I've emailed Jules about this a couple days ago but I think I might get a faster response here. (No offence Jules) I've noticed by looking at the shans for the stock ships in Nova that the mask for the engine glow seems to include the ship itself. In other words when the ship is at the point of rotation where it is pointing down and the engine flame is pointing away the part of the engine flame that would be hidden behind the ship is masked out so you see kind of like a silouett of the ship in front of the flame. Now when I try to render the engine glow in strata by making the ship shy or invisible or anti-matter (I've tried several ways) the entire flame is visible when some of it should be hidden by the ship. How do I achieve this effect? Any one know?

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DANGER WILL ROBINSON! MY ARMS ARE FLAILING WILDLY!

Quote

Originally posted by PolarBear:
**I've emailed Jules about this a couple days ago but I think I might get a faster response here. (No offence Jules) I've noticed by looking at the shans for the stock ships in Nova that the mask for the engine glow seems to include the ship itself. In other words when the ship is at the point of rotation where it is pointing down and the engine flame is pointing away the part of the engine flame that would be hidden behind the ship is masked out so you see kind of like a silouett of the ship in front of the flame. Now when I try to render the engine glow in strata by making the ship shy or invisible or anti-matter (I've tried several ways) the entire flame is visible when some of it should be hidden by the ship. How do I achieve this effect? Any one know?

**

you turn the ship black when you render it so that while it doesn't show up in the render, it does block out flames as they should be.

(EDIT)I don't know how it is in Strata, but you might have to duplicate the file(s) for the ship so that you don't mess up the "master" of the ship. In POV-Ray, you'd simply make all your pigments tied into a declare statement so that you can easily make all the pigments either ready for your master "beauty" pass, or black for you engine glows, and your lights.(/EDIT)

Matrix

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

(This message has been edited by what_is_the_matrix (edited 03-12-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
**you turn the ship black when you render it so that while it doesn't show up in the render, it does block out flames as they should be.

(EDIT)I don't know how it is in Strata, but you might have to duplicate the file(s) for the ship so that you don't mess up the "master" of the ship. In POV-Ray, you'd simply make all your pigments tied into a declare statement so that you can easily make all the pigments either ready for your master "beauty" pass, or black for you engine glows, and your lights.

Matrix

**

Thanks. I was afraid that would be it. Making a copy is a good idea though. I didn't want to try making the ship black because restoring it's normal texture is a pain in the butt. I thought there's got to be some easier way. Oh well guess not.

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DANGER WILL ROBINSON! MY ARMS ARE FLAILING WILDLY!

Quote

Originally posted by PolarBear:
**Thanks. I was afraid that would be it. Making a copy is a good idea though. I didn't want to try making the ship black because restoring it's normal texture is a pain in the butt. I thought there's got to be some easier way. Oh well guess not.

**

There might be, again, I haven't used Strata before, so I wouldn't know, but it has been a solution that I have found that works. Another possible solution is to render the ship and make it into a sprite, then render the glows and make into a sprite. Then use the mask (in photoshop, or something similar like Gimp, use the magic wand tool to select just the ships) to erase the applicable sections of the glows. Granted, it isn't as elegant as just turning the ship black, but that might work for you to (as long as your glow sprites are the same size as the ship sprites).

Matrix

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

Sorry I havent replied to your email, I got the email but I was busy the day I got it and forgot about it after that.

Right. How is your glow attached to the ship? If you have just made a single grouped object with the ship and the glow then that is the wrong thing to do What to do is to make a group for the ship, and a ship for the engine glow, and use the link tool to link the flame to the ship.

This is kind of like grouping the objects apart from better what it does ismake them act as one object except the ship retains its own centre and object space. This means that the ship will spin round its own centre, not the centre of the ship and the glow. This is what is causing your problems.

The link tool looks like a chain.

This is how to make spins in Strata...

