Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo

[moed]

This is looking real nice.

It's good you're breaking the textures apart... will ultimately make the mod much cleaner looking IMO

Very good work.

Cookie incoming.

[serverandenforcer]

Looks good for the most part. Though, I'm not sure its entirely necessary to have each nacelle mapped seperately.  Presumably theyre both gonna be textured the same.

I did that for registry numbers and decals so that they don't appear to be mirrored on the other nacelle.  Although, I bet there's probably a way to do that without having to have each nacelle mapped seperately.  Again, I'm new at the texture stuff.

Also, I would put the phasers on the texture of the bit theyre attached too. Seems excessive for them to have their own texture.

I'll seee what I can do with that.  Will probably do that towards the end of the texturing.

[serverandenforcer]

Here's my attempt at aztecing.  Pretty sloppy, I know.  Just trying to get a feel at doing it.

[Adonis]

You can still add the section of deck two up to the where the dark blue is on the dorsal saucer to the saucer map, use up some more room on the saucer texture that you have in spare..

Can't Adonis. Not without complete changing the construction of the model. That's one whole piece going all the way back to the shuttle bay. And the way I have it mapped out lfor that piece looks decent to me as it is.  Infact, I'll post up pics of how I have everything mapped out so you can get a better idea on how I've organized everything.

Ever heard of the detach function? It doesn't matter how you constructed the thing, once you're done with mapping, you'll just collapse the mesh and reweld the verts.

I could tell by the way that you have spread out you textures. When you colored the second one from the original pix, I saw that you started getting messy on your texture usage and numbers.

You need to explain a bit more in what you mean by this.  Are you refering to the actual texturing, or how I have the model mapped over the texturing?  I'll admit that my texturing is a bit sloppy.  It is the first time that I'm doing this, and I'm not completely done with this base texture for the saucer.  It's just the basic layout of who I want it to look.  I will be cleaning it up a bit.

Dude, you got it wrong, baaadly.

You're not exploiting as much of the texture area possible, and you're not using the symmetry modifier!

I'm including texporter images of the Novi Sad's maps, minus the Phaser texture (a 64x64 tex that's tiled, and each shape of the phasers is mapped on it's own with UVMap modifiers (cylindrical and plane type mapping)), plasma grids (128x512 tex, same map tech as phasers (cylindrical)) and the buzzards (256x256 tex, same map tech as phasers (spherical)).

[Adonis]

Continued:

[limey BSc.]

and you're not using the symmetry modifier!

So? I personally find it faar easier to make the thing as a whole than using the symmetry modifier. Though I do agree about the, for lack of a better word, wasted space.

[serverandenforcer]

Ever heard of the detach function? It doesn't matter how you constructed the thing, once you're done with mapping, you'll just collapse the mesh and reweld the verts.

Of course I have bro.  Trust me, it will not look right if I detach it from the rest of the hull.  It renders out weird.

Dude, you got it wrong, baaadly.

You're not exploiting as much of the texture area possible, and you're not using the symmetry modifier!

Isn't the symmetry modifier used to weld two identical havles together to form one whole piece without having a "seam" running down the middle?  I've already done that with the whole ship before the texturing.  I did it again just to see if there might be any changes and I only notice a small minor allignment with the textures.  I don't know if that's what you wanted me to do.

I'm including texporter images of the Novi Sad's maps, minus the Phaser texture (a 64x64 tex that's tiled, and each shape of the phasers is mapped on it's own with UVMap modifiers (cylindrical and plane type mapping)), plasma grids (128x512 tex, same map tech as phasers (cylindrical)) and the buzzards (256x256 tex, same map tech as phasers (spherical)).[/color]

Honestly, for someone who is just starting on texturing, the way you unwrapped your model is really beyond what I can deal with right now.  I understand what each piece is, but for me to figure out a way to texture with something like that would drive me up the walls.  How about we just see how far I can get with this, and maybe once everything is finished, I'll learn some better ways to get the job done.  I'm not a quick learner.  Infact, I times I'm quite the idiot when it come to figuring things out.  I learn better doing things the hard way and figuring out better techniques through my mistakes.  That's just the way I am.  One of these days, I might be able to get up to the level of texturing that the rest of you guys are at.  But for right now, I'm here at this level.

Anyways, I rebuilt the saucer section and the phasers.  And Included the phaser maps with the saucer map (and there are only two phaser textures to work with).  So it's now only 4 maps to deal with.  I also re-done the texture for the saucer section (I'm still not satistied with it) and did the textures for the main phasers.

[Adonis]

and you're not using the symmetry modifier!

So? I personally find it faar easier to make the thing as a whole than using the symmetry modifier. Though I do agree about the, for lack of a better word, wasted space.

The symmetry in my case is a part of the mapping process, I effectively only map half the ship, minus the IDMap texture parts. The Oberth is a special case tho, and you have the whole textures source file as the ID map so you can see every single nook and crannie of how I textured that ship.

Ever heard of the detach function? It doesn't matter how you constructed the thing, once you're done with mapping, you'll just collapse the mesh and reweld the verts.

Of course I have bro.  Trust me, it will not look right if I detach it from the rest of the hull.  It renders out weird.

Of course it won't, since you'll abrupt the smoothing, but you'll put the whole mesh together at the end and reweld the verts, so it'll fall back together and "clean" those errors. The detachments are temporary only, to help you with the mapping.

