starfury shipsets

[Hugh Manatee]

Ok I got a question about wings3D from another board(not me some guy has a question about Wings 3D and I have more):

Well, thanks for the links guys. How important is the "skeletal" system that MilkShape has to offer? I seem to have this gut feeling that I want to use Wing3D (I'm going to see what I can do about the textures)-- I think it's because you can see a nice big picture of your model and you can do most functions without moving your mouse all over the screen. Please tell me if I'm being stupid to use Wings3D.

Now I know of some other free 3D programs
Blender.org

Anim8or.com

http://www.wings3d.com/

and Amapi 5 and under and Doga L1. Now of those which is the best?(I like wings and Blender but blender looks really complicated, and I haven't learned wings interface yet. I've been doing Anim8or and Doga stuff so far.

[Chronon]

Hugh, I'm afraid I'm a complete newbie when it comes to anything but Moray (where I'm only a semi-complete newbie), so I really don't know how good the other programs are.

Captain Kwok - I read the AC3D manual this afternoon (quite well written), and I can tell you that it does indeed allow you to edit vertices. You can "snap" them together or to a grid, and you can optimize shapes and cut down on the number of polygons, too. It seems like a pretty useful program, really.

The main difficulty for me will be creating the bitmap textures. I'm not that good at 2d art, so creating good looking "skins" for the ships will be quite a challenge.

[Ed Kolis]

OK, Rollo, since you like Anim8or so much, maybe you can explain this to me...

How exactly does the Arc Rotate tool work? It's driving me crazy - the program looks good, but I just can't use the tool! Half the time I try to use it, the object I have selected goes rotating or translating off in some odd direction which is NOT the direction I moved the mouse! What the heck is it that determines which way things rotate???

[Captain Kwok]

I've sent an e-mail to Aaron asking if I'd be able to answer some of your questions in more detail, say in a #se4 chat. I'll let you know what happens - that is, if it is a yes or no.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
I've sent an e-mail to Aaron asking if I'd be able to answer some of your questions in more detail, say in a #se4 chat. I'll let you know what happens - that is, if it is a yes or no.

One of the first things that came up when the beta process started was that we asked him when the ship model specs would be released so people could start modeling. He felt it wasn't settled enough so we let it go for a while.

When the delay was announced I bugged him again to release the specs (Which would have been a good PR move to soften the negative impact of the delay). It seems unlikely that the ship format will change now. He said he was going to release it, and even a 'tester' program so people could know their ships would work... but seems to have spaced it. That happens lot with him, what with 4-5 projects going all at once. Keep pestering him. I think you can get him to release the specs before the game actually comes out.

[ August 14, 2003, 03:06: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Chronon]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
He said he was going to release it, and even a 'tester' program so people could know their ships would work... but seems to have spaced it. That happens lot with him, what with 4-5 projects going all at once. Keep pestering him. I think you can get him to release the specs before the game actually comes out.

That would be very good - I hope it happens. I have a general idea about a set I'd like to do, but it's difficult to make it more concrete without some idea about how many different ship sizes I will need, etc.