Author Topic: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo  (Read 8624 times)

Offline serverandenforcer

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Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« on: January 03, 2009, 08:03:30 PM »
I am so sorry that it took me this long to post an update on this model.  For the longest time, I could not find a decent tutorail for unwrapping a model.  Even the tutorials here really couldn't clarify enough for me on how to do it in an organized way.  People who vollunteered to help me out with unwrapping said that they couldn't after receiving the model and that they would have to build it back up from scratch because of how I built it, and then said that they would take the credit for it.  I wasn't about to let my work be credited by someone else, so I prety much gave up.  Then I went to another site that was devoted to combat flight sims, and not only found a tutorial that explained in better detail on how to unwrap my models.  The folks there were also very helpful and devoted a lot of time to help get past the hurdle in my modeling experience.  So because of that, I devoted most of my time to flight sim models.  It just so happened that yesterday, I began wondering about this model, took a look at it, and say that there was nothing wrong with how I built it.  I was able to unwrap it in less than an hour.  So now I've begun texturing it (which is a first for me) and have no idea how far I will be able to get with that.



Offline Billz

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2009, 09:42:33 PM »
Back from the dead. Urm, who are you again?

This model looks interesting. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.
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Offline Shadowknight1

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2009, 09:49:00 PM »
Heyyy!  I remember that ship!

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Offline DJ Curtis

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2009, 09:49:43 PM »
Well I'll be a monkey's uncle.  Good to have you back Server!  Add me to msn, and if you need a hand along the way, just get in touch.

Offline Starforce2

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2009, 10:06:07 PM »
Indeed. That ship looks hot. If it can get mapped and textured that'd be excelent.
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Offline serverandenforcer

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2009, 12:58:05 AM »
The only thing that I can think of that would keep me from being able to release this is that I'm using max 7 and it doesn't have a .NIF exporter, oh, and that max is being tempermental right now.  I just lost the entire unwrapped version of this and had to unwrap it all over again... which took me a little over 2 hours because I had carefully place all the parts over the bitmaped image.  I'm using Paint.net to make the textures.  I do have GIMP, but it's difficult to figure out how to use it.  Paint.net was easy for me to figure out, and, according to my sister, is almost exactly like photoshop - albeit missing a few features.

Offline serverandenforcer

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2009, 04:19:32 AM »
Well, I think I'm satisfied with the basic textures for the saucer section.  Now I'm scratching my head on how the 2ndary hull should look.



Offline Adonis

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2009, 10:38:20 AM »
My strongest suggestion would be to remap the whole thing as follows (yours looks just too messed up as is):

Feel free to use 2048x2048:
Map1: entire saucer (using a symmetry modifier under Modifiers>Mesh editing>Symmetry)

Map2: Secondary hull and pod (with a symmetry modifier)

Map3: nacelles and struts (with a symmetry modifier)

Optional:
smaller, not greater than 512x512:
Separate textures for the plasma grills and buzzard collectors (with symmetry modifiers)

2048x2048
IDMap

All my capital ship models are mapped this way.
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Offline DJ Curtis

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2009, 12:59:52 PM »
Mine as well.

Offline serverandenforcer

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2009, 02:32:27 PM »
I was doing this on a single 4056 x 4056 and then would shrink the maps down to a smaller level when I would be finished.  Just out of curiousity, how can one tell if the maps are too messed up?  Just asking so that I can see this and understand that I would need to remap something.  Also, I already did use a Symmetry modifier for the Saucer, secondary hull, and the nacelles and struts.  The reason why it might not look like it maybe because of how the textures that it comes with from being unwrapped.  I exported the model after being unwrapped in max to LithUnwrap to generate a basic .bmp texture (the blue covering with the zigzagged white lines) and then applied it to the model.  LithUnwrap does a severe unjustice to how the model really looks.  So I don't know if it is that that's causing the model to look messed up.  But I will remap it again onto 3 seperate maps.

Offline serverandenforcer

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Re: Back from the dead
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2009, 06:21:53 AM »
Well, did as Adonis suggested.  Seperated the whole ship into 5 different maps.  Took me 8 hours though to figure out how to do that.  Totally forgot that I had to detach the saucer, 2ndary hull, aux hull with the pods, the engines, and the phasers from each other to get that done.  I was about ready to throw my mouse at my monitor until I realized my mistake.  Well, unfortunatley, because of my error in understanding on what I had to do, I only got this much done.  Not really anything new, but it took me a whole day to get there though  :P .   Oh, and I guess there were a few areas that needed some symetry  done as well.





Offline Adonis

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2009, 06:43:54 AM »
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.

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.

My suggestion for the plasma and buzzard textures (I am guessing that you have made those aswell) is to make the plasma ones (Height x Width) 128x512 and the buzzard a square (say 256x256 or 512x512, you really don't need bigger - opens up possibilities on stuff ingame ya know ;) ).

All you really need is 3 textures for a ship, the rest is really optional. I would introduce a 4th one if I would be getting variantaholic on the ship (say, different pods, so I'd slap ALL the pods on the 4th texture), and/or do an ID map, where I'd slap all the sections of the ship that have ID's (name'n'shipreg), pennant'n'stripes, impulse exhaust, deflector dish, shuttlebay doors (so I can number them), it really all depends on your scope of thinking stuff through.

You could for example look at my Novi Sad ship pack on BCFiles, she's a fine example of fooling around with ships in this manner. Another (altho early attempt) is my Akyazi V2.0 pack.

Where some would use a whole boatload of textures on a ship pack of 20, I'd get away with about 7 or 8 excluding the extra ship ID maps (Luxor pack for example has 24 ships so far with only 7 texture maps used!) and it would still look a million times better.
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Offline Villain

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2009, 06:49:14 AM »
Amazing design here, dude. Always good to hear a project is back on track!


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Offline limey BSc.

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2009, 08:43:19 AM »
If it was me, I would use 5 textures for that. One for the saucer (top and bottom) at 2048x1024 (or maybe double that), one for the secondary hull, seperating the curved thing at the back and the deflector and just cylindrically mapping the rest. One for the pylon/platform thingy at the back. One for the nacelle, seperating out the bussard, grilles and orange things between the 2 and cylindrically mapping the rest. And the last for the pod on the back.

The model looks great, though could do with more edges on the saucer. Probably at least doubling.
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Offline adama2

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2009, 11:50:28 AM »
very nice ship. amazing design but the deflector-section is whit to big. in my opinion.

great work

Offline FourChan

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2009, 01:10:25 PM »
That ships looking good. I can't wait to see her in action.

Offline serverandenforcer

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2009, 05:11:06 PM »
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.



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.


Saucer:


2ndary Hull:


Aux Hull with Pods:


Engines:


Phasers:

Offline limey BSc.

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2009, 06:14:35 PM »
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. Also, I would put the phasers on the texture of the bit theyre attached too. Seems excessive for them to have their own texture.
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Offline Kirk

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2009, 06:23:12 PM »
I'm with limey, put the phasers in another texture to cut down on gfx card memory usage.

Offline MarkyD

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Re: Back from the dead; Texturing the Apollo
« Reply #19 on: January 05, 2009, 06:32:04 PM »
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. Also, I would put the phasers on the texture of the bit theyre attached too. Seems excessive for them to have their own texture.

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