A Special Thanks to Atrocities..

[David E. Gervais]

Who was it that always parked his ship just outside the cantina door? Was it Raging_Dreadstar? or someone else?

LoL,.. Aaah the good old memories of the infamous cantina.

Cheers!

[Timstone]

I hope there is a proper parkingplace for my timetraveling gearbox.

[Raging Deadstar]

David E. Gervais said:
Who was it that always parked his ship just outside the cantina door? Was it Raging_Dreadstar? or someone else?

Adds another to the list, First Deathstar, now Dreadstar, confused with Ragnarok a lot. These are grounds for declaring War on if I get diplomatic Messages addressing my name wrong!!!

'Fraid Not David, I always travelled in a Large Transport with my cargo... You have any idea how potent 29 cargo bays smell after storing alcohol for several months And it certainly wasn't rightoutside the door, if it was parked there my PDC Cannons couldn't take down Taxi Escorts.

[David E. Gervais]

Raging Deadstar said:
Adds another to the list, First Deathstar, now Dreadstar, confused with Ragnarok a lot. These are grounds for declaring War on if I get diplomatic Messages addressing my name wrong!!!

It was a typo, honest. I didn't mean to offend you Ranging_Deadstar, hmmm, did my finger slip again? Muahahahahaha

There is a good side to these typo's.. when people know who you are in spite of misspelling, it means you're almost famous. (just be glad you don't have a handle like Swartzandedgar. hmm, now that looks really wrong. )

Cheers!

[Timstone]

David:
I have a question about the texture you used for the magnificent Cantina.
How did you apply them?
Last evening I build a simple model of a reactor. I wanted to apply a nice texture to it, but it did look very cool. It wasn't the fault of the texture, but it was the way the program (Max 7) placed the texture onto the model. I have another way of doing it, but I wanted to hit the sack...
This evening I'm going to try and re-apply it onto my model. I hope it will work out.

Also another question. What kind of colours do you suggest I use for my reactor?
Damn, I really have no artistic feeling!

[David E. Gervais]

Answers:

1) I use Bryce 5 to create the renderings.
2) I import the model (in this case one of AT's)
3) I enter the 'M'aterials lab and change the texture from the default 'procedural' to 'bitmap source' and then load the desired texture and hit 'apply'
4) If the texture looks odd, I return to the Materials lab and tweak the scale and orientation until it looks good.

Note: In the Materials lab is also where I add color tint and other effects like reflection, ambiance, diffusion transparency etc.

It's prety much a trial and error aproach, but after doing this for so many renders it's now second nature and I generally only need to re-enter the mat lab once or twice to get the texture the way I like it.

There is more than just texture mapping involved in making a render look right, there is the bump-map, the backgrounds, the lighting (I often use a negative light to cast shadows). and it can get complicated, but I tend to learn one new trick at a time, until my 'bag of tricks' is capable of seeing me through most renders.

I'm sorry to say that I have no experience with 3DS Max so I can't tell you how their system works. I have on occasion watched my friend work through Max to build models, but my brain went numb by the sheer number of 'variabls' that needed to be addressed prior to rendering. I'm sure you're aware the the 'default' settings are only good for basic scene rendering in 3DS Max. The learning curve for Max is about 1000 times more involved than Bryce.

Anyway, have fun playing with textures.

Cheers!

[Atrocities]

Timestone you use 3ds Max?

[Raging Deadstar]

Looking at that Cantina image again I can just picture two ships in the background exchanging weapons fire because one forgot to indicate

[Atrocities]

Star-Rage -

[Timstone]

AT:
Yup, I use 3ds max 7. Last month I bought a full Version. Not very cheap I might add.
I use it to render... when I'm capable enough to render something the right way. I can do planets, those are second nature to me, but components are other things. They require an other approach.
I use SolidWorks 2005 to make my models in. I use a *ahum* legal Version of Okino to export my models. I've discovered that Okino produces very good exported models.

David:
Thanks for the advise. The system in Bryce is more or less the same as in max 7. But like you said, the system in max 7 offers a thousand fold more options to mess up.
If your friend uses max 7 to model things with I declare him a lunatic. He should use Lightwave, much more user friendly. Althoug the two programs are almost the same when you're modeling faces (NURBS and splines).
I want to use Lightwave too, but I simply don't have the time for it.
That's also a reason I want to change my carreer. I would like to do more with my modeling skills. Any suggestions on where to search?

Edit:
David:
Great pic! I love what you've done with Barry. Now all we need is a neon sign outside and a rotating Phong head on the top of The Cantina. Hehehe....