minnow 4 of 4 - request for help!

meshula · October 24th, 2000, 09:14 PM

Okay, I got my lighting covered - it's all coming from the same direction; I got my wispy background gas covered,
my question is what would make this more dramatic or interesting? Another ship hanging in the distance? it would have to be a Federation ship, because I don't think Klingons or Romulans made it this far in the TOS era... A 2001 monolith? Any ideas?

skyhawk223 · October 25th, 2000, 02:27 AM

I can't think of anything at the moment. Wait, maybe a spiral agalxy in the distance.
I like the ship and the image.

October 25th, 2000, 11:40 AM

that ship is great !

ahem, what about a black hole ?
you have to forget the planet though but it would surely look interesting.
this idea just popped into my mind and i don't think that i ever saw a black hole made with a 3d proggy...

what do you think ?

------------------
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October 25th, 2000, 02:12 PM

Well, since you upped the light level, you don't really need the wispy background anymore to define the ship's outline: it's either more light on the ship or a brighter background for a silhouette effect. But it looks okay.

Since you're near earth, you're limited to what you can show, unless you want to really menace earth with something big and nasty. Possible less dangerous stuff include old space probes or space junk (either earth or alien), comets, trojan (earth-crossing) asteriods. Rather than the Monolith, how about Frank Poole floating around out there? But since this is a survey ship, you might want to show her actually surveying something, like the black hole the chief mentioned, quasars, double or triple stars, the galactic core, the energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy...

meshula · October 25th, 2000, 03:40 PM

actually the picture is kind of a gag, since the SS Minnow never made it back from her three hour tour, I wanted to show the minnow making it back...

October 25th, 2000, 04:26 PM

Well, now I feel stupid!

meshula · October 25th, 2000, 08:36 PM

I'll admit it's a stupid gag! There's a damn fine reason I'm not in comedy. Although that might change - I'm building some planets for SevTrek TMP.

meshula · October 25th, 2000, 08:57 PM

Unfortunately I had to convert the Fabio's LWO SFHQ object to 3DS and it seems to have lost textures in the process. Okay, I found out why the textures vanished. AM doesn't read PNG files which is what SFHQ uses. Oh well, I'll just whip up a model for the scene, should just be a simple lathe job...

I still need something to make this scene more interesting... Maybe Masao is right, an astronaut or something...

[This message has been edited by meshula (edited 10-25-2000).]

[This message has been edited by meshula (edited 10-25-2000).]

Darrell Lawrence · October 25th, 2000, 11:29 PM

PSP or Photoshop will convert PNG to JPG or TIF or IFF or whatever you need

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SF-A Senate Member
Forum Administrator
3D Gladiators Project Admin

"If not for TOS, then there would be no Trek movies, TNG, DS9 or Voyager."

"All I ask is that you read and understand before jumping to conclusions."

"Legends never die... They just get new Captains."

Warrior of 3D Art
Poser Space Cadets

Darrell Lawrence · October 26th, 2000, 11:00 AM

Got an idea- I'll switch the maps to JPG and re-asign them in MY Lightwave, resave the model THEN you can convert.

------------------
SF-A Senate Member
Forum Administrator
3D Gladiators Project Admin

"If not for TOS, then there would be no Trek movies, TNG, DS9 or Voyager."

"All I ask is that you read and understand before jumping to conclusions."

"Legends never die... They just get new Captains."

Warrior of 3D Art
Poser Space Cadets

meshula · October 26th, 2000, 07:09 PM

If you did that, it would be keen. Then I could have an "official" version floating around. On the other hand, if it's a big deal, I'm working on new HQ inspired by the Franz Josef design. I was looking at the plans last night and had a sudden "what if" inspiration. It shouldn't take too long to build, so I'll surprise y'all.

meshula · October 26th, 2000, 10:06 PM

Yes, that's true, but the LWO file references the PNG files not the JPG files. Since I don't have Lightwave or 3DS, I can't change the mapping. I'm using 3D Exploration to convert the file, which does an admirable job, but does not let you edit the texture assignments.

Darrell Lawrence · October 26th, 2000, 10:58 PM

...hmmm

When I convert to 3DS, it cuts all the file names to 8 digit *L*

I'll see what I can come up with though.

------------------
SF-A Senate Member
Forum Administrator
3D Gladiators Project Admin

"If not for TOS, then there would be no Trek movies, TNG, DS9 or Voyager."

"All I ask is that you read and understand before jumping to conclusions."

"Legends never die... They just get new Captains."

Warrior of 3D Art
Poser Space Cadets

skyhawk223 · October 28th, 2000, 10:29 PM

THis should be interesting. I can't wait.