OK I have finally learned some basics but I need some help. I have got my first ship into the game that is built from scratch. While it isn't much I am trying to concentrate on getting some things right before I do anything better.

The yellow cargo hauler is the one in question. What I am trying to do right now is to get camara and light angles right so that the ship will appear correct. The ship is sitting flat in the XZ plane. I start with the ship pointed in the -Z area as it should start out being at 0 degrees or facing away from the camara. I raised the camara in the Y plane and pitched it down 45 degrees. However this looks a bit too steep of an angle. What pitch should the camara use. I suspect from the angles that 30 degrees should be pretty darn close but if someone has an exact answer then that would be better.

Also the light I have is set above the ship and to the left of it and back about 30 degrees. Where should it be set as well.

Sorry I know these are newbie questions but I am still a newbie.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Not at all newb questions. Actually I don't think it's ever been asked before. And I really don't have an answer for you. I've always use a 45 degree angle and have never noticed a major problem with it. What angle did you use on the ship in the pic? It looks too shallow. Keep in mind that you're not using predominately side angle shots of the ships. Anything less than 45 puts more emphasis on the side rather than top. As far as a dominant light source... I have no idea what's the most accurate. I always put the light in the top left when looking from above at about a 45 degree angle again. I don't know if it's anywhere right but it seems to mesh fairly well.

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((Ż'ˇ.¸(Ż'ˇ.¸Ť•-KAME-•ť¸.ˇ'´Ż)¸.ˇ'´Ż))
I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
(url="http://"http://www.0three0.net/l-1551/")L 1551(/url) - The official site of RONIN and The Way and the ten thousand things

I used a 45 degree angle for the cam and that seemed to me to be too steep. I may have to look at some of my other setting such as depth of feild.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Correct me if Im wrong, but I think it has been stated that ATMOS used 45 degrees as the angle for their NOVA sprites - a search might provide the answer Often the actual shape of your ship, combined with incorrect lighting can make it appear not to look "right" in the context of the game environment.

Lightwise, you would be best searching either on this board or on the image gallery. The subject has been covered a few times. Basically I think there are two or three in the scene. One primary between about 30 and 45 degrees elevation from the left hand side, other lights to iluminate the ship slightly from other angles. I cant remember where these lights are supposed to be.

The only sprites I make now are for Jager and myself's upcoming TC (preview of one of the ships (url="http://"http://el3.northernswamp.com/crimbo.jpg")here(/url). Very early stage of development - not even finished smothing of the body yet hence some weird artifacts showing in the shaddows ). This allows me to arrange my own lighting sceme to suit the mood of the plug as I see fit. Going to be pretty dark and grainy looking for the moment, but things may change...

ewan

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'It's only when you look at an ant through a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames'
- Harry Hill

Thanks for the help Jules. I did search but I was not that succesful with finding it. Likely I was using the wrong keywords. I do thank you for the answer though to the cam angle. I will have to play with the lights a bit. It is hard to tell from what is in the game that there is more than one light so I never gave that a thought.

Thanks and it looks like I have some more work to do.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Tiresmoke:
**Thanks for the help Jules. I did search but I was not that succesful with finding it. Likely I was using the wrong keywords. I do thank you for the answer though to the cam angle. I will have to play with the lights a bit. It is hard to tell from what is in the game that there is more than one light so I never gave that a thought.
**

I am not sure which application you are using, but in strata you need to manually position the position and the pitch of the camera. If this is also the case in your application, you must make sure that the camera has the same values for both the Z and Y positions.

~ SpacePirate

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Eat blazing electric death!

I am one of the original beta testers for Lightwave so that is what I use. I rechecked and things are working a bit better but I still need to make sure that everything is right before a final render is done. At least I can reuse the scene for rendering other ships so the effort is worth it to get it right this forst time.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Thanks for the help guys. A new ship is born.

Now I just need to finish the glows and blinks.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Jules:
Going to be pretty dark and grainy looking for the moment

Like the horror, destroyed film look? If so that sounds awesome. And if it isn't, well it should be because that's an awesome idea

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((Ż'ˇ.¸(Ż'ˇ.¸Ť•-KAME-•ť¸.ˇ'´Ż)¸.ˇ'´Ż))
I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
(url="http://"http://www.0three0.net/l-1551/")L 1551(/url) - The official site of RONIN and The Way and the ten thousand things

Quote

Originally posted by Kame:
Like the horror, destroyed film look? If so that sounds awesome. And if it isn't, well it should be because that's an awesome idea:)

It does sound like a very awesome idea, but unfortunately not. The best I can describe it is to use references. You remember how MAGMA for EVO had a very dark, menacing, gritty look to it? Kind of like that. I know that part of the grittyness of MAGMA was to do with the limited colour pallet, but I am going to try and recreate a similar look without losing colours

Quote

Originally posted by Tiresmoke:
**Thanks for the help guys. A new ship is born.

