Topic: Mindblip's Sentry Class re-dressed with GAFY textures

[The Northern Star]

I was able to make much more of my own textures on this guy (with GotaFarmYet?'s Fed deck plate textures for a background). I also used his saucer textures and a number of greeblies and symbology to maintain consistancy of appearance across my fleet. I think I got the scaling right (I used the original textures as a guide but my SFC installation appears to have something wrong with it so I haven't seen the model in game yet).

D/L Link: http://www.battleclinic.com/docks/files/dist/index.php/file,b1e9497774351cbd82ab0f74ae2d083d.rar

[Starforce2]

nice work.

http://www.blacktidestudios.com/sfc/model/sentryx.jpg

That's a retex of the above correct?


I did a quick check, just as an FYI if you intend to do more of the gafy-izms:
The soruun-A has never been updated
Neither has the X-era 3 pack

Several of the tng's I'd love to see updated too:
Gressman (which has no phasers on the hull at all)
Aqunio (version 1)
salazar

[Chrystoff]

Excellent work!

[The Northern Star]

Thanks very much! I spent more time on the light maps this time, and I think it paid off. I tried to position lights and adjust the intensity to emphasize 3d as well as make operational sense. I'm also quite happy with the sensor dish.

[GotAFarmYet?]

Guess the first question is what do you use to make your textures with, which program do you so the work in?

The n here is a little bit about 3D work from a different thread:

This is what i am playing with to try to get a persective look, by starting in the center and moving either left or right you will see the 3D look to it and how it can be done but only for one direction unfortuantly. If you look from the side in it doesn't look right and the other side seems to have the more proper look. If you look straight at it you will see it look good on a semi - circle it looks right because they seem to bend away from you. This is the problem with 3D looks on flat textures, that I have been trying to work out. Now if you only take the center and go no more than one or two out it looks ok from most angles on a flat surface. By narrowing the lines you can achieve the pattern for a longer time before they start to look out of place. Wider spacing betwwen the lines makes it happen faster or a more sever distortion faster, because large flat areas tend to get distortion as you add details to a ship. I also have troubles with those same areas on ships I have done in the past as well. Also darken the base and lighten the outter parts so your eye follows inward where the distortion doesn't occur as badly. the distortion is usually noticed on a edge the easiest so you move the details inward some to aviod that problem. So this is the current approach I am trying to use the distoration areas to either look more normal or to pull your eyes to the points I want you to dwell on.

By the way all this is, is a simple repeating pattern incemented in size to get that look. The pattern is what I used to make the bump pattern in the hull and the engine grill layout for the retexture work I did on a WZ ship. If you just look at the center section of the grid you can see how to make a 3D look to it and it quite useful around winows to give them that non-flush look.

In a black and white light map using shades of gray will make them less intense than a white base. The works fine for windows as you can add a gray line around them to help give them a more 3D look when seen in a render or the game. If you use PSP or PS there is a tool to help you do lighting on the hull from spot lights. (images 2 & 3)

The Deflector is good and if you practice with what I am talking about here you can improve that greatly, as you seem to have the basics sown enough.

[The Northern Star]

I'm using Photoshop CS2. For the light maps I'm creating a white shape over the region I want to light then adjusting the intensity by applying a Gaussian Blur filter. For running lights I left the shapes relatively un-touched = intense light source . . . etc. Thanks for the advice! Especially the windows, it didn't even occur to me but they do look possibly a little intense and that's a real easy fix. 

[GotAFarmYet?]

for hull lighting you are going about it the hard way.

Across the top look at the menu for things like Effects. It should have a sub menu called something like lighting effects. Under that menu you should have something like sunbursts and lights. Sunbursts are good for deflector backings and lighs make good for shadows and hull lights.

Basically I use the lights to make the areas where I want the spotlights on the hull, get the size angle etc right then darken it using the tools inside that command box to darken it to about 98% with intensity of 92-100%. Gray scale it and save it as the base I map. Then add the windows from the regular texture map, I usually have that as its own layer for ease of transfer. Once you learn how to use that tool you will really like it, very helpful