Redid the texture again, think I got a much better scratched look as I was able too see the wire texture in the layers this time.

Been doing this in Blender 2.48 and been thinking I should move up to the latest versions as I am about 8 builds behind the current one. Started using it only to (shock/horror) 😯 discover that they have removed the bevel.

Think I may stick with the old one for now.

Another droid for my space port scene if I ever manage to make it all. 🙄

General Maintenance Droid, also known as a Grease Monkey.

The idea here is that a ship would carry a number of theses small anti gravity droids, they would be about 2 foot in diameter and would carry out ship repairs as well as any other task. They would have interchangeable arms and tool hands for different jobs.

It’s base some what on Vincent from the Black Hole and the battle droids from Terror Hawks.

Not sure weather to thicken the arms a bit more or how much detail to add to it.

Had a devil of a time unwrapping this one, but important lessons have been learned

1 make a better mesh and two never do it again. 😆

Done some texturing, but I don’t think I will go any further with this one as not happy with the look of it. Might be the basic colour of it although it might be the arms.

Will have to do a MK2 grease monkey at some point.

Nice Pinback. Maybe it could have a backpack with it's tools inside? I do remember Vincent from the Black Hole movie. He was one of the best things in it 🙂

This is the one I was thinking about adding a tool belt too, as if some one had made a modification by nailing the belt on. 😆

Like the ship designs of the Black Hole, very unusual in its gothic Victorian steam punk look.

Have read there might be doing a remake of it.

Hey that would be good news about a re-make! 🙂 Yes, the USS Cygnus in the movie was awesome. A bit like a massive green house in space. The model must have took ages to build.

Rebuild of one the old Amiga model, got so far with it and now and got stuck with how much detail to go into with it.

I guess that depends on what you want to do with it and what function the ship has. If she is a Freighter, then less detail and plain (dusty) textures. Warship? Should be bristling with guns and textured with military insignias. Explorer ship? Sensors with lots of lights. Could I ask how many polys your model has Pinback?

I think it’s 4608 polygons, if Iam looking at the right info in Blender.

It’s definitely a freighter/tug as one of the original inspirations for it was the Nostromo from Alien.

4608? Wow that looks good! 🙂 I thought it had way more than that. This is really good stuff Pinback, would you consider a conversion of your model to Pioneer? It would be cool to see something in the game that originally, was created on a miggy. Plus the game could certainly do with more freighters. Have a think about it?

It will probably end up with a couple of thousand more polygons as more detail is added.

Unfortunately the single biggest issue with doing any models for Pioneer is getting the model into the game. I am sure I am not the only one to have looked at that scripting shenanigans and run away screaming from it.

When or if they ever come with a better system for getting the models into the game I will probably have a go at it.

I know what you mean Pinback. I have tried reading Gernot's excellent tutorials but it's waaaaaaaay beyond me! 😳 Full credit to those who have managed to produce those wonderful ships in the game so far. Anyways do keep updating the thread as work on your model progresses. 🙂 Looking great so far!

Hey these models are cool!Can you show some orthogonal top-view renders?

0x3331

Cheers 3331

I assume you want to see a top down view of the ship, never got around to finishing it as I have been to lazy to do anything. 😳

It’s the first time I have seen it in that view myself, think I will change some of the proportion.

Clean-o-Bot 101

Another droid for my starport pic if I ever get around to doing it. 🙄

Going to have to redo the texture as I ended up with some noticeable banding on it.

man, i haven't watched this thread, my fault...

Pinback, if you ever like to port a model to pioneer, ask me.

i know i can't and won't do that for all, but i guess it's the best step by step method i can imagine.

you send me a model, i.e. a very simple part of the model perhaps only the main part. it doesn't have to be "YOUR SPECIAL PIONEER MODEL"

it can be anything else.

cut the model to parts of which you think that they should have different materials like glossy or matte parts, windows or glowing parts/sections.

clamp a textfile on it with your ideas and suggestions for the look and size of the model, as well which part reflects to be what.

in a first step i wil bind the model to pioneer "naked", means no textures, no animations, no extras.

then i send you back the script including some explanations to it.

you can check it out and send as next a Undercarriage i.e.

likewise before i will bind it in the script and return it to you, to examine it.

finally we could apply some textures, even some rather simple one(s) (can be one sheet or many small fragments, it doesn't matter much).

this will be the "heavy" part for you (creating textures) and the "easy part" for me (applying them).

