ISS Enterprise's Various A2 Pics

[Archonon]

Hi ISS

Your photos are nothing short of spectacular. Art is something different to different people. Art can be created, such as a painting, as much as it can be captured, such as in a picture. A speech, a song, a film, a game, a sonnet, among others, all can be art. And the screenshots I am seeing you post here are most definitely art.

You have a magnificent eye to frame a moment which tells a story, the angles, lighting, I can't be more impressed. I couldn't express higher praise than to say that I thought your pics were high quality model recreations such as DeviantArt as opposed to ingame screenshots.

So you keep capturing those moments brother, this world needs as many artists as it can get. And thanks for sharing! Wicked job!

PS. Love the Terran Empire Galaxy, but she needs to be meaner like a Galaxy-X. Hahaha

 

[Jetfreak]

I'm not familiar with Max 2016, but I'm pretty sure that's a mapping glitch. Are you still using TGA's for the textures?

There's also a lot of red lines across the viewport. What are those?

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

Firstly, thanks Archon. Always good to hear these things now and again, makes me feel like I'm not going nowhere with these renders.

Secondly, to Jet. Yeah, the textures are still TGAs. The only two methods I'm 'trying' right now are importing the models as the NIF or SOD files.

The above attempt was me porting in the SOD. I'm pretty sure all the red lines are the hardpoints and such.

Here's what happened when I tried getting in the NIF version.

 

[MrVulcan]

Are you using the SOD importer script for 3dsmax? The script does not create a model that's ready for rendering. You need to modify the texture parameters before it can be rendered correctly.

I don't remember 100% of the top of my head what needs changing, but try looking into the following parameters in the materials editor:

- Under diffuse colour, change alpha source to "none"
- Under self illumination, change the mono channel output to "alpha".
- Might also need to change the RGB channel output at "alpha as gray"

Lastly, the textures need to be placed in a folder that 3dsmax will look in to find its textures. The importer does not write in the correct file paths. You may need to go into each diffuse map -> bitmap to change the file path. file.

Let me know if you're still having issues with it. I'll look into it properly on my 3dsmax machine.

 

[Archonon]

Sure thing ISS!

I wish I could help you with modeling but that is the one thing I never managed to get with modding. I once got Blender or some other archaic program to try to customize some ships and about 15 minutes and six Tylenols later I had more space on my hard drive!

And also, a big high five to you for showing some love to the AR Constitution (JJ-Prise). I love that ship and crew something fierce, because of their differences. It's great to find the other person in this universe that likes it!

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

You may have to walk me through that process step by step, MrV. I found the materials editor and now have no idea what to do.

 

[MrVulcan]

Ok, tried the procedure on my side. Hope this helps

1. change materials editor to compact view
2. click on diffuse material box
3. make sure the options in the middle panel highlighted with red boxes are as shown
4. go back to main material page by selecting the appropriate map (usually the top one)
5. click+drag the diffuse map to the slot that says "self-illumination". It may already exist if you imported a properly-made SOD. Click to open that map.
6. change the RGB channel output as highlighted in the right panel.

Place some lights on the scene and see if that worked. Make sure that the self-illumination intensity box says "100"

You may wish to change bump map settings if the model came with a bump map. Default settings are too intense.

Let me know how goes it. Like seeing your renders

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

That seems to have worked, the textures are all showing up now in the render window. Some don't seem to appear in the viewport, but that seems fine atm

Gonna try importing the NIF version tomorrow, those have the higher quality in them.

 

[Jetfreak]

Speaking of which, could you spare a copy of that NIF importer? My current method is to convert the mesh to obj format and the textues to bitmaps - which is very time consuming.

I'll have to try MrVulcan's material style as well. At least I don't have to separate the diffuse maps from the glow maps anymore...

 

[kjc733]

Ahh, invisible textures. I hated that problem in Maya, A2 sods use the alpha channel for glows, but the rest of the world uses them for transparency.

PS. Love the Terran Empire Galaxy, but she needs to be meaner like a Galaxy-X. Hahaha

Like this?
http://www.msfc.com.au/community/index.php?resources/galaxy-conqueror-class.178/

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

Speaking of which, could you spare a copy of that NIF importer? My current method is to convert the mesh to obj format and the textues to bitmaps - which is very time consuming.

I'll have to try MrVulcan's material style as well. At least I don't have to separate the diffuse maps from the glow maps anymore...

