Let's visit the 25th century, Buck Rogers style...

A challenge from a friend led to these...

[Darrell Lawrence]

BOO-YA!!!

I take it you approve?

Seriously, thanks for the enthusiastic endorsement...probably the most visceral response I've ever gotten!

[Darrell Lawrence]

Yup. I likey

More:

[gmd3d]

excellent work mate ..

Unfortunately, that's about as far as it's going to go...I absolutely am NOT going to attempt the Draconia. My poor computer would melt down even if I could get the parts to work for it.

Sometime down the line I MIGHT try Zad-1 and her Shark fighters (from "Flight of the WarWitch"), but it's low priority right now...

[Darrell Lawrence]

Ooooh! Hawk's ship too! Wowzers!

[skyhawk223]

Nice work. Looks like you spent a lot of time on the textures.

Not going to accept undeserved credit. The textures are generic ones that come with the DOGA program. The only parameters under my control were the size (how "big" the details were), the orientation (which "direction" the textures lay on the primitives), and whether or not to make them "color" maps (flat appearing) or "bump" maps (3d effect)...

Thanks for the kudoes though!

[evil_genius_180]

Did you bump map the textures or do they just look like they are?

Great work on the models. I bet they'd animate really quickly because they're not polygon killers.

Let me make sure we are both talking about the same thing.

In DOGA, the models are entirely made of basic shapes (I think you guys call them "primitives"), along with some pre-designed more complicated shapes. NONE of them have any panel lines or detailing etched into them...they are smooth surfaced.

When I set a texture as a color map, it paints simulated detailing on the primitives, making it look like I've put in panel lines and greebles, etc.

If I set the texture as a color map, the panel lines and such are present, but look a little "flat". "Bump" mapping the texture adds simulated shadows to places on the texture giving it the illusion of "depth". It also seems to alter the way light hits the model adding to the illusion by having the light treat the detailing as if it WERE modeled.

As for animation, I suppose that they would. DOGA has a simple "animator" built in, but you have to have the registered version to access it and I can't afford it. I know some modelers have told me they have used DOGA for assembling primitives for a base model, then exported the product to a more sophisticated program for editing and finishing.

[evil_genius_180]

Originally Posted by darkwing_duck1a

When I set a texture as a color map, it paints simulated detailing on the primitives, making it look like I've put in panel lines and greebles, etc.

If I set the texture as a color map, the panel lines and such are present, but look a little "flat". "Bump" mapping the texture adds simulated shadows to places on the texture giving it the illusion of "depth". It also seems to alter the way light hits the model adding to the illusion by having the light treat the detailing as if it WERE modeled.

Yeah, that was what I was talking about. I figured you added the bump maps because the textures look 3D (though some textures are made to look 3D even without bump mapping.)

Originally Posted by darkwing_duck1a

As for animation, I suppose that they would. DOGA has a simple "animator" built in, but you have to have the registered version to access it and I can't afford it. I know some modelers have told me they have used DOGA for assembling primitives for a base model, then exported the product to a more sophisticated program for editing and finishing.

It's too bad that you have to pay for the animator. There are some free rendering programs but I don't know if they can do animation.

Nice stuff. Boy it's been a long time from my last visit. Will try to do something about in the new year.

Jim

Low poly ships are great for fleet shots or massive battles where you need a bunch of ships fighting in the background.

Nice work and like EG said, I'll bet they render/animate really fast.

My stills using the DOGA renderer take about 2-4 minutes for a 1-3 subjects on a detailed background. A SUPER detaled background or more subjects can take up to 7-10 minutes (~2gig processor and ~370M RAM). Multiple angle lighting can up that time 2-3 minutes.

Largest pic I ever rendered was 1200x800, 12 objects (ships) on a plain starfield background and took ~13minutes to render.

[gmd3d]

not bad render time .. most of my rendering takes 20 min plus .. but I have in the past rendered one image for 3 hours

What kind'a artillery you shootin those renders with?

I suspect one of YOUR meshes would take me all night for one render!

[gmd3d]

Lightwave8.3 .. .