...When I get time I'll try to write an explanation on the wiki somewhere.

 

John B

[edit - comprehensively rewritten after rereading your other post]

Makes sense to me to have a general page for tips where people can fill bits in, then split it off by subject once we have enough material. Please do mercilessly edit the page I've started - I know there's an awful lot missing...

Give it a few months, we'll have a whole new manual. 🙂

It doesn't strike me as redundant to have a specialist page on UV unwrapping - it seems a particularly confusing subject for many beginners, I know I found it very rough going. I think if we keep the general advice and mesh modelling on the page you've started, and the UV bits separated out for now. Make sense to anyone else?

Yes. I actually expect the Blender tips page to be removed later when we have enough content to split it into separate pages, it was just easiest to write it in one block for now.

John B

Retexturing it would be really useful, because the LMR version has a bunch of separate textures and when I did the conversion I just took those and put them all into one big texture. We do want it to just have one texture, but the problem is that at the moment that texture is really badly used (probably 2/5 of it is just empty, which is really inefficient). If you can remap it so that it can use a single 1024x1024 texture (using the whole of the texture region) instead of using a small-ish part of a 2048x2048 texture I'd be really grateful!

 

 

John B

I think you vastly overestimate my artistry! Given time I will gladly help to remap the lanner (I have only just learned what  blender is let alone build models and texture) if nobody else beats me to it. Is Jan 2014 an acceptable target lol.

deleted

John and Mike,

I have learned more today about blender and UV mapping than I have in the last 6 months. I can not thank you two enough.

I am going to take the lanner remap challenge. So I take it that the preferred texture setup for the new models is 1 x 1024x1024.png for the entire model?

I might as well start somewhere. Thanks again.

We've just been discussing this in IRC in fact.

The rule of thumb seems to be:

Powers of 2 are best for dimensions.

You don't necessarily have to use a square.

Use textures for the whole model, rather than textures per mesh

Use separate textures for diffuse, specular and glow maps.

[edit - removed wrong statement]

GPL textures are also provisionally OK - there are a few links on the wiki http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Textures

And you're very welcome - it was actually really interesting writing the bit I wrote, clarified a few things in my mind as well! I'm sure can keep this ball rolling... 🙂

 -- ignore --

Not sure which one you're using, but there's a Blender file for the new-model Lanner in the pioneer-assets repository on github:

 

https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer-assets/tree/master/ships/lanner

 

Retexturing it would be really useful, because the LMR version has a bunch of separate textures and when I did the conversion I just took those and put them all into one big texture. We do want it to just have one texture, but the problem is that at the moment that texture is really badly used (probably 2/5 of it is just empty, which is really inefficient). If you can remap it so that it can use a single 1024x1024 texture (using the whole of the texture region) instead of using a small-ish part of a 2048x2048 texture I'd be really grateful!

Wow, there are a lot of what I shall refer to as crappy bits in that model. By crappy bits I mean small parts that I never knew existed.

I now have a new found respect for the people who create these things.

...2) while I can get blender to recognise the new textures, I can not get blender to show them on my model in Blender despite them mapping correctly in game. What steps am I missing?

I've remembered how to do this. It's... convoluted, to say the least 🙂 Have a look at the wiki.

I've remembered how to do this. It's... convoluted, to say the least 🙂 Have a look at the wiki.

ah yes, it makes sense now. I used to thing blender was stupid. It turns out it is just ultra logical and I am stupid.

Blender definitely does have its UI quirks. Once you know how to do something it's fine, but figuring it out in the first place can be an exercise in bafflement. Doesn't help that most of the tutorials seem to presume a certain level of foreknowledge that we don't have, and are for versions of Blender before the rewrite.

Ho hum. No pain, no cool spaceships 🙂

Hexagon is still a pretty decent free modeler : http://www.daz3d.com/products/hexagon/hexagon-what-is-hexagon

Wings3d : http://www.wings3d.com/

i like Wings3D its one of the easiest 3D programs to learn IMO

I mostly use Linux, so Hexagon is a no go unless it gives me a very good reason to boot Windows (I don't think my machine has the grunt to run a 3D modeller in a VM...).

I've installed Wings3D - sounds from a quick Google like it's good for 'box modelling', which seems to be pretty much how anyone builds a spaceship.

I think I'll stick to Blender for now, simply because I fear mental overload if I try to learn two interfaces at once while trying to learn the basics of modelling too.

I'll definitely give it a whirl in a bit though - thanks for the recommendation.

Incidentally, anyone had a look at Mandelbulber? It's really easy to use, and when you're stuck for ideas for geometry it can be quite interesting to stare at... 🙂