1. Make two files, one with just the ship and one with the ship and the engine glow.
2. In the file with the ship only, just spin as normal and render the spin (double size for LASIK). Then create a glowing white texture and apply that to the ship group. Render at normal size with anti-aliasing turned off for the mask.
3. In the file with the ship and the glow, make a matt black texture (no gloss, no reflect) and apply that to the ship group. Link the glow to the ship using the link tool. To do this select the link tool, and click on the glow and drag to the ship (this might be the wrong way round I cant remember... if it is use the unlink tool - the one like a chain with a broken link - and repeat the action). Select the ship group and spin that as normal (ignore the glow group). Render at normal size with anti-aliasing on for the glow spin. Now create a white glow texture and apply it to the glow group. Render with anti-aliasing off for the glow mask.

Hope this (finally :p) helps
ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!!"(/url)

What I do for the glow is to make a new texture for the ship, with no diffusion or ambience. This will make it seem as if it is not there at all, no trace of the ship at all.

I never knew about the link tool, thanks Jules... I always made a bezier curve to center the group to the ship. Believe me, that was a major pain... Thanks!

SpacePirate

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Eat blazing electric death!
(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/ept/")Unofficial EV Port(/url) Beta

Thanks Jules. Figured you were busy or something.

While we're at it... (Not that this is a neccessary feature but would be nice) I would like to add some running lights. What would make the best light source for that? Spotlight or the light bulb looking tool?

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DANGER WILL ROBINSON! MY ARMS ARE FLAILING WILDLY!

Quote

Originally posted by PolarBear:
**Thanks Jules. Figured you were busy or something.

While we're at it... (Not that this is a neccessary feature but would be nice) I would like to add some running lights. What would make the best light source for that? Spotlight or the light bulb looking tool?

**

neither. both spotlights and point lights (the light bulb), while they emit light, do not actually have a form. It's better to have spheres with extremely high luminosity (in other words, they show up even if there's no light on them), and blur them in photoshop later.

Matrix

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

I would recommend a sphere textured with a glowing colour the colour you want the light, and apply an aura of the same colour (all selected for where the aura is to be applied) to it.

Ive never actually made running lights for a ship, but I would assume it is done in a similar way to the engine glows. I think you would have to use a marquee tool for masking it as since there is no way to create a mask movie in Strata.

ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!!"(/url)

OK. I was thinking about putting a bright point light inside a colored and translucent sphere. Would that not work? Is it even possible?

Also: This one has been killing me. HOW do you REMOVE a texture from an object once it's been applied? There's got to be a way other then trashing the whole file and starting over. That's such a pain in the but.

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DANGER WILL ROBINSON! MY ARMS ARE FLAILING WILDLY!

(This message has been edited by PolarBear (edited 03-12-2003).)

That would probably work, although Im not sure how well.

To remove a texture from an object once applied, go to the object property pallet and to the texture tab. Select the more advanced options. At the top there is a list of the textures applied to that object. Select the texture you want to remove and click the delete button that will be available. The position button in the same tab will allow you to place the texture more accurately on the object.

ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!!"(/url)

I don't supose you could explain what those four little icons in the object colmn of the project window do? The Eye (which seems to just makes that object invisible) the cube, the square and the sphere. I don't really understand what they are for.

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DANGER WILL ROBINSON! MY ARMS ARE FLAILING WILDLY!

Rightey...

The eye is the visibility button. When the eye is closed, the object is hidden and wont be rendered in a scene. You could use this when animating a spin with the gow linked to the ship so it (the glow) doesnt show up. Might save making two files, but Ive never used it for that yet. Might try it in future.

The cube is for the display method of the object. When it is as default it is displayed just as an object that you can see. The wire box is to display the object in the modelling window as just a box instead of an object. This increases display speen when modelling a certain part of a model (you can effectively hide certain objects to concentrate on displaying the objects you want to work on. It lets you see parts of other objects that you may not normally see.

The square one Im not too sure on...

The next is for shaddows... When it is a sphere with shaddow, then the object will cast a shaddow when rendered. If it has no shaddow, then it wont cast a shaddow when rendered. If it is stripey with a shaddow, im not sure.

