

@cosmic_nusiance, on Aug 8 2007, 07:10 PM, said in im new!:

stares blankly
I... actually don't know. I've never tried.

stares back

Yup me too... But i will keep trying the model building is going well. I have a few different ships already built, but its not reaching that wow factor yet. I'm still working, and i need to texture map them too and that hasn't happend yet.

@ronin4114, on Aug 9 2007, 12:26 AM, said in im new!:

stares back

Yup me too... But i will keep trying the model building is going well. I have a few different ships already built, but its not reaching that wow factor yet. I'm still working, and i need to texture map them too and that hasn't happend yet.

Do you have any screenshots you can post?

@ronin4114, on Aug 8 2007, 09:03 PM, said in im new!:

How do i take my 36 images and compile them into a sprite pict?

I don't have any experience with 3D software, so my only solution would be to get a screenie of it facing up and import the picture into a 2D editor of sorts (Photoshop, GIMP, etc.) Then simply scale, make 35 copies, rotate, and stitch together. Certainly not the easiest way, however, and this would only work for a top-down view properly. There are much easier methods with modeling software, I just don't know them.

this is helping me quite a bit too but I am still trying to understand all this stuff. Is there somthing I can use to make me start with a pir starbridge or somthing without making exsra stuff.

You could copy and edit char 128 in a new plug (I think it's in Nova Data 1). Just change the starting ship I.D. to the one you want.

@cosmic_nusiance, on Aug 8 2007, 08:45 PM, said in im new!:

Do you have any screenshots you can post?

I'll have a few renderd images up tonight I hope. I've been working on two similar lokking ships. I think im going to focus on the later of the two because i like it more.. but in any case ill have it up soon. then its the goal of creating the rotating images. and then the compiling and i still cant seem to get that one figured out

@cosmic_nusiance, on Aug 8 2007, 01:57 PM, said in im new!:

Oh, sure. I'm pretty sure that there's some guys (gals?) on here using lightwave. The origional graphics were done in Bryce...

Heh, actually the original ships were done in Lightwave

@ronin4114, on Aug 9 2007, 02:03 PM, said in im new!:

How do i take my 36 images and compile them into a sprite pict?

NovaTools' Sprites utilities will do this for you.