Now I just need to finish the glows and blinks.**

Looks good. You should try and add more realistic shaddowing (at the moment, it looks like you have shaddows turned off) and add more model details

ewan

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'It's only when you look at an ant through a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames'
- Harry Hill

Quote

Originally posted by Jules:
It does sound like a very awesome idea, but unfortunately not. The best I can describe it is to use references. You remember how MAGMA for EVO had a very dark, menacing, gritty look to it? Kind of like that. I know that part of the grittyness of MAGMA was to do with the limited colour pallet, but I am going to try and recreate a similar look without losing colours

I know that you use Strata, Jules, but Lightwave has plugins that allow you to treat images like film, and give grain and stuff.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."
(url="http://"http://htf.mondominishows.com/valentine/main.asp?seed=7375&serial;=214877")The funniest valentine I've ever gotten.(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Tiresmoke:
**Thanks for the help guys. A new ship is born.

<img snip>

Now I just need to finish the glows and blinks.

**

Looks good, however, turn off the ambient light, and try illuminating it with low-intensity spotlights. I'm pretty sure Matrix suggested one quite a few times.

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Eat blazing electric death!

Yes the ambient light was washing it out a bit. I also adjusted several textures and added the final details. Basically this will be a very large ship for Colonization work. It is more streamlined than the Leviathan and sheilded for human transport rather than left open for cargo loading/unloading. So in a way it is less detailed than other ships I have planned. Just the same I think there is a lot of subtle detail you can't see without seeing all the frames.

Anyways I hope you like this version better. Thanks again for all the help.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Tiresmoke:
**Yes the ambient light was washing it out a bit. I also adjusted several textures and added the final details. Basically this will be a very large ship for Colonization work. It is more streamlined than the Leviathan and sheilded for human transport rather than left open for cargo loading/unloading. So in a way it is less detailed than other ships I have planned. Just the same I think there is a lot of subtle detail you can't see without seeing all the frames.

Anyways I hope you like this version better. Thanks again for all the help.

<img snip>

**

Much better. However, that cockpit isn't really necessary- think about it. Would you rather have a glass shield protecting you, or a metal hull? If people want to see out, it would be much safer and economical to just have videoscreens.

~ SpacePirate

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Eat blazing electric death!

Multi Deck Observation Area not Cockpit. During times of high radiation threat that area can of course be cleared. That would of course be true during times of battle. However with long range Colony ships you would certainly want an area for your passengers to relax and be able to view space around them. Also when they reach their destination I would think that during the off shifts a crew or passenger member would want to relax with an unempeded view of their distination.

A cockpit in that size ship would be incredibly smaller than that area. I know it wasn't needed as a detail yet I feel it is right and proper to have it. That is why I put it there.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

(This message has been edited by Tiresmoke (edited 12-19-2003).)

Nice ship, I like the observation deck idea, but at first I thought it was a cockpit, a rather large cockpit!

I love the Diagram of the ship aswell, thats a nice extra touch. I thought I was the only one to plan out the ships insides aswell as the exterior.

Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing more of your graphics in the future.

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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain.

I made a beta of it as I want a couple things checked. See this post; (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004919.html#")http://www.ambrosias...ML/004919.html#(/url)

Thanks for the comment. I did the work to plan the interior shortly after I first rendered it as I wanted to see how things should work. So that graphic is kinda kludgy. I may decide to do more with that later though as it seemed like a neat idea to have something along that line for each ship. But I have a long ways to go before I reach that point.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Well, the observation deck is a nice idea, but the only way that'll work is if you make the window clear (with correct specular highlights to give the indication of windows), model a recession, and either model and/or texture a park or whatever to put in the observation deck. I know, because I've done it before. I made a nice large observation deck on a ship once, but it never looked right until I put a park in it. To get the effect right, you really need to put low res models like trees and stuff, and then have bump and specular maps to have paths and ponds and stuff.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."
(url="http://"http://htf.mondominishows.com/valentine/main.asp?seed=7375&serial;=214877")The funniest valentine I've ever gotten.(/url)

The windows are polarized. Besides I don't envision a park there but rather a ballroom, reastraunt, and a bar depending on the deck.

For what it's worth even Star Trek did not do to that kind of effort with most of the windows you see. ATMOS madw differing setups for windows as well and I don't see their efforts going to that extent. For instance the Thunderheads have a Gold Cockpit canopy.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

(This message has been edited by Tiresmoke (edited 12-19-2003).)

Fairly nice ship tiresmoke, looking good now. Always, always, always kill that ambient light before final rendering though, it is evil, and it should die. The only time it should be used for a render is in making masks (then you crank it up, as long as you can turn off realistic light handling).

And you were a beta tester for lightwave? Which version?

Lucky bastard, buy me a copy.

~A~

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