#16
Hehe, I guess that depends on your modelling skill. I only need a helping hand with a single model, since I'm building the others (and other elements) and it would save some time. :)
The Expanse. Watch it!

#17
I'll need a modeling crew when i take my skillz and campaign to the public. But first I will watch and wait and tell no-one and let this mod blossom.....
'Memory and imagination are but one thing, which for diverse considerations, have diverse names'
¦- F R E D E N T H U S I A S T -¦

#18
I need people.

Can I have people?

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AND TOBI SAYS THAT THE NEW ORDER OF THE REPUBLIC IS BEING HEADED BY SNAILS AND WE WILL EAT ALL YOUR BABIES AND WE WILL GO ON FOR ANOTHER TEN PAGES BLAH BLAH WE LIKE USING CAPSLOCK YOU KNOW I LOVE THAT CREDIT AD WHERE THEY TELL YOU ABOUT NOT RUNNING OUT OF CREDIT LOL I HAVE A LOT OF CREDIT BECAUSE I HAVE PAY AS YOU GO HEY DID YOU KNOW THAT I HAVE A LOT OF HOMEWORK TO DO AND MY FINALS ARE COMING UP LOL NO YOU DIDN'T BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHO I AM ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BLAH BLAH YAP YAP YAP YAP IT'S FUN TO STAY AT THE YMCA AND WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING THAT WE MAY DO TO YOU INCLUDING DEATH OR STUFF LIKE THAT AND DID YOU KNOW THAT I REALLY NEED TO GO RIGHT NOW LOL TICK I AGREE BLAH BLAH TOBI IS A GOOD BOY SNAILS ARE MOLLUSCS, THEY ARE ACTUALLY GASTROPODS LOL TRICKED YOU.

[_] I accept the terms of aggreement.

[_] I do not accept these terms of agreement.

#19
about earth...there are stars over its dark side. did you make a crescent shaped btimap? the dark side should be a balck part of the bitmap, instead of the green that doesent show in fs. that way you dont have a buggy looking spacescape.

#20
Also, my attempts at some hard-core UV mapping have failed. I tried using Truespace for UV mapping, but in the forums I saw people saying things things like "for the love of God don't use Truespace!" I now see why...it is a pain. I've downloaded LithUnwrap, but I still haven't got it 100% figured out.
If you're using blender to model these in, you need look no further for a UV mapper. Blender's UV mapper is excellent, and while there are a couple of features I'd like from lithunwrap that blender's doesn't have, overall it's considerably more powerful.

A good introduction to UV mapping in blender is here: http://biorust.com/index.php?page=tutor ... l&tutid=85

and there's also a video tutorial on UV mapping at the bottom of this page: http://www.blender.org/tutorials-help/v ... riallight/

Finally, though I see you've done a lot of conversions already, getting a textured ship from blender to FS uses a reasonably specific process, and in case you aren't using it already, here's a quick guide:
The various file format exporters and importers were all written by different Blender users, and as such they have different levels of stability, capability and completion. The truespace COB exporter is unfortunately one of the less capable ones.
It will be able to export all your objects and have TS recognise them as separate objects, it will keep the UV data of your textures and sometimes keep the objects positions relative to each other correctly. It won't however export the heirarchy, textures (it gives everything a default texture) and usually not object centres.

However, there is a way to get your textured Blender models into TS ready for heirarchy setup and conversion. It will require that you set up your parts so they look something like this in Blenders outliner view:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/V ... erView.jpg

All that's significant about this stage is that you have all the objects using their correct textures:

Each object (ie, Detail0, CockpitGlass, Debris01 etc)
is linked to only one mesh (ie, bomber09a_hull, HP-Cockpit.001, bomber09a_hull.006 etc),
which in turn is linked to a material (ie, ZeusHull, Cockpit, Zeus Debris etc),
which is linked to one texture (ie, ZeusDebrisTexture, ZeusHullTexture, CockpitTexture.002 etc),
which is linked to one image file (ie, ZeusHTL.bmp, ZeusHTL-Debris.bmp, TERCOC01.bmp etc)

Notice that there's no object to object heirarchy there. All the objects are separate. I did a lot of exporting experimentation and found that none of the formats will preserve object to object heirarchy, so there's no point in assembling it in Blender. TS is actually better for that bit anyway.

So, once I'm at that stage, I export it as a DirectX .X file (just press the export all button in the dialogue box). From there, open it up in 3d exploration (D/L it here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/ ... r_v181.rar) and re-save it as a COB.
Because of Truespace' crappy importing, that's the only way you can get it to keep the objects separate. You'll still lose the object names and centres, but it's not too hard to figure them out again. They will retain their textures, positions relative to each other, and you'd probably have to have redone their centres anyway whether it preserved them or not.

Opening it up in TS, you'll see something like this in the scene editor: http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/V ... rarchy.jpg

From there just figure out what is what, set it up in TS as you would any other ships heirarchy, save to COB or SCN and convert using PCS. Have a look at Karajorma's turreting tutorial for more help there.
Twisted Infinities

#21
Wow. Thank you, VA! That video actually explained a lot of what I was missing with UV mapping. This opens a whole new amount of modelling power; so much that it is dangerous. :shock: I'm compelled to do every model in this way! And since most of my models don't have final textures...hmmm...

I still plan on launching a sort of beta soon, but I'll be sure to state that nothing in it is final...lol, hence the "beta" part, right? Now that I have some new options, I think I'll be sure to make FS2H pretty, as well as functional.

Thanks again!

And if anyone has more suggestions on how to UV map like a seasoned professional, let me know in the new forum topic: UV Mapping Suggestions.

#23
I will be opening the doors to some help soon. Really what I need are people to "beautify" the ships models and textures. I have a lot of models that need to be detailed. And, honestly, my attempts at texturing them with cube maps and wrap textures have been total disasters :(

So far FREDing is coming along fine, and I've overcome most of the major obstacles. I've also got music covered, as well as storyline and mission design.

REITERATORS WANTED SOON!

There are about 70 models, and what I'd like to do is get a list of people who want to work on them and make them look less like flying bricks with weapons :lol: I'm gonna start a thread in a few days here where people can "sign-up" to work on a model. I'll be listing the different ship classes, and throw some pictures of each on there. If you like the way it looks, and feel that you can make it uber, then ask to be that model's "Reiterator." I'd also ask that anyone who 'applies' show an example of what they can do with models. My hope is to get a good number of people involved, ranging from the senior experts that have been here since the site's creation to the new crowd of upcoming model makers.

I've made this project my own personal hobby for a long time, but it is time to reach out and let the community make this mod the best it can be.

After all, a Halo-based game deserves nothing less.

I'll make the Reiterator thread in the next few days, so stay tuned! And as always, thanks for the support!
Locked

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests

cron