Dude, you got it wrong, baaadly.

You're not exploiting as much of the texture area possible, and you're not using the symmetry modifier!

Isn't the symmetry modifier used to weld two identical havles together to form one whole piece without having a "seam" running down the middle?  I've already done that with the whole ship before the texturing.  I did it again just to see if there might be any changes and I only notice a small minor allignment with the textures.  I don't know if that's what you wanted me to do.

Can also be used as an aide with mapping, if you get half the object and slap a symmetry modifier on it, and then a symmetry modifier, whoala, you effectively doubled the ammount of space on the maps you can use to make detail crisper.

I'm including texporter images of the Novi Sad's maps, minus the Phaser texture (a 64x64 tex that's tiled, and each shape of the phasers is mapped on it's own with UVMap modifiers (cylindrical and plane type mapping)), plasma grids (128x512 tex, same map tech as phasers (cylindrical)) and the buzzards (256x256 tex, same map tech as phasers (spherical)).[/color]

Honestly, for someone who is just starting on texturing, the way you unwrapped your model is really beyond what I can deal with right now.  I understand what each piece is, but for me to figure out a way to texture with something like that would drive me up the walls.  How about we just see how far I can get with this, and maybe once everything is finished, I'll learn some better ways to get the job done.  I'm not a quick learner.  Infact, I times I'm quite the idiot when it come to figuring things out.  I learn better doing things the hard way and figuring out better techniques through my mistakes.  That's just the way I am.  One of these days, I might be able to get up to the level of texturing that the rest of you guys are at.  But for right now, I'm here at this level.

On the contrary, that way of mapping would make your life simpler, a lot simpler.

[MarkyD]

I think its shaping up real nicely, oh and i agree 100% in what adonis is trying to teach here.

[serverandenforcer]

Ok, I kind of understand it now.  When I went back to the Unwrap modifier after using the symmetry modifier I saw what it did to the unwrapped setup of the model.  However, if I don't want somethings to be identical to the other half of the ship (say, windows being lit), then this technique would be a problem for me, would it not?  And I take it that when you seperately unwrap the ID maps, you just adjust where the texture is positioned in the Edit window in the Unwrap modifier so it lines up wit the rest of textures; but wouldn't the textures kind of come out a bit distorted when you make adjustments to where they should be positioned? - EDIT: I just realized that if  you do that, you can be able to make your textures more accurately in whatever paint program that you use because the cut out is already there on the parts, which would act like a guide for the rest of the textures, but there probably would still be some minor adjustments made in the Edit window.

  Also, Max locks up and closes out when I use that modifier on the Aux Hull with the Pods (it also locks up and closes out quite frequently in other circumstances too, and for a $6,000.00 program, it quickly gets me discouraged, angry, and frustrated in continuing the modeling process - which really doesn't help me in taking time to understand other techniques - sorry about that).  Don't know why Max is locking up and I never can seem to find any form of "patches" or updates from Discreet with these issues and if there are any updates, they're not the ones that I need, and they cost a pretty penny to get. 

But after all that I've had to deal with Max on this with unwrapping, I'm kind of burned out with doing that whole process and dread doing it all over again - not to mention that I would have to hunt down where all the ID maps belong and this is the only reference pic that I have of the ship: http://www.startrekmeshes.com/startrek/federation/apollo/1024x768/apollo002.jpg .

[ACES_HIGH]

since it's an ambassador/nebula variant, couldn't you use those ships as references?

[serverandenforcer]

True, probably could.  Don't even know why I didn't think of that before.

[serverandenforcer]

O.K., I'm still working on this.  After looking at the model a bit, I saw it as sub-standard to what is currently being released for BC.  So I decided to rebuild the warp engines, the bridge, the sensor dome, and the pylons for the pods (in which I also redid the design for the forward torpedo tubes).  After doing that, I decided to make a "refit" version of the ship which involved minor modificatons to the bussard collectors and deflector dish, an upgraded sensor dome, and an up-armored bridge.  I also unwrapped the model the way Adonis advised, and it is a better way of unwrapping.  There are 5 maps: 1.) Saucer section, 2.) 2ndary Hull, 3.) the Pods and Pylons, 4.) Warp and Impulse engines, 5.) and I.D. / Phasers.  As Adonis suggested, I unwrapped it with the symmetry method (except for the I.D. / Phasers).  Right now I'm trying to figure out how the textures should look on the 2ndary hull.  It's not an exact copy of an ambasador's 2ndary hull, so I can't use any current ambasador textures as a reference.

STANDARD VERSION






REFIT VERSION






THE MAPS (STANDARD VERSION)

[Darkthunder]

Much better

[FarShot]

Really hope to see this done. 

[MarkyD]

Very nice work mate, love the new adjustments. and cookie for getting to grips with the mapping this early on..  8)

[serverandenforcer]

Sorry for not being real active with this as I was in January. I went from reservist to active duty at my base, and haven't had any time to work on this or anything else for that matter.  When I get my system hooked up and ready to work on, I will return to this.

[FourChan]

Welcome back.!

[Lionus]

Is this beauty still on the drawing board? 

[serverandenforcer]

Yes.  I had gone active duty a couple months back and have been moving from place to place.  I've finally found a more permanent residence to stay at, but I don't have my comp up and running yet, and I don't have internet (using my unit's internet to send this).  So once that is accomplished, I will be returning to this.