Visceral

I'm using 3d studio max 8 for the modeling and Photoshop CS for the textures, Glad you like it's my first good texture. I also made bump and specular maps but I don't think freelancer takes those . I am currently looking for help getting this thing ingame. My brain has officially stoped after this week long texture job. That and family is eating all of my time.

Cold Void:

Thanks for the kudos

hey Harrier nice job
i specially like the 1st ship

quick question tho... how big is the mat file?

k0rben,

1.538 Megs..

Harrier

Ithought FL modelling was dead but I was dead wrong, you guys are producing some great work here and the texturing knowledge has come a long way as well.

Harrier your stuff is a fantastic (as usual). VIsceral and Rankor I've been away from the community for a long time so I don't know how long you've been around but great work as well.

Are you guys (not Harrier) attached to a mod team or are you just freelancing? I would love to use some of your models in the next version of the Evolutions Mod.

I've just begun modelling again and it seems that I have to relearn a lot especially when it comes to .mat files but it's good to get the creative juices going again.

It's good to see that the modelling community is still going strong.

Since I'm here I may as well post a link to an album of my WIPs.

A lot of it is old meshes that have been sitting on my hard drive for ages, Ive just begun dusting them off and polishing them a bit before I start texturing.

@harrier
nice

glad to see you're back PantherX - you know I'm a huge fan of your designs

Good stuff

re: PantherX
AHA.. so you did the Trident, that was by far my favorite ship to fly back on Hals, huge fan of your work mate! Utterly wicked models btw, the Feng is a particular favorite of the bunch. Not really 'attached' to a mod team exactly, I'm not really of the opinion my modelling work (so far) stacks up in the FL community and have been tossing ideas about over on the mod I've been playing lately (MU). My texturing(and for that matter UVmapping) leaves a heck of a lot to be desired, and I have yet to tackle the arcane mysteries of surfiles in depth, though with all the help/suggestions I've received in the other thread, I think I can get around that eventually. I think. Stay tuned..

Here's some screens of some ideas I've had over the past bit (the Trius/Colossus/Arrow/somethingorother is slowly coming together), apologies for the length of the post..

Large Container Train, untextured, colored/shaded for effect:

Front Right
Right
Rear Right
Rear
Front

Large Container Train, untextured, colored/shaded for effect:

Front Right
Right
Right Rear
Rear
Front High
In yer face

Large Container Transport, untextured, colored/shaded for effect (not real happy with this one, but)

Front Right
Right Level
Right High
Rear Right
Rear
Head On

And now for something completely different..
Destroyer/Gunboat, unfinished, untextured, colored/shaded for effect:

Front Right
Right Level
Right High
Rear Right Level
Rear Right High
Rear High
Front High
In yer face

Funny Wing design, unfinished:
Switchback wing

*cringe* Ok have at it...

Cheers! Visc

Edited by - Visceral on 1/5/2007 4:21:56 PM

needs textures but i'm loving the consistency of the 'theme'

@ Visceral
I would love to use your Cat freighter in the mod my friend and the other stuff is shaping up nicely as well.

Btw Thumper is now in charge of the Evolutions Mod.

@Cold-Void
Thanks man. I'm rethinking my model exclusivity at the moment so I may be releasing my models for use in other mods or perhaps offering a model trade with other mods.

What have you been up to?

building a mod... by some small coincidence Doc told me about Evo, i've been meaning to discuss a possible merger with Thumper, seeing as how Evo has become huge and unwieldly, and I have some very handy FL-XML code (replaces all original ships, engines, ship goods, market entries, npcarches with XML generated INIs) to help drastically simplify the continued updating of things.... however I'd still like to see how beta testers react to some prolonged gameplay of my admittedly content-anemic (new faction/system/weapons/stations wise) mod... overall i haven't changed the universe except for adding a couple very unusual systems, so integrating to Evo is a very attractive option, particularly since i'm tired of working solo

the revolutionary side of this mod's code, if you don't mind my boasting, are the things i located in FL's engine the hard way- pseudo-gravity, weapon-scatter/innaccuracy, random economy, several useful physics constants, and an equipment balancing system with the potential to really work, as far as creating real tradeoff/benefit relationships (10 power-shield classes for each of the ship-classes + cargo volumes that restrict the total upgrade capability of a ship) and it does translate to good gameplay variations like running with no shield+ a shield-relay to amp up power generation for using several short-ranged/wide-scattering plasma cannon at once, or using low-power lasers + high density shields + shield cooler etc i also wrote a new SP mission for one of the new systems, but it's not done yet - anyways, if you're interested check the http://s14.invisionfree.com/FL_Redemption/ to get some more details, hopefully when i have the new beta ready this week(fingers crossed ) I will be able to locate a server to host the beta for more than a few hours at a time :/

