I am posting this on the EV NOVA board too. What programs can I use to make animations, like the ones for ships. (RLË8's) I use strata 3D base, but I can't find any programs that can make animations. Also, how do I make them once I have the right application?

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"Foolish is he who plays twister on the stairs"
(url="http://"mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com")mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com(/url)saaciplank@hotmail.com

If you can find a copy of Infini-D, my Shipbuilder's Guide has detailed instructions on ship animation with Infini-D 3.1 (because that's what I have)

Divals

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Never, ever argue with a conservative. They'll pull you down to their level and then beat you with experience and lack of logic.
Ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?
(url="http://"mailto:micahg@microserve.net")mailto:micahg@microserve.net(/url)micahg@microserve.net

Thanks. Does it cost, or is it freeware. Or even a version with some limitations. Also, WHERE can i get it. thanks. i am assuming i email you to get a copy of this animations manual?

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"Foolish is he who plays twister on the stairs"
(url="http://"mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com")mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com(/url)saaciplank@hotmail.com

Well, Infini-D is actually a pretty old program. It's no longer sold, but you should be able to find it on either ebay or a warez site (don't look at me!)

As for the guide, you can download that from the ev/evo addons page.

Divals

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Never, ever argue with a conservative. They'll pull you down to their level and then beat you with experience and lack of logic.
Ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?
(url="http://"mailto:micahg@microserve.net")mailto:micahg@microserve.net(/url)micahg@microserve.net

How similar is version 4.5 to version 3.1? I just found a (hrrm)copy of 4.5 lying around (hrrm) and figured I might give it a try with that. (I've used bryce for all of my stuff so far) Any idea how different the two versions are?

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
"No matter how much you polish a piece of crap, the best you can hope for is a shiny piece of crap."- Mac journalist discussing the delayed release of Win XP

Thier interfaces are quite different, but their capabilities and ways of working are similar. The differences are mostly cosmetic - different layout, different buttons, some different menu shortcuts, and the like; it took me a while to adjust to 4.x from the demo of 3.x, but the newer versions do have capabilities that the older ones don't.

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Unfortunately, you cannot do animations in strata 3d base, that is one of the disabled features for the free version. you can, however do them in (url="http://"ftp://cdrom.digitalriver.com/pub/strata3/Strata3D_302_Installer.sit")3.0.2.(/url)

SpacePirate

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Prepare to be disabled and boarded!
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/infernomsh")Inferno Studios(/url)

You cannot use animation tools, but with a lot of effort and screenshots, you can make a fast moving RLE8. I have made a fully rotating ship now doing this.

1. I created the ship graphic on Strata 3D base
2. I used the CAMERA tool to focus at the right angle, and then rendered
3. I took a screenshot (save as quicktime movie), and then rotated the image. I then rendered again.
4. I kept repeating stage 3 until I had enough screenshots to make a small ship animation. I used quickeditor to import all the clips into one movei file, and then played back the animation sequence. When I was happy with it, I saved it.
5. I used sprites (novatools) to convert the movie into a pict sprite layout. I then used ENRLE (nova tools) to make the sprite layout into a Shän resource. I edited the shän resource to my liking, and then imported it into the plugin.

IT WORKS!!!! Try it Strata 3D base users. A simple, and free way to make ship animations.

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"Foolish is he who plays twister on the stairs"
(url="http://"mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com")mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com(/url)saaciplank@hotmail.com

I have tried using Strata 3D 3.0.2 but for some reason I cant use sprites with the saved animations. I used my method above with Strata 3D BASE 3.5 and it worked fine. All you people who have allways wanted to make your own graphics, click (url="http://"http://www.strata.com")here(/url) and click on products, then Strata 3D, then download Strata 3D base. After downloading, click (url="http://"http://register.strata.com")here(/url) and and register for Strata 3D base macitosh. After registering the application (completely free) you can follow the instructions in the above post, to make your own ship animation.
i hope my little tutorial for basic ship animations has been useful!

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"Foolish is he who plays twister on the stairs"
(url="http://"mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com")mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com(/url)saaciplank@hotmail.com

POVRay! POVRay! POVRay!

Matrix

P.S. (url="http://"http://www.povray.org")www.povray.org(/url)

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Here is a guide to make the sprites in strata 3d 3.0.2, in case anyone cares...
It worked for me, you can thank jules
(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/ewanc/tutorial.html")http://homepage.mac....c/tutorial.html(/url)

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Prepare to be disabled and boarded!
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/infernomsh")Inferno Studios(/url)

kool, thanx. even simpler.

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"Foolish is he who plays twister on the stairs"
(url="http://"mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com")mailto:saaciplank@hotmail.com(/url)saaciplank@hotmail.com

Spring for Lightwave. You could try Maya PLE (bad modeler though). But lightwave is worth the now reduced price (If you can get a student version, it aint bad at all). Some like mechanisto, and pixels is a good program. But if you got the scratch, Lightwave is the best, hands down, for ship modeling/rendering.
Joe

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