Okay, so I'm making this spaceship and when I finally got around to designing a cockpit, I realized that I had built the model in such a way that the polygons didn't conform to the shape that I wanted, so I can't just extrude and erase. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/images/cockpit.jpg")Here's a screenshot (1024x768) that I took, and drew the cockpit that I want on it(/url) Does anyone have any suggestions for making the cockpit window? I don't want it to be flush with the rest of the hull, I want it sunk in a bit. I considered a bump (and/or dispacement) map, but I haven't had time to make up the textures yet. Does anyone have suggestions for how I could make the cockpit into the mesh itself? I've got to go to work 5 minutes ago, so I probably didn't include everything that I wanted to be clear, so if you have questions, just ask.

Matrix

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

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Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
**Okay, so I'm making this spaceship and when I finally got around to designing a cockpit, I realized that I had built the model in such a way that the polygons didn't conform to the shape that I wanted, so I can't just extrude and erase. Here's a screenshot (1024x768) that I took, and drew the cockpit that I want on it Does anyone have any suggestions for making the cockpit window? I don't want it to be flush with the rest of the hull, I want it sunk in a bit. I considered a bump (and/or dispacement) map, but I haven't had time to make up the textures yet. Does anyone have suggestions for how I could make the cockpit into the mesh itself? I've got to go to work 5 minutes ago, so I probably didn't include everything that I wanted to be clear, so if you have questions, just ask.

Matrix

**

The only thing that won't mess up those lovely polys is a bump map. If you have to have real geometry, tho, booleans would be the way I went. Might need to be clever and duplicate the hull, chop if down to a window shape, turn it negative and push it into the original hull. Or maybe you could displacement map and crease the resulting edges for a cleaner line?

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Originally posted by Commander Arashi:
**The only thing that won't mess up those lovely polys is a bump map. If you have to have real geometry, tho, booleans would be the way I went. Might need to be clever and duplicate the hull, chop if down to a window shape, turn it negative and push it into the original hull. Or maybe you could displacement map and crease the resulting edges for a cleaner line?

**

work sucked. real busy this time of year because we're doing inventory, but at least I wasn't bored. Anyway. I want to make the cockpit out of polys, but I can't think of a "clean" way of doing it. I tried booleans, but it gave me lots of polys with more than 4 vertices and when I fixed them and converted to subpatches, it screwed up the shape anyway.

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 05-16-2003).)

use Drill --> Stencil

if you don't know how, I'll explain, if you want.

it will require that you freeze the mesh first, and so do it last, not while you're still editing the mesh.

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(This message has been edited by sparky (edited 05-16-2003).)

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Originally posted by sparky:
**use Drill -- > Stencil

if you don't know how, I'll explain, if you want.

it will require that you freeze the mesh first, and so do it last, not while you're still editing the mesh.

**

hmm... okay. I'll try that. I'm still editing the mesh, so it'll be a little while (hopefully not too long), but I'll have to try that. Thanks.

Matrix

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

Damn... I was going to say stencil

You could always boolean intersect in layer 2, then boolean subtract the original, shrinking down the intersected boolean in 2 to be smaller, texturing, and copy-pasting. That, will require you to freeze it, and it'll probably look bad.

Other than that, you could always have another object over top the desired area - a pen-prism would work nicely there, tapered toward the top to fit the contour...

Stencelling, then smoothshifting is what i'd do, tho.

edit: as a side note - bump maps are really only usefull for adding slight erosion, cracks, seam lines, rivets, or anything of that type - otherwise, you'll end up with a weird looking profile. Displacement maps would work to an extent, but unless the mesh there were relatively complex, it'd end up looking really weird.

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Try the hotpockets, they're breathtaking

(This message has been edited by Admiral Zombat (edited 05-16-2003).)

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Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
**Damn... I was going to say stencil:)

You could always boolean intersect in layer 2, then boolean subtract the original, shrinking down the intersected boolean in 2 to be smaller, texturing, and copy-pasting. That, will require you to freeze it, and it'll probably look bad.

Other than that, you could always have another object over top the desired area - a pen-prism would work nicely there, tapered toward the top to fit the contour...

Stencelling, then smoothshifting is what i'd do, tho.**

Damn, this sounds like a lot of work. Too much for me. Im sticking to strata where i found out how to do cockpits.

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-Unreal Centipede
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The way i would do it (most reasonable people stop reading here when it comes to my 3D modelling techniques)

U still here? ok.... i would convert the main object into a mesh with high or medium high points, then reduce the magnetics between dots to zero, and after selecting all points you want to have back, move them at will....
Oh you said you needed a way that wasnt messy? missed that...

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Your best bet, matrix, is stencelling the texture on, pressing w, usuing that panel to select the polygons with that color.

Then you use smooth shift to separate the two, and then pull, or scale the polygons downward for your inset.

That is the best course of action for this ship.

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Try the hotpockets, they're breathtaking

Quote

Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
**Your best bet, matrix, is stencelling the texture on, pressing w, usuing that panel to select the polygons with that color.

Then you use smooth shift to separate the two, and then pull, or scale the polygons downward for your inset.

