Eric2575

Yes, glow is set on, but I also have a dedicated light (light lists) shining directly on the nacelles to keep them bright no matter what other illumination is present.

Hey fellow Nor-Cal guy: thanks fot the koodos! I'm from Orangevale here in Sacramento. Nice to know there is a fellow Hasher nearby.

Mike: I got the same impression as you when I viewed the avi, but I didn't expect much with just a quick test. The model really needs at least 5x multipass to really shine. I want to make a flyby with lights blinking and shadows moving, but that needs to cook overnight if I am going to do the multipass avi. Ruscular: The bay doors are inside the saucer just out of sight from these angles. It would be easy enough to make them function, but for now I have no plans to go much further with this project. Matt: The planet is a background image from NASA. I was going to model the planet but didn't have enough time to make it as realistic looking as I wanted to before the deadline came up. A while back I read a post on making planets with a gradient material. The material was mentioned and a pic was shown, but the details were not posted. I had a nice planet going with high def surface maps, but the clouds and the halo atmoshpere were being stubborn. Now that I have time, I am going to follow up on that post and see if I can get details on the gradient for the atmosphere.

Thought I'd post a thread here since the NX-03 is still a work in progress. I tried to use several different techniques in making this model. One of them I used for the first time and now I wonder how many possibilites this opens up - boolean cutters. I used booleans to cut out the shuttle bays on the left and right side of the saucer and again to cut out the sections that have the aft thrusters. The shiny metallic look is accomplished with spec intensity and spec size maps. I was surprised at how much I had to crank up the values to get that effect. There are also several normal maps to get the plate line definitions and of course the model is composed of several parts that are pulled together by action objects. Oh, yes, I tried using light lists, which I did, but found that putting lights in the model and then using light lists was more stable than just lights and light lists in the chor. I had many crashes when I tried just the light lists in the chor. Anyways, I'm still working on the bottom saucer decals and will post as I go. Here is a quick flyby: Challenger Thanks for the votes.

EXR decals?

No, your texturing job on this is outstandingly amazingful! Coming along really nice, keep it up.

I don't know if this is an existing comic character, but I think red eyes could be very interesting. Otherwise, awesome!

That looks terriffic!!! I've been away from the forum for a long time, is there a thread you guys have that describes your progres on how you textured that incredible spaceship? You should enter that in one of the image contests. Love it.

How about a few black powder burns for very close calls? A few shrapnel chips out of the armor here and there? Otherwise not bad t'all. Is this an existing Star Wars armour design or one you came up with? And for god's sake, dirty up those boots a bit. Haha

Go mixed for sure. Not too much, just to give it some more variation like you did above. Looking real good.

Looks pretty good as is, but I would texture the buckle(?) on the right breastplate separately. As it stands now, the texture on the buckle looks like it should be scaled down. My dime's worth.

I had to look twice to make sure I wasn't looking at a polygon model - damn, that's a lot of splines. Could you post some renders when you first started to model the face? I'd like to see some progression shots.

First of all, you must mean "seams." Second, post a pic of your work including a shaded wireframe. Third, have you done the tutorials, including "Cooper", and the giraffe? And last, have you searched through the forum for tips and tutorials? After all that, we'll look at your splinage and post comments.

Really nice work Jody. Maybe when you're all done, we can take my Saleen, add your Bridge, and make a poster for Hash's trade shows. Keep up the good work. -Eric

What kind of background do you have? I mean, have you done any drawing, any 3D work, anything along those lines? It really helps if you can visualize something in 3D before creating it. If that's not the problem, but rather the AM interface itself, then I agree with all previous posts (well, I agree with them no matter what) and advocate persistence and starting the WIP thread. Have you posted the chapter excercises in the beginners forum? There is lots of feedback and great examples there. Also, check out the projects and models that came with the AM cd. It really helps to reverse engineer them and see how other 3D artists have accomplished their work. One more thing, visit the Hash forum regularly and see what other people are doing and coming up with. If you come up against something that really has you stuck, you can usually do a search here and find that someone already went through what you are stuck on and has found a solution. I believe everyone who is doing really great work here has gone through some frustrations in the beginning just like you are experiencing now. Get over the hump and you'll amaze yourself and everyone else. I amaze myself every day. I haven't been able to amaze everyone else yet, but I'm working on it Eric

Should the windshield have a bit more of a curve as seen front to back? I'm not sure, just seem to recall the windshield looked like half a bubble.

My "one of those things" bin is almost overflowing. Gotta go unload that sucker soon!

Have you got painter yet? When will we see him bumped on the head?

Dhar, I had a light above the ceiling as a sun shining through windows and door, but decided to delete that and use other lights inside the room instead. Here is the thread: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23734&hl= The scene is actually looking pretty good to me right now. Martin: Ooohhhhh, is that what Render lock is for? I thought it was a security measure to keep Render away from unauthorized users What's the best way to model/texture a ball of yarn?

Dhar, could you describe your project just a bit please? I'm basically lighting a room with walls, floor and ceiling. I believe my problems started and still persist after adding about six extra lights besides the standard three. How many lights do you have and in what conditions? Is it an inside or outside scene? Martin, how am I supposed to arrange lighting for a scene when additional lights seem to nullify existing lights? It seems very counterintuitive and counterproductive to have this happen only to be able to see the full effect of the light setup by doing a final render. So I wait for the final render, get the result, don't like the look, change a light setting and re-render just to see if the tweak has the effect I desire? If the tweak did not achieve the effect I wanted, do the whole thing all over? How many lights until AM decides it wants to shut some down? If this is the only way, lighting is definitely not my favorite subject.

Opening the chor again tonight, nothing changed. The key light was still not illuminating the scene unless I turned off the last added light. Out of frustration I hit "Light Default Models" several times under the keylight and all of a sudden, the scene came to light, er, I mean life, no light, well, anyway. Toggeling LDM and hitting the spacebar did the trick, although it should not have required a trick. With all these responses, I'm so glad I have myself to fall back on Eric

Bump

Starting with the basic three light setup, I began adding lights to my chor. At first, the additional lights did what they were supposed to do, but after about five or six additional lights, my keylight seemed to turn off with the other lights doing all the work. Turning off the last added light, turned the keylight back on. I figured the last light was somehow defective, so I deleted it and created a new one. The same thing happened, the keylight, although the chor said it was on, was actually not doing anything to light the scene. Another test confirmed this. Instead of deleting the last added light, I just turned it off in the chor and the keylight immediately went back to normal intensity. Turn the last added light back on and the keylight behaves just like I turned it off. It seems to me this is some kind of default behavior by AM? How can I add lights without having existing lights turn off? Thanks in advance. Eric

Very dynamic movements all around. Now that's a pig on a mission I don't want to run across! Got a little story to go along with that?

Glad to see you're picking up on this again. I doubt that there are any rotoscopes that line up perfectly on every seam. Well, at least not many. When I first ran into that challenge, I had twinges of guilt about using artistic license, but soon got over that as the model progressed. Just convince yourself that what you are modeling is the right way and that the rotoscopes are wrong