making shipsets?????
 

ok....is there any other way to make a shipset/race style other than the doga program? i still cannot seem to get that program to work right...is the doga program the only program anyone uses to create shipsets?????

I have tons of ideas for aliean races and all...just no way to put them on "paper"...

Re: making shipsets?????
 

Well, you can use Povay and its compliment Moray. I only looked at doga for a few seconds and it seems easier to use than povay is. But moray and povay come with good tutorials so an hour a day for a week can result in you fairing pretty well.

Of course you can cut images you find on the net. Or you can free hand your own with a paint program, if you don't mind its crudeness. If you really want something decent looking I'd go with the Povay/Moray combo.

Povay is a raytracer program. (I think that's what it is called), but you have to spend a little time learning the scripts to get what you want. Not at all hard, but a steeper learning curve. Moray is a graphical interface for Povay. It is shareware, I think. Povay is freeware. With moray you create objects and resize them, move them, and create color maps for them. I'm personally not very good with the color maps. All mine turn out looking like some kinda strange timber.

Re: making shipsets?????
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Did you managed to get and install Doga L2 ? I did not have any problems with it.

Re: making shipsets?????
 

You might want to try Milkshape like I'm doing. Their really isn't any Ray tracing, and it does take a while to learn who to master making objects with the program. Here is the link to download the shareware Version of it...

http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/

Its a little tricky to use, but the site does lead you too some Tutorials on how to make models. I think Milkshape is a lot easier to use for then Povray and Morray.

Re: making shipsets?????
 

Another nice program is Art of Illusion, it's Java-based and has a powerful (though not quite intuitive) texture editor.

Re: making shipsets?????
 

CP: Moray is good if a bit complex for my personal taste. used with povray, excellent designs have been done by others.

Re: making shipsets?????
 

The question is, what is your background and comfort level in programming? If you are heavy into coding and math, you will do fine with Povray. The scripting language is C-like, and after you play with it for a while you can do some really cool stuff with it. However, if you aren't comfortable with coding, you may find it a bit overwhelming. In that case, you may want to look elsewhere.

Re: making shipsets?????
 

Ya, Kodiak is right. That is one thing I didn't like about the other programs. Milkshape doesn't require a whole lot of math, but you are sort of limited to you abilites for shapes in the Program.

But some advantages to Milkshape is that if you have some artistic ability and know how to be clever with polygons and Skins, you could make some interesting, simple 3D models if you do it right.