That is the best course of action for this ship.
**

What do you mean by "stencilling the texture on?"

Matrix

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

Put an object in another layer in lightwave, which overlaps your ship in the areas that you want to have the cockpit or whatever. Select the ship layer, and secondary-select the layer with the object (I'd sugggest usuing the pen tool to make a prison) and press shift-c. This will bring up the Solid Drill option. Select 'Stencil' and make a surface named 'cockpit' and hit ok. ta daaa!

Now you press ''w' to bring up polygon statistics. (if it brings up something other, make sure your editing in polygon mode) once you've done that, select the cockpit surface in the sub-pull down menu, and press the + to the left of that surface. The polygons you've stencilled should show up. Then, smooth shift them inward. (note: I've gotten best results with this technique if you copy, delete, and paste theese polygons before continuing.)

Hope this helped.

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Try the hotpockets, they're breathtaking

Quote

Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
**Now you press ''w' to bring up polygon statistics. (if it brings up something other, make sure your editing in polygon mode) once you've done that, select the cockpit surface in the sub-pull down menu, and press the + to the left of that surface. The polygons you've stencilled should show up. Then, smooth shift them inward. (note: I've gotten best results with this technique if you copy, delete, and paste theese polygons before continuing.)

Hope this helped.
**

Well I understand how to stencil, I was the next step that I was unclear on. This helps a lot.

Here's the next thing: I only modeled half the ship (divided vertically down the long axis) so I wouldn't have to worry about symmetry. I had planned on trying to UV texture that half of the ship and then using the "Mirror" tool to complete the ship. I should do this before making the cockpit, right? Another question, is what method do you use to texture? I had attempted to UV using the atlas method, but it was rather impossible to figure out what part belonged where (especially when there would be a single poly clumped with portions of a completely different section of the ship (It put one of my canard polys (in the front of the ship) with bits of the engine (back of the ship). I found a tutorial for UV mapping at (url="http://"http://www.menithings.com")www.menithings.com(/url), but I couldn't figure it out.

Matrix

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

well, if your not going to inset, I'd suggest thtat you do the stencelling now, and mirror later. If, however your going to inset, mirror now, and THEN stencil - it'll make life a whole lot easier.

As for texturing, UV mapping usually isnt such a great thing if the ship is extremely detailed. Atlas mapping is usually not the best plan in this instance - they're mostly used for doing figures. I've tried UV mapping some of my ships, but the process just dosent work unless its an organic mesh, instead of several objects booleaned together, as I usually do. UV mapping in your case, might be best with spherical mapping (mess around with the different axiis)

But again, spherical might not be the best course of action. For your ship, i would suggest a planar map. They usually work best for me in cases like this, and you can manipulate them pretty well without having to distort the texture too much. You could have only one (top view, use it for the bottom as well) or you could have one for top and bottom, top, bottom, left/right, or Bottom, Top, Left, and Right.

I rarely use anything else because my ships are so complex. UV maps are usually only good for things that are under 1,000 polygons ... my ships average from 30,000-70,000 ...

Hope this helps

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Try the hotpockets, they're breathtaking

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Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
well, if your not going to inset, I'd suggest thtat you do the stencelling now, and mirror later. If, however your going to inset, mirror now, and THEN stencil - it'll make life a whole lot easier.

I'd simply make the texture map a mirrored image - otherwise, you'd have to deal with having multiples of the object, and it gets really annoying with multiple objects needing to be mirrored. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, but, what I'd do is...

Mirror the current object. Stencil the cockpit texture, inset. select the polygons for the image map, make a new texture for them, usuing the image map, and your done. Its easier to double the width of the image map and mirror the image than make one half of an object, and mirror it later.

If I didn't cover what your asking, please explain more clearly.

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Try the hotpockets, they're breathtaking

Quote

Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
**I'd simply make the texture map a mirrored image - otherwise, you'd have to deal with having multiples of the object, and it gets really annoying with multiple objects needing to be mirrored. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, but, what I'd do is...

Mirror the current object. Stencil the cockpit texture, inset. select the polygons for the image map, make a new texture for them, usuing the image map, and your done. Its easier to double the width of the image map and mirror the image than make one half of an object, and mirror it later.

If I didn't cover what your asking, please explain more clearly.

**

Um... I think I got it. Instead of modeling half, texturing half, and then mirroring, you're saying that I should model half, mirror, and then texture the whole thing (do half and mirror in photoshop or whatever so they're symmetrical), making sure that I stencilled and inset the cockpit after the mirror step.

Matrix

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

you got it! I'll be expecting an image gallery post soon...

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Try the hotpockets, they're breathtaking

Quote

Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
**you got it! I'll be expecting an image gallery post soon...

**

We'll see. Hopefully I'll get a lot of work done over Memorial Day weekend, but with friends getting home from college (damn quarter system!), it might be tough. We'll see, however. I plan on adding more mesh detail, so depending on how long that takes, and then figuring out the texturing, I might get done, but in all likelyhood, it might be a while. I will try my best to work "quickly."

Matrix

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