Hope that helps in some way The Strata 3D manual is out there somewhere, it might tell you more in that
ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!!"(/url)

Yeah that helps a bit. Thanks. If someone knows where to find that Strata Manual out there (hopefully in PDF), that would be gold.

EDIT

Oh Crap! Haven another Problem.Using that Linking Tool and then rotating isn't working out. I made the ship and all of it's parts one group and the made all the engine flames another group and then linked the engine flame group to the ship group but now when I rotate the ship ten degrees the engine flame also rotates around it's own Y axis with the end result being the engine flame is still behind the ship but it's kinda bent to the side as if it had vectered thrust. That make any sence?

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DANGER WILL ROBINSON! MY ARMS ARE FLAILING WILDLY!

(This message has been edited by PolarBear (edited 03-12-2003).)

Not really, could you send it over for diagnosis?

Before you do I have one question. Had you animated the gow before? It doesnt matter if it was part of a larger group or anything like that, its just Strata gets confused when you animate an object and than give it new animation properties.

ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!!"(/url)

(This message has been edited by Jules (edited 03-13-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Jules:
...glowing colour the...

Interesting note to make that has nothing to do with this post. People in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland spell color with a U, why, I have no idea (and yes Wales is a country, but I'm not sure how you spell it.)

Later

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The Evil Spoonman
My Brain is Right here (Subject to Change Without Notice)
Albatross!!!
"Life is to important to be taken seriously."

Quote

Originally posted by Jules:
**Not really, could you send it over for diagnosis?:p

Before you do I have one question. Had you animated the gow before? It doesnt matter if it was part of a larger group or anything like that, its just Strata gets confused when you animate an object and than give it new animation properties.

ewan

**

Actually I've started over with an untainted archive with no animation so, no this flame hadn't been animated before. Also I'm doing things a diffirent way without animating since I had problem with the engine glow color disappearing when it was on the far side of rotation in animation. Now I'm rendering each frame as a seperate Pict file and using the p2s app to build the sprite. This has worked out well in that it doesn't have the problem of the engine glow color disappearing and also the p2s app makes the mask file for me so I don't have to make the mask In Strata. This is probabely how I'l do the running lights as well. I fixed the linking problem just by going back to the grouping technique which has the ship rotating around it's main center dome which isn't the ships true center but that's ok since this is how I wanted it to work anyway.

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DANGER WILL ROBINSON! MY ARMS ARE FLAILING WILDLY!

Quote

Originally posted by Evil_Spoonman:
**Interesting note to make that has nothing to do with this post. People in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland spell color with a U, why, I have no idea (and yes Wales is a country, but I'm not sure how you spell it.):)
**

Uh.... It's so off topic, that I think you probably should have kept that piece of well known trivia to yourself.

Matrix

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

Quote

Originally posted by PolarBear:
**Actually I've started over with an untainted archive with no animation so, no this flame hadn't been animated before. Also I'm doing things a diffirent way without animating since I had problem with the engine glow color disappearing when it was on the far side of rotation in animation. Now I'm rendering each frame as a seperate Pict file and using the p2s app to build the sprite. This has worked out well in that it doesn't have the problem of the engine glow color disappearing and also the p2s app makes the mask file for me so I don't have to make the mask In Strata. This is probabely how I'l do the running lights as well. I fixed the linking problem just by going back to the grouping technique which has the ship rotating around it's main center dome which isn't the ships true center but that's ok since this is how I wanted it to work anyway.
**

Well watch out with that since the ship wont spin around the same axis as it will with the engine glows active (ie it will more than likely look skrewy in the game)

ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!!"(/url)

(quote)Originally posted by Evil_Spoonman:
**Interesting note to make that has nothing to do with this post. People in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland spell color with a U, why, I have no idea (and yes Wales is a country, but I'm not sure how you spell it.):p

ewan

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!!"(/url)
**