QUOTE (StarSword @ Sep 1 2010, 03:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, there is a good reason for a cockpit. The reason all my ships have cockpits/viewports is because of sensor jamming technologies. What do you do when the enemy fills the region with interference and you can't see where you're going with the active sensors? Or better yet, what if you're trying to be stealthy and have the sensors in passive (no ping) mode?

In such cases, you need to be able to actually see where you're going, and video screens/VR displays/holograms are a layer of complexity that is vulnerable to Murphy's laws. In A New Hope , Obi-wan said, "Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them." That goes double for the kind of interface that would be required in your fighter, king_of_manticores.

It's just that your eyes are completely useless at the ranges and speeds we imagine for space-combat, heck they're mostly useless for the ranges and speeds involved in modern air fights. Also any jamming of any of your sensors will most likely cause the ships that's doing the jamming to light up on your sensor like a light-house.

Ya know, I'm surprised that nobody A.) Commented on the cockpit picture, and B.) Congratulated Darthkev on his awesome new avatar! What is wrong with you people. Love the Wyvern, Dk.

No offense, but how do you think any combat happens? You HAVE to use your eyes. And plus, in Nova, how are you supposed to fight without looking at the screen. However, I know what you mean. I'm just taking this literally. And speaking of strange wing pieces, check this out...

The wings are made out of flattened and slightly modified Massive Curved Hulls with Substructure.

By the way, and don't tell the moderators this, but I noticed that Delphi changed his signature so it says he's working on boom resources. Does that mean we're all out of a job?

QUOTE (Spartan Jai @ Sep 1 2010, 06:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

By the way, and don't tell the moderators this, but I noticed that Delphi changed his signature so it says he's working on boom resources. Does that mean we're all out of a job?

No, it just means he's done with the ships for his plug for the moment. He changed it again; now it says he's working on "Really massive RLEDs".

Anyway, I think the point of this thread was to show off the crap we've made with his ship parts. (That's how I interpreted it, anyway.)

Also, Darthkev is using them for HOTS, and has crafted two ships for EVN:UGF with them. I'm going to join in the fun after I've done my upgrade to Windows 7 this weekend.

This post has been edited by StarSword : 01 September 2010 - 05:29 PM

That reminds me, StarSword. With the new file Meaker released I feel I can do a better job on those. Expect a PM from me in a day or so with redone versions of those two ships including engine glows.

Nice fighter, Jai. If you don't mind me asking, where do you get your inspiration? Do you base ideas on real-world concepts? Or maybe you base them on sci-fi concepts. Or do you just throw things together and see what happens?

Umm. Occasionally, I'll just randomly think of a concept, and implement it. That happened during 6th period today, and I missed about ten to fifteen minutes of discussion. I need to do this less. Like that'll happen. Anyway, I usually just pick out a piece for whatever I'm designing. Notice that pretty much all of my fighters use the archon fins or the enclave wings. I pick anywhere from 4-6 pieces to start, slap them together, and see what it looks like. At that point I add more, edit, take away, paint, add engine glow, then I usually rotate them for my awesome screenshots. For my warships, I always think of a concept first. Also, if I see that someone commented on a part of someone's ship, I'll try for something like it, evidenced by the wings on my most recent fighter. That I actually (with a lot of tweaking) could look like an Azdara. I didn't spell that right, did I? For my "Scary Arachnid Boss of Doom" I originally had the ship to be made from one claw, sort of like the howler from Polycon. Then I decided, what else can I do? And voila! @StarSword: I'm actually more thinking about how the moderators might say, hey, he's done with ships, so this topics over. They probably won't lock it, there's no reason to. But, seeing as he's done with ships... I actually mainly use this thread to get feedback for my models, because if I learn how to make actual 3-d sprite grids instead of using spinapp, I'll use them for my TC Airborne. However, I don't know how to do that, and the guides I've found are for use with resedit. Also, I don't know (I AM trying to figure this stuff out) what angles to take the shots at. Even worse, I probably can't assemble them into the grid with anything but Adobe Illustrator.

QUOTE (Spartan Jai @ Sep 1 2010, 06:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<explanation of creative process>

Interesting. For just throwing pieces together, you've had some very good results.

QUOTE

... Azdara. I didn't spell that right, did I?

Actually, you did. Congratulations, most people don't spell any of the various alien names from EVO correctly.

QUOTE

... if I learn how to make actual 3-d sprite grids instead of using spinapp, I'll use them for my TC Airborne. However, I don't know how to do that, and the guides I've found are for use with resedit. Also, I don't know (I AM trying to figure this stuff out) what angles to take the shots at. Even worse, I probably can't assemble them into the grid with anything but Adobe Illustrator.

Read this post, download the file attached, and follow the directions in the post to get frames for your models. Scroll down a few posts to learn how to alter the style if you haven't figured that out yourself already.

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Sep 1 2010, 07:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... Read this post, download the file attached, and follow the directions in the post to get frames for your models. Scroll down a few posts to learn how to alter the style if you haven't figured that out yourself already.

Thanks for the plug

But seriously, figuring out camera angles in sketchup is not an easy or simple task, and I've made several of the camera angle render setup files available (the two good ones are in my sig) so that you don't have to figure it out.

Now that I think about it, the one for twilight is meant for rendering into the NOVA-verse (What I rendered the med-dingy with), and the other one is meant to optimize sketchup's capabilities. So I'm not sure if it'll look 'correct' in the NOVA-verse or not, but in a TC-type plug it'll look fine.

