Bridge Commander Central
BC Forums => BC Modding => Topic started by: Capitan_Picard on November 30, 2008, 03:15:07 PM
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Hey everyone. I have been fooling around with 3DS Max and feel my skills may just be enough to attempt my first project for the community. I thought why not make a new model of the McKinley shipyard that I hardpointed quite a long time ago. Anyway I need some help, I have a few pictures of what I have done so far but I just started about 10 minutes ago so it?s not much. I am not fully sure the 'right' way to model but I have a process and things usually look how they should after. So I made a couple of different shapes, mostly primitives, then converted to poly, extruded some faces what not, and then finally used Boolean to either subtract or union to make one full mesh. When I then convert the whole thing to editable poly, these 2 lines appear across the back part, as seen in picture 3. There is one on the top face and one on the bottom face. So my question is where did they come from, are they ok, and if not how do I get rid of them/prevent it from happening in the future. Thanks!
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Looking good.
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just finishing the excalibur McKinley Station (see attatched). The one thing I would warn you about is that the reference materials out there are very innaccurate, try to rely more on the screen caps then anything else.
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Alright so here is a little update, it?s not much because I am in finials and I thought it would be a good idea to start this before them for some reason?. I changed the dome with the advice of Mark, now it looks like more of what is in the show as well as what Mark has. The Galaxy class is none other than DJ?s, which I hope he doesn?t mind me using for scaling as I tried to make it from just pictures. Because when I tried it with the ship it was horribly off, I guess for a ship specific shipyard that is not surprising. Criticism and comments always more than welcome.
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That's looking great.
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looks good, and properly scaled. although i was never a fan of the head-crab design of the station anyway
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How would you get your ship, in, anyway?
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very nice work
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How would you get your ship, in, anyway?
I would assume the arms rotate around and the ship manuvours in from below.
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Alright so another small update. I remodeled the bends of the main section as I found a better way to do it and then I added the small four nacelles supporting arms. As for getting in or out I just pictured the arms opening outwards and the ship moving directly down or up. It?s not much of an update as it?s a slow process for me but C&C are always welcome.
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Looks great, how are you going to be able to dock in it? Or is it gonna be a Static object like a space station. After you're done modeling this one, you should model a Station with a half completed galaxy class sitting in it with it's engines online. :D
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Couldn't FTech be adapted for the docking procedure?
Like, when you click dock, an FTech cutscene plays were the 'crablegs', for lack of a better term, would come down and clamp around the ship?
Maybe ask USS Sovereign or USS Frontier at BC:TNG if it is possible.
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How would you get your ship, in, anyway?
like this, but the other way:
Alright so another small update. I remodeled the bends of the main section as I found a better way to do it and then I added the small four nacelles supporting arms. As for getting in or out I just pictured the arms opening outwards and the ship moving directly down or up. It?s not much of an update as it?s a slow process for me but C&C are always welcome.
Looks good, but just two improvements I would go for:
1: Add the strut on that back section, you can see it on the show so it should be there and it helps balance things out.
2: Curve the horiztonal edges near joints, it will make it look more like a real joint.
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Alright so I have been doing some work and I think I am almost done the model of the station. Next I obviously need to texture it but I have no idea really how to do this. I have Photoshop and I have looked at the tutorials here and on the internet about the UVW Mapping but I still do not really understand how to do it. Anyway I shall continue to try and figure it out, if anyone has any suggestions about the model or tips for texturing it would be very much appreciated.
In regards to the movement of the arms, I am still in debate. FTech may be too complex as I would need a ton of separate models to move to simulate the animation. Then there is MVAM which would be much simpler, but I just have to figure out how it could work, i.e. when you click dock with the ?open? model can the scripts move the ship in place then switch the models or what happens when you click dock with a ?closed? station. If any of you guys have ideas feel free to share them and I?ll see what I can do.
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very nice!
I can't tell you much about mapping with 3ds max cause i use a diffrent program for model and mapping,
but I really suggest that you spent a good amount of time with learning how to map and mapping the station itself.
A good map is essential. It makes things a lot easier when you come to texturing.
Btw, whats the poly count of this station?