*grin grin* Happy they're recieved well, was anxious about posting those.

re: Cold_Void
I have a theme? Uh oh... which one is it tho, 'cheap and easy' or 'blocky and basic'? Hehehe...

re: PantherX
Well the Cat's got fleas atm, I worked at it to a certain point and discovered some sloppy modelling, apparently I snapped some vertices together right before I went to map and there were some flat triangles scattered about that I overlooked - it was causing some very funky shading/lighting effects. I also have to wonder a little bit if the FL engine doesn't get confused with angles greater than 90 degrees.. some of the geometry in the tail, and on the forward collision arms was wreaking havoc with the lighting as well and I found certain triangles were displaying much darker than one placed right next to it on the same plane, and shaded in the same group(how the game engine resolves the smoothing groups, or whether it just discards it partly/entirely, is a mystery to me.) Either way I went back in and retooled the model a bit, and added a few bits and pieces that I skipped in my mad rush to build the ship(no brainer stuff like capship windows. What a concept.. rofl). Here's a few screens of the ship, before retooling, to show you what I mean:

Before Retooling:
Cat on Manhattan - Note Size of Vessel
Cat with Liberty Cruiser Turrets
Cat with Starflier overhead - Note Scale & Funny Shading on Surfaces

After Retooling, no textures, unmapped:
12 Turret Cat - Cleaned Up
6 Turret Cat - Cleaned Up

The 6 Turret model is more inline with the original Train, and will likely be the model I map and texture, and I should be able to redo it with a smaller main texture that'll bring down the mat file from 2.5 megs, to perhaps 1.5. All the original artwork is saved in separate bits and pieces, so it can be copied in as needed and it'll go much faster this time around. Fully half the original main hull texture was blank space *groan*. Ah well, I'm learning

Cheers! Visc

Edited by - Visceral on 1/6/2007 9:31:12 AM

hehe well kinda, but i meant it mostly as a compliment lets just say it looks like you prefer 90 degree angles atm i like it for freighters, but fighters should have more eye-drawing contrasts like the moncerrat's spikey curve the transports' suspended-engines remind me of that babylon-5 starfighter the humans used, and imo thats also a good thing

i must confess you're both far more competent than me when it comes to modeling and i'm in no position to be giving anyone advice about serious modeling, outside of exporting - in all i've probably only modeled three ships from scratch, the rest of my projects being under the 'misc' category or converting single-mesh ships to multi-part/wireframed/custom-sur ships

Some of my models can be seen at www.sirius-engineering.org although I have more tucked away on my working PC.
I've been working on my own total coversion mod while learning how to "code".
I've still yet to learn a few more things like "active" texture mapping.
But...in a nut shell, here is what I've been working on.
1. Multiplayer Nomad Mother Ship Encounter with a destructable star and destructable solars. (special mission)
2. Changing spatial relationships and object dimensions within exisiting systems.
3. Adding new planets, new factions, new commodities & new sytems.
4. Adding most existing ships I've created into the mod via hard coding.
5. Adding nomad encounters throughout most of Sirius.
6. Changing weapons statistics and fx.
7. Changing NPC shields to regenerate & include use of bats and bots.
8. Working on learning how to edit the intro screens to include new items and new ships.
9. Created a "prison" system full of nomads.
10. Editing and adding rumors to add humor.
11. Completely replaced old trade lanes with new trade lanes.
12. Working on adding new "hyper gates" .
13. To change current ship yards to sell ships, launch and recover ships through the docking bays.
14. Add new stations.
15. Add a new custom ship yard to sell the largest of capital ships.

There is more...but I'm brain locked at the moment.