Hello,

If anyone remembers I'm doing a large plugin/recently turned TC that I was planning to reuse as many stock Nova landing pics for, etc, and all of the ships and outfit pics came from an abandoned EVO TC (breath).

Anyway: I tried digging out my old copy of Mechanisto and voila- I had a ship within an hour that I was relatively satisfied with. I guess I just needed to go up an experience level or something and take another shot at it. So what I am asking is twofold: has anyone else out there actually used Mechanisto (I know that it's considered archaic and inferior of quality) to make any Nova graphics? Secondly, does anyone know how this bizzare program needs to be set to make the camera rotate around the ship so I can get a bloody sprite out? I can't seem to get it out of overhead view and I'll never get anything done that way.

Any help would be appreciated!!!

Rik

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.

I believe there has been some very fine work produced in Mechanisto with those who have the persistance to pursue it. While the renderer isn't on par with most other programs and certainly not of Lightwave caliber, it is decent enough. I'll let the graphics folks here, who are very knowledgeable, give you a more technical answer... my main point that I want to make is that I don't think you need to worry about having "Nova"-quality graphics. As is being discussed in another thread here, the important thing in a plug has been and always will be the story behind it, and how well that story is implemented from a gameplaying perspective.

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Pinky, are you pondering what I am pondering?
I think so, Brain, but if they called them sad meals, kids wouldn't buy them.

A little while back somebody made a ship in mechinisto that totally awed the whole EV Gallary community. I don't have a link right now but it should be on the second or third page of the gallery. I used to have a guide to spinning in mechanisto, now I don't and I can't remember where it came from. Curse that darned ole harddrive!

the best I can say is that you have to animate the ship spinning 360 degrees, then make the movie 37 frames long and finnish on the 36th frame so that the ship is one frame from pointing streight up.

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Cmon people, the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=20&SUBMIT;=Go")Chronicles(/url) are worth looking at.
I love Frigates, as is easily seen:(url="http://"http://www.dabie.k-ow.net/~glasskids/EV_Frigates_page.html")EV Frigates(/url).

There doesn't seem to be a way to actually rotate the camera itself, just moving it in and out and to one side doesn't seem to do the trick. I can't seem to rotate the ship itself either, as there is no grouping command (and no rotation transformation either, if I remember)... I know that I have to be missing something! rrr

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.

Quote

Originally posted by rmx256:
There doesn't seem to be a way to actually rotate the camera itself, just moving it in and out and to one side doesn't seem to do the trick. I can't seem to rotate the ship itself either, as there is no grouping command (and no rotation transformation either, if I remember)... I know that I have to be missing something! rrr

There is a grouping command, but it takes a bit of explaining. From the "Object" menu, go to the "Insert" sub-menu. There is an item called "Group." You won't see anything in the views, but a folder-like icon will appear in the "Contents" window. To add objects to the group, you drag their "Contents" listing into this folder.

There is also both a static rotation command, and a constant spin command, but you have to add them to the grouped object yourself. There is a sub-menu called "Insert Transform" in the "Object" menu. In this menu, you'll find one labeled "Spin." Once you have your group ready, select it, and go to the "Transform Settings" window. Go to the "Current Transform" menu and select the transform called "Orientation," and insert a "spin" transform.

(The order in which these functions are inserted in an objects transform list will have a visible impact on how they act. By having Orientation selected when you insert the "Spin" command, Spin will come before "Translate," which will now move the ship's center of rotation. If it had come after, the ship would always have the same center of rotation, even if it had been shifted backwards a good distance: e.g. spinning about it's nose-cone, instead of it's center. If you want to do both, you could add a second "Translate" transform, one before and one after.)

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"... Look, I designed this thing, so I know exactly what I'm doing..."
"MISSILE SELF-DESTRUCT ACTIVATED: 5... 4... 3..."
"... Of course, I could be wrong..." - Me.

(This message has been edited by Eugene Chin (edited 06-10-2004).)

I would be careful about getting too involved with Mechanisto. I made quite a few ships with it back in the day, and I found it too limiting (no support for Boolean operations is the real kicker). The stupid program kept crashing, has limited support for texturing, and has no ability to render in an isometric view as opposed to perspective.

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To quote a pillar of American society: D'OH!

There is some information on Mechanisto here: (url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/tycho61uk/")http://www.geocities.com/tycho61uk/(/url)
(note: despite what it says on the first page of the site, I've not known Mechanisto to "injure" anyone... )

There are a few examples in the gallery... someone used to have a larger gallery of Mechanisto ships (Squibix?) but I can't seem to find it.

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Pinky, are you pondering what I am pondering?
I think so, Brain, but if they called them sad meals, kids wouldn't buy them.

While I have seen some very impressive stuff ( (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum56/HTML/001553.html")http://www.ambrosias...TML/001553.html(/url) ) come out of mechanisto; I think that there are some much more potent free probrams out there, namley wings and blender. Anyway, if mechanisto is what you work best in, then by all means use it.
Joe

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"Life is tough, but it's even tougher when you're stupid."
-John Wayne

I'm using Mechanisto because it does not require typing in code and has instaint gratification- I can make something and see it right then. I wanted to use the version of Strata that's out there without a price but 1) I can't find a DL link anywhere 2) last time I had it the reg. number that Strata (I believe) gave me for it did not work 3) I'm on AOL with a 33.3 modem and 2 meg or so is about the limit of what I can download, things keep crashing after that point.
I downloaded Wings but it didn't seem to be very intuitive or make much sense, plus it would require another renderer if I understood the documentation. I couldn't make any shapes at all with it.

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.

(This message has been edited by rmx256 (edited 06-11-2004).)