At any case keep up the good work, and have a well deserved cookie for your work so far!
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Alright so some good news! I believe I have finally figured out how to map the textures so here is an extremely overdue update. Just a few pictures of the basic textures on and what the model looks like in game. The brown is a fairly easy texture to do but as for the gray parts how can I go about adding detail such as hull platting lines and windows. I have looked on line and the effects are not what I?m looking for and when I try myself it just looks horribly cartoonish. These are the colors I?m going with so let me know if you feel they should be darker/lighter or be changed. Enjoy!
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Looks good mate. 8)
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Yay, it fits! But which Galaxy model is that? Otherwise there may be teensy weensy issues with other Gal style ships. If you get what I mean.
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Looks like DJ's Galaxy.
This looks really cool.
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that looks to me like the Season one variant, which is based on the same filming model as the SNS, which is the wider of the two, so it shouldn't have a problem with most Galaxys out there.
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He already said he was scaling this on DJ's galaxy :wink:
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It's only a page long and I missed it? Damn... :P
But yeah, this is looking good mon Capitane. I would love to have this tucked away in my install. :D
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Update. Trying my hand at texturing as you can see, but I don?t really like how they look. Maybe they are too big or maybe I?m not texturing them right. The poly count for the station is 11,427 vertices and 21,707 faces. I don?t know how this fits in comparison to other models for the game. I tried to keep the count down so that the whole range of PC can use it. The station is indeed scaled to fit DJ?s Galaxy as it?s an amazing ship he made. I have not tried it with the other models but when I finish it up now that I am done finals I?ll post some pictures with them with the station. Like always C&C always welcomed.
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nice start!
How have you mapped the station( how many maps?) and
which texture size do you use?
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Right now I am using 4 maps, as seen below, all with a size of 1024 by 1024. Is this a good size to use or should I change it?
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for something like this, that's more then enough. Although if that brown one is going to stay a solid color, it doesn't need to be that big.
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1024 by 1024 is ok too, but maybe you want to consider to use instead of these 4 maps
one single map with 2048 by 2048, but this is up to you!
If possible, make the windows on the side wall of the station a bit bigger, so they will become
a bit sharper. ( with bigger i mean increasing the mapping of these sidewalls)
These are just suggestions, you don't have to follow them :wink:
I'm really looking forward to see the final station :D
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Hello again everyone I hope everyone is well. I am sorry the slow progress of this project, due to the learning curve, HDD crash and a stab at the ROM contest I haven?t had a lot of time. Anyway I believe I am almost done. I can get the model in game, but I?m still having some issues with the textures.
I am trying to get the alpha channel down. I followed this tut http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/topic,4569.0.html but it needed a light map layer so I followed http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/topic,2209.0.html but the file I got out of it did not look like the black and white alpha layer. Can anyone help me in how to make a light map layer so the windows glow with maybe a spot light?
Also I am not quite sure how to make speculars so if anyone has any pointers on that topic it would be greatly appreciated. As for the texture do I just export the model with the texture on it and then both go in the game directory together? The last picture a jpeg of the texture file for people to check out and see if I did it right. I can email you the PSD file later if there are alterations needed.
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I can give you a hand with the glows. If you want spot lights added, email me the whole package (.max file, and all related .psd's) and I'll bake in some lights for you.
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Ok thank you very much Kirk. I am just going to touch up the textures until I am happy with them and then I will send it to you. If you have a second could you also explain it later so I could potentially do it next time? Am I suppose to put the spot light in the 3ds max scene and then bake it? How do i do all the windows then? I am just asking to know for the future so I'll send it to you when I am done. Thanks again.
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When you send it over to me, I'll put together a step-by-step, tutorial for you (and maybe post it here.) It'll be easier than trying to get our two schedules to line up (so I can tell you in real time.)
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Ok so I have a slight problem. Finally after much research and even more trial and error I have managed to nearly complete the project. However as you can see below there are a few sections of textures that don't show up on the model in game. Can anyone help me figure out why this is happening? Thanks.
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I'll have it fixed for you mate, no worries. ;) I noticed that when you sent me the package.