basicly when you got your object in subd and want a "hard edge" you select the Verts for that edge.
Then in Mean Crease you increase it from 0 to 100%. This sharpens it up and save you having to use a loop cut.
100% if full sharpness. So depending on the sharpness of the edge depends on the 100%.
Not sure where it located on in blender 2.49 but in Blender 2.5 it in the Transform menu. Press N and this will bring up the menu.
Mean Crease is located at the top under median.
basicly when you got your object in subd and want a "hard edge" you select the Verts for that edge.
Then in Mean Crease you increase it from 0 to 100%. This sharpens it up and save you having to use a loop cut.
100% if full sharpness. So depending on the sharpness of the edge depends on the 100%.
Not sure where it located on in blender 2.49 but in Blender 2.5 it in the Transform menu. Press N and this will bring up the menu.
Mean Crease is located at the top under median.
Hope this helps.
Well, it does even if it means I have to start over again.
Since someone here liked my armor rational for the blacksburg, I thought I'd add this bit of fiction about the ship. Hope it's OK with people. let me know what you think of it if you would.
"The United Terran Starfleet vessel 'UTV Blacksburg', a destroyer, slid silently thru the endless dark between the stars as she patrolled her assigned space. The Sophontic Union had reported the possibility of Hostile Artificial Intelligence activity in the area recently and given Terra's proximity to the sector it was the UTS's imperative to reconnoiter the vicinity with extreme dilligence.
While the ship may have appeared the manifestation of tranquility itself to an outside observer watching it's effortless, unhurried glide, inside the ship's CIC, buried deep within her dark and armored hull, there was everything but serenity.
"There it is again, Captain!" The sensorman said unnecessarily as he jabbed a finger at his display. "The DEWAs been picking up that blip off an on again for the last 20 minutes. The first couple times might have been G/Gs, but no glitch or ghost is that consistent, Sir!"
The Captain nodded approvingly. Much of what his officer had just said was unnecessary, already known to his commander, but the captain would rather hear important information repeated than to risk hearing those infamous last words "But I thought you knew!"
"So, it's likely a HAI vessel trailing us, then." He waited for his sensorman's opinion
"Uh, yes, Sir. Either that or.." the man was snatching at crumbs of hope "..or a Union vessel is tailing us, maybe using us as a stalking horse, hoping we draw something out..." The Captain gave him a sympathetic smile.
"Could be." But likely not.
What do do? What to do? Thousands of thoughts flashed thru and often crashed together in the Captain's mind, many resulting in images of the ship around him exploding. Or worse, being boarded and taken with all hands by an enemy that considered organic life an obsolete irritant to be removed now that it's one purpose, the creation of "true" intelligence, had been accomplished.
Joining in the conversation he'd been listening too, the chief tactical officer spoke. "Sir, if it's a HAI and it's shadowing us it might be waiting till we're too far from rebar for help to arrive soon, so it could have a shot at taking us intact." The two had had the same black thought, naturally.
"If it thinks it can take us it's got to be bigger than a destroyer, maybe a cruiser. Since we're the new kids on the block it would be normal for them to be curious about us, and maybe not familiar enough with the exact limits of our DEWAs to avoid being picked up intermittently."
The Captain had a plan, but asked his officers for their advice just in case one of them had a better one since time seemed to be plentiful for the moment.
He looked at his sensorman and waited. "Sir, I'd drop a stealth passive recon pod with the tightbeam enabled. If things go even close to well, the blip should pass near enough to it for it to get a decent look and tightbeam us the data. The blip might not even detect the tightbeam if we time it right. We could use a limited field high power scanner for a faster look, but it'd tip them off that we knew they're back there."
The fact the Blacksburg knew about their shadow and it might now know they did was their one potential advantage, not to be given up when there was a possible alternative.
A look to the tactical officer elicited "The disadvantage there, Sir, is that we'd have to stay on a precise course for the tightbeam to hit us. I'd rather drop the pod anyway, instead of letting them know we've spotted them."
The Captain nodded again. "Make it happen." he said in as light and pleasant a manner as possible. Nerves were already tight enough without using a tone of voice that added pressure.
Predicting the estimated speed of the blip as well as could be estimated, the sensor officer programmed the remote module to passively gather as much data as possible, then relay it via tightbeam to the ship that had dropped it. If the source of the blip was still behind the pod when it sent it's message, there was good chance it would be unaware that it had been observed and reported on by the stealthy, passive device.
The helm coordinated with the sensor section, arranging to make sure that timing would place the destroyer in a precise spot when the drone's tightbeam message was dispatched along it's course. The path was the exact vector the Blacksburg had been following, to maintain the charade of ignorance.
The SUV sized device was carefully lowered from the destroyer's hanger bay, the huge doors opening just enough to allow it's passage after the chamber they contained was vacuumed and darkened to betray no sign of it's use.
Moments dragged by with agonizing, torturous slowness. When the message caught up to the Blacksburg it brought some relief, because it showed that the pursuer had not detected the drone or it's message, and terrible certainty.
