Contest idea

[Madarin Dude]

Since there is a few people who know how to use 3D software. Why not contests for rendered versions of traveller ships and vehicles. It would be a hoot to see some cool pics that other people on the board have or make for a contest.

 

[Malenfant]

Don't make it a contest - Scarecrow would win every time .

But it could be fun just to have a thread where people could generally post their rendered ships

 

[far-trader]

That would be nice, and has been asked for before iirc, maybe Hunter will have time to set it up sometime

Heck I'd be happy to just have the link back for the old art pages that had so much cool Bryan Gibson (and others iirc) stuff for T20. Or is there some problem there Hunter? There are a lot of people have joined since the link went away that probably have never seen those drawings and renderings and that's a shame.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Good idea. We could have a "ship/vehicle/scene of the month" - preferably ones that haven't been done before.

No reason to restrict it to 3d renders, though - pen and paper drawings or scratch-built physical models are just as good.

 

[Madarin Dude]

I think two catagorites. Models that woudl cover physical models and 3D renders and illustration for pen and ink and other media. I can draw too. So a sort of intereior stylke illustration contest and a model (3d or practical)．　

 

[Andrew Boulton]

This could be the first: http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000664

 

[Malenfant]

Dunno if it would qualify for this, since I basically just followed Jesse DeGraff's Suleiman tutorial and tweaked it a bit, but there's the scene I rendered of a Suleiman Scout heading out for the 100D limit after leaving the brown dwarf at Antares. (the Antares supergiant is off to the left, illuminating the view, You can see the red glow from the BD lighting up the dark side of the more distant moon on the left).

http://members.shaw.ca/evildrganymede/rpg/traveller/scoutBD.jpg

 

[Madarin Dude]

Hey I thought it was closed due tolack of interst. Right now I have been doing a Star Trek model just for fun. I am working on a Fast Frigate. Just a very small ship. I tend to spend 5-10 times as much time on the textures as on the model. As an idea how about focus on an idea like original designs for traders 100-1000 tons?

 

[TheEngineer]

So, as far as a contest is concerned, I would prefer just a pretty gallery open for everyone.
This may prevent people from spending valuable time with actually the same topic (?).

Guess focus is an important point.
Sometimes I got the impression the same ship types are modeled and modeled again and you will find a bunch of scout ships, free traders, sub merchants etc.
Perhaps we should figure out, which designs are really not covered yet.

So, what ship types might be of interest ?

 

[Madarin Dude]

The China class fast Frigate is mine from this page. http://www.utfp.org/gallery/index.php
Just for something to start with. I know it is mor eof a Star Trek thing. I was trying to recreate the frigate from Star fleet battles a very small ship to be different from all the takes on cruisers.

 

[Falkayn]

I'd like to see a pretty art gallery. Especially Bryan Gibson's stuff that used to be here!

 

[TheEngineer]

Very nice !
Which software did You use ?

As You noted texturing is often a very though thing. I always wonders how Crow is doing that

.
Actually I am still trying to stick together a somehow convincing surface texture....

 

[Madarin Dude]

I used Bryce 5 for the final render. I modelled it in Mesaquoia a cool piece of freeware. I change it to obj format with crossroads another piece of freeware and did the map coordinates in Uv mapper. Again a piece of freeware. I do have Amapi on my spare hardrive it is a good modeller.

 

[TheEngineer]

Bryce ?
I expected several things, but not Bryce

Isnt it a bit complicate to use so many different tools ?

Hunter, could you also provide some space for a gallery, or is there perhaps a way to embed pictures directly in this forum, too ?

Regards,

Mert

 

[Scarecrow]

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
As You noted texturing is often a very though thing. I always wonders how Crow is doing that

.

I have actually written a tutorial PDF on creating high-detail textures. It's posted over at Sci-Fi meshes.

The first part deals with setting up mapping subgroups in Studio MAX so it won't be much use to you unless the modelling package you are using does something similar. However the latter part details creating the various diffuse, specular and bump maps and whilst that's written for Photoshop 7, the priniciples remain the same whatever paint package you are using.

As a thought, the whole tutorial will work perfectly with GMax and that's totally free - though it has no integral renderer

Regards

Crow

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi Crow !

Thanks a lot for this tutorial !
Perhaps my major fault in texturing is the try to use as many procedural shaders as possible.
As you noted tiling kills realism quite often, but until now I was very reluctant to mess around with Photoshop etc.

Well, this summer I owned Realsoft 3D 4.5, which surely is a inferior tool compared to 3DMax, but a bit more affordable for a humble CGI amateur like me.
Though its import/export abilities are limited, I really like the rest

Anyway it should be able to work as you presented in the tutorial.

So again, thank You very much

Regards,

Mert

 

[Madarin Dude]

Bryce is a fair program but youhave to get away from all the procedural textures and make your own. Bryce supports Obj format so I can make the maps in photoshop. One of the things tomaking a good texture for a 3D pic is to use more than just one channel. Use Specular maps are great at making the image look better. the thing peopel are used to in CG is pictures with even shine accross them making a specualr map changes that. Using many programs is normal. Also it you want to save a little cash it is what you have to do.