Spaceship Workshop

[Evillions 552]

There has't been any spaceship BATs in over 3 years!  Its time to bring it back, but with something different.

We'll start off with a simple cargo ship first.  (This is the most recent changes.)  The list on the bottom will include..

Work In Progress

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Cargo Ship

Planning

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Passenger Ship

Small Cargo Ship

Small Passenger Ship

Hover Cars - Automata

[psander5 197]

Do you mean the artistic design or the technical stuff?

There's a bundled tutorial for modelling an aeroplane in Max 9. It might be a good place to start for the technical side. Some of the techniques in there can, I'm sure, be transplanted into spaceship design. There's also a tutorial explaining the Edit Poly modifier which actually uses a simple spaceship as its example. I guess your imagination and creativity is the key after that.

It might also help to copy a few spaceships from films that are similar to the style you want to make. That way you'll learn how to model elements that you can transplant into your own designs. Working on 'sketches' like this also means that if you run into trouble you're not falling out of love with your pet project. Instead you can ditch the practice model (if you've really made a mess that you can't bear to fix) and start again, learning from your mistakes.

I find that also helps (me) to work from real life drawings sometimes. If you're not completely fluent with 3d modelling software it can be difficult to design fully inside the program. Nearly all practical and artistic design starts off as sketches which are then translated into 3d for CAM, animation or visualisations.

There's probably some tutorials on the internet too, tailored specifically to sci-fi, but I haven't looked. Perhaps they're all rubbish or for later versions of Max... maybe that's why you're asking here

[GlobexCo 33]

So: help in creating an automata or help in modelling a spaceship?

Gmax can esport things in real 3d for SC4 (with a script I found at SC4D, in the NAM How Tos - posted by Tarkus in the Interchange one), if you need to export things for automatas. Anyway, I really don't know anything about this technical side...

But I can help you in modelling, if you post reference pictures or oyur idea...

[Evillions 552]

Well I'm using 3dsmax again, so here's what I have so far.  A simple cargo ship that I saw from somewhere.

If anyone here is planning to render this or if I can render with this.  Then I'll be thankful if you can render it.

---

After using the greeble tool...

What do you think?  Should I tone down the greeble tools or what?

[psander5 197]

You changed your first post - now mine doesn't make sense!

I had to look up what a 'greeble' was. Now I know what it is though I can say this: If it was the greeble tool that changed those hexagonal forms into the bottom picture then I would suggest turning it down a bit! At the moment my eyes can't make any sense of the rear portion of the ship because there seems to be so much going on at the same time. I think that is in part due to the greeble and part due to the texture. If you adjusted the contrast between each panel so that it was more of a uniform shade I think it would be easier to pick out the greebled forms by their natural shadows.

I think the forward portion has about the right amount of greebling. Again though, a more uniform texture might make it look more cohesive. I think the front portion was a more resolved shape too before you applied the greeble tool. I think if you tried a more resolved form for the modular cargo sections you'd get a more resolved final model. It's my understanding (thanks to a quick wikipedia search) that the greeble tool is more of a 'finishing touches' tool than a method of quick modelling. I would try modelling your own key elements like engines, docking areas, connectors etc, then only apply the greeble to areas of open surfaces. I think it would add a lot more interest to the design.

I just downloaded a plugin myself to see how it works, and it looks quite an interesting and useful tool. I intend to use it myself when I'm playing about - I like to make spaceships too for fun and practice. It's a hangover from playing with lego when I was a kid

After writing the word 'greeble' - a word I wasn't aware of until today - far too many times in this single post, I'd like to say thanks for bringing it to my attention! I would urge you to use it sparingly and tactically. At least, that's how I intend to use it myself.

Of course, all this is just my opinion. Your idea of how a spaceship should look and how it works might be completely different from mine! That's why there are so many different sci-fi universes to explore!

[GlobexCo 33]

Originally posted by: psander5

After writing the word 'greeble' - a word I wasn't aware of until today - far too many times in this single post, I'd like to say thanks for bringing it to my attention! I would urge you to use it sparingly and tactically. At least, that's how I intend to use it myself. quote>

Oh I wanted to add Greeble in the "useful Max plugins" thread, but seemed to too sci-fi...

I suggest to use a Multi/Sub material and use two different textures for each material ID (yes... greeble supports more than one mat ID!)

[Evillions 552]

Well I finally got BAT4MAX, so here's what it would look like in zoom 2.

Day

darkNite

This is still not the final product, more elements still needs to be made.

[halicem 16]

Anyone play eve online around here? They have some really pretty ships.... =D

[Gn_leugim 858]

humm.. I just don't like the green wind shield.. to light =\

[SimFox 802]

I'd say go lightly on Gribble. You know it is not an answer. It may add a little "finishing" touch to your creation, and as such a very useful toll. But it is a spice, desert if you will, not main course. And you know what happens if you go on a desert diet - you end up with diabetes and rotten teeth...

[Wrightguy0 40]

more spaceships, it has been a long time, and all the ships in the Sci Fi CJs are aging (and getting repetative)

[Evillions 552]

Well, the make things simpler, I took some suggestions from another site and site and came up with this.  Please exclude the greeble issue, I'm still learning how to use it efficiently.

I made the cockpit's windows to a orangish tint for SimMars.  If I have the time, I'll change the cockpit color to a blue tint for Earth.

[Blazerhawk 162]

That front window looks way overscaled. I would suggest breaking it up. Also keep in mind that the largest ocean freighters are around 400m long. In short, don't lose sight of scale. Scale can make all the difference in the world.

[Evillions 552]

Relating to what you're saying.  The yellow box is just 400 meters compared to the pink box which is about 1,000 meters.  You're saying that most ocean frighters are about 400 meters.  Well, since this is a Sci-Fi type of a ship, I guess I could downsize it too 400 meters, but it will look akward if you ask me.  It just doesn't look right.

[Blazerhawk 162]

Unfortunately, the only way that thing will render is if it is scaled down. From my experience, length and width take longer to render than height. Also, consider that at its current scale that ship would not fit in a small city. Additionally that window is, by my calculations, over 100m long and 250m wide. You only find glass that extensive on skyscrapers, and it is always broken up by floors and wall on the inside. I like the design and concept. I'd scale it down about 50% and try a zoom 5 preview. See how that looks.

[Evillions 552]

Ok, I'll see what I can do in an other time. But I need an "okay" by SimFox for sure! He's the BAT master generally speaking.

[psander5 197]

I'm surprised your computer can even manage a model of that scale, and presumably with lots of polygons! My old laptop would be groaning under the pressure! I agree that you would need to scale it down to get it to render, or at least split the model up into sections. As far as I know Gmax is only capable of exporting LODs of a certain size - somewhere around 16 SC4 tiles (256m). Your model at its current scale would be 87.5 tiles long

I also agree about the window/bridge section. It seems too big. The windscreen (I know its not a car ) is a big visual clue towards scale. I imagine a human sitting behind the wheel and my brain measures the scale of the model from that. I think a much smaller window section would make more sense.

I like the new modelled details. They really help to give the ship more visual interest and sense of purpose than the greeble can do alone. They also help a bit with the scale issue.