"That's a goddam HAI cruiser, at least. Sir." The tactical officer added the honorific a few seconds slow, the stress he was under making niceties unimportant to his raging mind.
"Yes, and we're going to give it an appropriate introduction to the United Terran Starfleet, people." The captain hoped he looked and sounded confident enough.
"Now, here's what we're going to do. That blip is maintaining it's same vector, so we can reasonably hope it didn't spot the drone." Unless the machine ship was shamming the Blacksburg as much as the Blacksburg was trying to sham it.
"So, we're going to try the same trick again, but with a difference, yes? We're going to drop a sensor pod and 4 torpedoes, slaved to it. Just before that thing gets close enough to spot the torpedoes" Which were stealthed as much as possible to facilitate their use as mines when necessary."the drone will order the torps to light up and target that motherless motherkiller. With a little luck" Another set of famous last words to be avoided whenever possible. "the torps will catch it by surprise and break that things jaw, or maybe at least poke it's eyes out and bloody it's nose."
The gathered officers smiled, hope surging back like adrenaline after first finding they likely had no chance against their larger pursuer, then being offered the possibility of deliverance by their Captain, who they all looked to, eagerly awaiting more assurance.
"Now,either just as the enemy should be getting our surprise package or just an instant after it does, I want a massive deceleration." Before more than an eyebrow could raise, he went on confidently. "I want to close with it enough to ascertain how badly" If at all. "that monstrosity was hurt by our opening move. If it's hurt but not badly enough, we'll run for it since it will probably not be able to match our speed if it's taken drive or structural damage." The machine would also be unlikely to follow the destroyer's course as precisely as it had apparently been doing before.
"If it seems hit badly enough, we'll give it a full salvo from the forward torpedo tubes and see if we can finish it off."
He smiled a moment, seeing the expression reciprocated on the faces before him, then shifted to a somewhat grimmer demeanor.
"Remember, our ultimate priority is that not one single intact fragment of this ship or crew fall into HAI hands." he said, tempering their hope with realism. We'll blow ourselves to elementary particles before we let the HAI have so much as a fleck of paint off out hull. "But if our attack comes off well enough, we may just end up taking a few pieces of that motherless bastard home with us, along with the United Terran Starfleet's first encounter and victory involving a HAI!"
Waiting just long enough, he finished with "Let's make this happen!"
Time again tortured the crew of the Blacksburg, the long minutes spent enacting the Captain's plan had passed in a controlled frenzy of activity, because they were doing something, committing affirmative actions to aid their survival. Now they could only wait in tense silence, each kept company by the unwelcome but undeniable possibility the machine cruiser had spotted their trap, or had detected the earlier pod and had altered it's course just enough...
"Torpedoes lighting!" The sensorman shouted a bit too loudly, but not problematically so, his voice an ejaculation of released tension. Now the waiting was over, things were happening!
At very nearly the same instant the ship groaned softly, an almost polite counterpoint to the sensorman's outburst. The forces impelling her along were being massively redirected at the limits her hull could endure.
"Massive energy flashes! Look like all four torps detonated!" The sensorman's words sparked the bridge crew to a higher level of morale.
The sudden deceleration did not quite bring the enemy vessel close enough for the destroyer's Distant Early Warning Arrays to get a good enough look at it to judge the extent of any possible damage it might now be sporting, but this was unnecessary. The ship's scanners activated. Invisible searchlights, each a highly powered, narrowly focused stream of revealing energy that caressed the enemy vessel with quadrillions of quantum fingertips, reading it as a blind man might read Braile and reflecting back pure information which the Blacksburg's data analysis assets, hardware, software and wetware all consumed voraciously and processed furiously.
The UTV Blacksburg had just completed her 180 degree sweeping turn, made possible by her non-Newtonian propulsion systems, when the initial conclusions and best guesses as to the state of the enemy vessel were being rushed to the Captain.
"That thing's hull is hot as hell, there seems to be debris and plasma streaming off of it, the structure appears uneven and asymmetrical in places, it's speed's way down, it may be trying to bank away from us, but slowly, it might be too badly damaged to turn quickly. Best guess is we hurt it bad, Sir."
Or it's doing one hell of a sham job to lure us into range. The captain thought.
But, he just had a feeling it wasn't. In the end having a feeling was perhaps the only advantage living sophonts had over their self-appointed exterminators.
"Full forward tube salvo as soon as we're in range. Staggered fire, randomize lauch pattern." Anything to make the incoming ordnance less easily plotted and eliminated by whatever point defense capability the machine might still posses. "Charge turrets, full power to forward shield, comms get the combat log off to HQ now."
Actions spoke louder than words, each person on the ship responded to their orders appropriately.
The UTV Blacksburg, the first human built and operated vessel to encounter a Hostile Artificial Intelligence ship, closed with her apparently staggered, bloodied enemy, intent on letting it's creators know that extinction was not an option to humanity.
Posts
It should help to those verts down.
Then in Mean Crease you increase it from 0 to 100%. This sharpens it up and save you having to use a loop cut.