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i'm still astonished about your work and that you felt once (quite a while since) you won't have the skill for FFED3D, imo you got it.

and for Pioneer i never wanted limitations

neither for the models character, i'm pleased with all of them, beginners and crafty experienced 3D workers output.

imo, there shouldn't be a limitation to modelling skill for Pioneer.

of course not all will find the way in the compiled game, but we still can exchange them here in the forum.

means i would like to fly a "board" if it's user created

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i will check the cobra in FFED3D as soon as my PC is running again (lack of funds now).

even here, i know animations are the weakest point and i guess i can help you out there.

if interested, i have (or could rewrite) a altered export script for .X in Blender.

it prevents from "reserved" characters Blender can write to a .x model and let's the animation start at frame/key "0" instead of blenders default "1".

this is relevant foremost if you like to have someting like a second animation for a scanner i.e. so it won't stop at the last frame before it's performing key "0" again (.x or FFED3D especially starts at key "0", if there is no key "0" specified it will stop for a little moment before performing key "1".

further calculate the last key as fractal of the summary of keys/frames, means a 360° rotation (scanner) and e.g. 30 frames results in 12° per frame.

the last frame will be 12° before 0°.

you only need then 3 frames to write (since ffe controls the animation)

0 at 0° to start,

1 a little more as 180° (needed to be above 180°, because else the program will shortcut to 0° backwards)

2 i.e. 348°

this will result in a fluid rotation

(i hope i telled it right, it always needs experience)

similar for the UC animation, make sure all objects axes are aligned to "world" (same as the alignment of your program).

this is important to prevent from "flipping" parts (i guess you have seen such).

you can reach this else by never mirroring a object, only mirror meshes in edit mode .

because a mirored object has mirrored axes,

if you mirror the mesh in edit mode and turn back to object mode, the axes have still the same alignment.

(take care of flipped polys resp. flipped normals, work always with one sided material for ALL games models,

because even if a game uses two-sided material it has then often different characteristics, not certainly wrong lit,

that's a issue of a one sided material gets rendered two sided, i.e. FFED3D.

certain games use it to define a glossy and a structured material)

due to the way how a .X mesh is build up and animated with Matrix4x4 "Frames" around each "sub"-mesh, it get's mixed up

when a part has a different alignment. thus because the Matrix performs a orientation on each part of the mesh (means i.e

pos x,y,z rot x1,y0,z0, rot x0,y1,z0, rot x0,y0,z1, scale"x",scale"y",scale"z"

this sets the orientation of the mesh/part, all parts are oriented to the top level frames center.

later on in the animation sequence the same "Matrix" gets altered by the key values.

here is the "trap", a "sub"-mesh wheel_l and wheel_r can have mirrored axes when modeled. Blender, MAX and so on will

reckognize that and use correctional data to perform the animation (if you check transform properties you can see that all movements and rotations

of the object gets stored and can be reverted. btw, mesh transformations in edit mode don't get stored).

.X has no such extra data stored.

the same top level "Matrix" or name it "Orientation" is performed on all parts, means the i.e. mirrored wheel is now reverted to it's origin.

but the animation key or matrix "knows" how to move the part and tends to move (rotate) it back,

the result is a flipping part.

(experience, it can be reverted with a hand editing of the file, when you edit the matrix of the sub-frame for the part,

or add a second sub-frame which corrects the wrong orientation. give praises to Pioneer and it's scripted animations, else i wouldn't know that).

and you can't get rid of that, not even with 2billion frames/sec!

while you would only need 3 frames/"whole way" if everythings ok.

safest way is NEVER mirror a object you like to animate for a .X mesh

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test run for a tutorial 😉

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a bonus for Pioneer 😉

it doesn't matter how parts are oriented for a script.

each .obj file will have "pioneer world alignment", no matter how the axes are aligned when you build the model.

this could lead in certain cases to flipped normals, even when the part appeared proper in Blender.

but no problem, either you flip the normals in the CAD or you call a "set_insideout" for the part in the script,

i prefere to flip it in the CAD, so there is one useless command left out (even if you can say, that won't matter).

i will attempt to explain a animation here (i hope that works out)

i guess we should look at our body, the elbow with the armpit is a good part 😉 to compare to a UC animation.

now, usually you would place the "bones" (because the stiff UC parts are like bones) rotational axis (pivot) in the manner of;

the upper bones one placed at armpit,

the lower bones one placed at elbow, (look at your arm 😉 )

of course the wheels axis is centered.

ok, variation ONE with only one bone and it's pivot on the rotational point.

a easy thing and works like you imagine it naturally, the pivot of the bone is set to the armpit, while wheel and bone

are joined together previously so the wheel will move lwith the bones rotation (you can rotate the whel backwards

so it will stand still in it's position, looks realistic).

that's really easy and for most cases enough (compare Lanner, Adder and many more of my models)

if you like to have something like your whole arm, with two bones it get's a little complicated.

you will have to guess backwards...

how this?

i have to continue tomorrow it's half past six AM now.

Cheers Potsmoke66, sorry for the late answer but I have been having problems with the internet this week.

I have a bit of problem with 3d in that I only tend to do it when I have some motivation and I have not done any since the last pic was posted back in August and as usual I have forgotten most of what I had learned. 😳

but if I ever get the ship model finished I will drop you a PM about doing it, although it might be a while as I have a lot going on at the moment and welcome back to the forum Potts 😀