I'd love to Jet, problem is that the importer seems to be a part of the program itself. Dunno if I can separate it like that.

Another delightful issue has come up with it anyways;

Unlike the SOD importer, this just imported the model on its own, nothing coming up in the material editor or anything.

 

[Jetfreak]

Nah, that's all right. I could just throw money at the problem and buy myself a copy of Max 2016 one of these days... That's gonna dent my wallet with the subscriptions ughhhh.

So if the NIF import is buggy, the SOD importer may just be a compromise. You got it to work, so maybe you could stick with and see how it goes.

But this will be really up to you since there are a lot of ways to get a model into Max. Some are just plain harder than others so its really frustrating to pick a method.

 

[MrVulcan]

Glad that worked for you. The SOD importer was designed to produce models that are compatible with exporting back to SOD. ie, import, add some hardpoints or some other small edits, export back. I have worked on an importer for rendering, but that was never completed.. if there's sufficient interest, I may be coerced ;-)

You may still want to tweak the materials settings to improve the renders. For example, the specular map is probably too strong (again, designed so that it exports correctly). You can lower specular intensity, or change the specular map texture entirely (to better represent the shiny parts of the texture.. etc) Right now it seems to blow out the highlights too much.

On another note, what is this NIF importer everyone's talking about?

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

3DS apparently allows me to import NIF files straight in, no special plugins or anything.

I think the 'easy' way around this problem right now is to make basic SOD's with the models I wanna use, just export them from Milkshape as is with just the barest amount of hardpointing, then pull them into 3DS

 

[Archonon]

Ahh, invisible textures. I hated that problem in
Like this?
http://www.msfc.com.au/community/index.php?resources/galaxy-conqueror-class.178/

That description definitely fits the bill.

Sorry to hijack your thread to say that ISS, I thought it rude if I didn't answer and I have no idea how to PM someone here. Lol.

Connie is looking a beauty. Sorry about the problems, I'm confident you'll fix em soon.

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

Started importing an old friend, apparently 3DS can't see the lightmaps on this one lol

 

[Jetfreak]

Lightmaps issues aside, you've got yourself a dead ringer for the TNG remastered Galaxy. I always thought greying Wiley's original textures was a good choice.

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

Eeyup, this being my fetish ship and all (shut up Maj I don't have a problem, I swear), she's gonna have the whole nine yards. HD base textures, the bump maps from Mr V, and now, if I'm right, I can get specular maps to work in 3DS too!!

 

[Hellkite]

ISS_Enterprise_D Ballzy I must say LOL

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

Oy vey, still getting headaches

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Sometimes... The Stars Reach Back...
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[Archonon]

Beautiful shot of the Enterprise, ISS; it's very Michaelangelo (Not the ninja turtle) of you.

Where do you make these renders? Forgive me for not going through all the past pages, but since the title says various A2 pics, I was wondering what you were planning to do with your Connie. Are you gonna put that ingame or is it too much of a beast for A2?

 

[Jetfreak]

Ah, I used to call that problem the "glowy textures of doom". I had to bypass that by stopping the use of TGA's all together. What I did was separate the textures and lightmaps as their own files. Then assigning them to the diffuse and self illumination paths respectively.

The JJprise convert is mighty fine though, at least something worthwhile is being accomplished.

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

Thanks guys.

Funnily enough, that Connie is still the one that Jet ported a while ago and passed along to me. I bluescreened it in against the background in photoshop. The lighting on the Enterprise was the most irritating part to get right.

I wanted to get something done for the 50th, even if it wasn't rendered in 3DS. I feel that this is pretty good.

 

[Archonon]

It sure does look good ISS, how I wish your pictures were cinematics we could all enjoy. I remember when they had that site with all the fan made short movies, something space battles, and you could find all manner of gorgeous high poly fleet action from just about every sci-fi universe. They'd do fantasy crossovers, recreate scenes from series/movies, and just good old fashioned ships blowing the living hell out of each other. I miss that site.

Your pics remind me of that. If only huh? Keep at it, terrific job!

 

[ISS_Enterprise_D]

"Rainbow"

Reports of my death have been exaggerated, but not by much.

For the love of god I need to learn a 3D program.

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
That is a nice pic, very colourful . And as for 3D stuff, it would be cool if you start learning indeed, sometimes it is time-consuming but it is quite a journey .