And as for making spins, I thought spinnapp was good at that? If it's not, use Illustrator, Photoshop, Inkscape, GIMP, PaintshopPro, etc., etc. and set up your program to use grids, and to snap to them. Set the gird to be the size of your frames and your sheet to be sized to fit the number of frames you want, and you're good to go. I've been using GIMP to make all my spins, and while it takes a little longer than using a spin-program, it works pretty well. There is no such thing as a "3D sprite grid," it's all 2D images of 3D ships arranged into a grid. Though it could be entirely 2D (i.e.: no model at all, ala Reclusiveone's ships) , it's not possible for it to look correct and 3D (Though you could turn off perspective in Sketchup and it'd work).

Nononono. Spinapp is great. The stuff just isn't 3d. Which defeats the effect for my "Scary Arachnid Boss of Doom" The attached picture is one of the sprites I've assembled with SpinApp.

As you might be able to tell, it isn't 3d. Which if I'm making a TC, it would seem just like ReclusiveOne's 2d TC.

EDIT: Hmm. It isn't working. But if you were to draw a 2d image and spin it to get your frames, that's what it does.

Question. Because the background in my Airborne TC is blue, should the background be blue?

This post has been edited by Spartan Jai : 02 September 2010 - 02:34 PM

First, I really do suggest you give Meaker's file a try, if you haven't already. It gives you the proper camera angles and makes the frames for you, automatically adding numbers to the name of each one so they're already in alphabetical order. Just use Spinapp afterwards to put the frames into a sheet.

Second, no, the backgrounds for the sprite sheets do not have to be blue, they'll work with black.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 02 September 2010 - 03:04 PM

I'm trying. However, when I switch frames, it shows the exact same thing. All 36 scene tabs have the exact same view of the fighter. And, I don't understand how to use spinapp to put the ship into grids.

Did you read the directions in the post I linked to? Before loading a ship into the file, double click on the circle/compass. After doing that, center the ship inside the circle/compass, ensuring the ship is pointing in the same direction (the rectangle on the compass). Then, click outside the grey box to close the compass. That's the setup.

Next you need to actually export the frames. Click on the 'SpriteSetup' button, this will allow you to export the frames once totally ready. First you should fiddle with the style, though, by going to Window->Styles in the menu bar at the top. Once you're ready to make the frames, make sure you're still in the SpriteSetup tab. Then go to File->Export...->Animation, check the options, and then click the 'Export' button. The last step is to use Spinapp to arrange the frames into a sheet.

Solved both problems. I downloaded the setup file from the Delphi topic, and I now know how to make a sprite grid with spinapp. I should have seen that. So easy. Thank you, Meaker.

EDIT: Should have seen this coming. Meaker, since I assume you can't delete them, and you can't hide them (tried, but they showed up in the graphics), how do I get rid of those cones?

EDIT2: Why does it export 351 frames?

This post has been edited by Spartan Jai : 02 September 2010 - 04:01 PM

QUOTE (Spartan Jai @ Sep 2 2010, 01:52 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Solved both problems. I downloaded the setup file from the Delphi topic, and I now know how to make a sprite grid with spinapp. I should have seen that. So easy. Thank you, Meaker.

EDIT: Should have seen this coming. Meaker, since I assume you can't delete them, and you can't hide them (tried, but they showed up in the graphics), how do I get rid of those cones?

EDIT2: Why does it export 351 frames?

Wrong file - try the second one in my signature if that one doesn't work. The one with the cones is for use with Twilight. There is one without cones that is for use with Sketchup's WYSIWYG format (What you see is what you get). Ideally, I've already set it up so it won't export more than 36 frames. If not, set up the animation settings to export just 1 frame per second.

I'm still not sure what you are refferring to when you are asking about a "3D" sprite grid. No such thing exists - your sprite grid is a series of 2D images (typically 36, each rotating 10 degrees Clockwise starting at 12:00) taken off of any object. I could rotate a letter "A" if I wanted and use it as a ship, or I can rotate my updated IDA and use the images of it. I could use a page filled with blackness, EV would recognize it as a valid sprite. The long and short of it is, every sprite in EV(N) is 2D. The only part that makes or breaks the 3D aspect is what that sprite's frames are taken from. If I take my frames from a letter "A," it will look like a 2d flying letter "A." If I take frames from my IDA, and turn on shadows, perspective, and get everything set up just so, it will look like a 3D ship flying in game. Even though it's the exact same size, format, and (layout) process as the letter "A"'s sprite.

The only reason I couldn't use the sketchup file is because when you exported the animation, all of the images were the exact same. If you rotated the camera for the correct angle, then you uploaded the wrong one.

Still don't have it figured out. However, to ease my frustration, I modeled a new ship. Doesn't have a name yet. Made from one Enclave wing and an engine glow. Took a lot of scaling and moving for it to look right.

This post has been edited by Spartan Jai : 02 September 2010 - 06:21 PM

It's... colorful? Definitely sleek, and I feel it would fit the role of a strike cruiser nicely, but I question your choice in colors. Maybe if you made it solid blue, or changed the bronze to grey. Maybe even change the blue to grey. Other than that, it's some fine work.

Yeah. I don't like the colors personally. I got the blue wrong. Reminds me of the blue angels. If you have no idea, they're a navy fighter pilot group that does demonstrations and stunts. I have a jet painted like one. Made of Delphi's pieces of course.

Oh I know who the Blue & Gold are, they do shows often here in San Francisco. However, they've got a deeper, navy blue and actual gold, not the bronze-ish color you have. And the gold is more of a trim than something large sections are painted with.

Would you mind posting your Blue Angels jet? I'd love to see it.