100% if full sharpness. So depending on the sharpness of the edge depends on the 100%.
Not sure where it located on in blender 2.49 but in Blender 2.5 it in the Transform menu. Press N and this will bring up the menu.
Mean Crease is located at the top under median.
Hope this helps.
"The United Terran Starfleet vessel 'UTV Blacksburg', a destroyer, slid silently thru the endless dark between the stars as she patrolled her assigned space. The Sophontic Union had reported the possibility of Hostile Artificial Intelligence activity in the area recently and given Terra's proximity to the sector it was the UTS's imperative to reconnoiter the vicinity with extreme dilligence.
While the ship may have appeared the manifestation of tranquility itself to an outside observer watching it's effortless, unhurried glide, inside the ship's CIC, buried deep within her dark and armored hull, there was everything but serenity.
"There it is again, Captain!" The sensorman said unnecessarily as he jabbed a finger at his display. "The DEWAs been picking up that blip off an on again for the last 20 minutes. The first couple times might have been G/Gs, but no glitch or ghost is that consistent, Sir!"
The Captain nodded approvingly. Much of what his officer had just said was unnecessary, already known to his commander, but the captain would rather hear important information repeated than to risk hearing those infamous last words "But I thought you knew!"
"So, it's likely a HAI vessel trailing us, then." He waited for his sensorman's opinion
"Uh, yes, Sir. Either that or.." the man was snatching at crumbs of hope "..or a Union vessel is tailing us, maybe using us as a stalking horse, hoping we draw something out..." The Captain gave him a sympathetic smile.
"Could be." But likely not.
What do do? What to do? Thousands of thoughts flashed thru and often crashed together in the Captain's mind, many resulting in images of the ship around him exploding. Or worse, being boarded and taken with all hands by an enemy that considered organic life an obsolete irritant to be removed now that it's one purpose, the creation of "true" intelligence, had been accomplished.
Joining in the conversation he'd been listening too, the chief tactical officer spoke. "Sir, if it's a HAI and it's shadowing us it might be waiting till we're too far from rebar for help to arrive soon, so it could have a shot at taking us intact." The two had had the same black thought, naturally.
"If it thinks it can take us it's got to be bigger than a destroyer, maybe a cruiser. Since we're the new kids on the block it would be normal for them to be curious about us, and maybe not familiar enough with the exact limits of our DEWAs to avoid being picked up intermittently."
The Captain had a plan, but asked his officers for their advice just in case one of them had a better one since time seemed to be plentiful for the moment.
He looked at his sensorman and waited. "Sir, I'd drop a stealth passive recon pod with the tightbeam enabled. If things go even close to well, the blip should pass near enough to it for it to get a decent look and tightbeam us the data. The blip might not even detect the tightbeam if we time it right. We could use a limited field high power scanner for a faster look, but it'd tip them off that we knew they're back there."
The fact the Blacksburg knew about their shadow and it might now know they did was their one potential advantage, not to be given up when there was a possible alternative.
A look to the tactical officer elicited "The disadvantage there, Sir, is that we'd have to stay on a precise course for the tightbeam to hit us. I'd rather drop the pod anyway, instead of letting them know we've spotted them."
The Captain nodded again. "Make it happen." he said in as light and pleasant a manner as possible. Nerves were already tight enough without using a tone of voice that added pressure.
Predicting the estimated speed of the blip as well as could be estimated, the sensor officer programmed the remote module to passively gather as much data as possible, then relay it via tightbeam to the ship that had dropped it. If the source of the blip was still behind the pod when it sent it's message, there was good chance it would be unaware that it had been observed and reported on by the stealthy, passive device.
The helm coordinated with the sensor section, arranging to make sure that timing would place the destroyer in a precise spot when the drone's tightbeam message was dispatched along it's course. The path was the exact vector the Blacksburg had been following, to maintain the charade of ignorance.
The SUV sized device was carefully lowered from the destroyer's hanger bay, the huge doors opening just enough to allow it's passage after the chamber they contained was vacuumed and darkened to betray no sign of it's use.
Moments dragged by with agonizing, torturous slowness. When the message caught up to the Blacksburg it brought some relief, because it showed that the pursuer had not detected the drone or it's message, and terrible certainty.
"That's a goddam HAI cruiser, at least. Sir." The tactical officer added the honorific a few seconds slow, the stress he was under making niceties unimportant to his raging mind.
"Yes, and we're going to give it an appropriate introduction to the United Terran Starfleet, people." The captain hoped he looked and sounded confident enough.
"Now, here's what we're going to do. That blip is maintaining it's same vector, so we can reasonably hope it didn't spot the drone." Unless the machine ship was shamming the Blacksburg as much as the Blacksburg was trying to sham it.
"So, we're going to try the same trick again, but with a difference, yes? We're going to drop a sensor pod and 4 torpedoes, slaved to it. Just before that thing gets close enough to spot the torpedoes" Which were stealthed as much as possible to facilitate their use as mines when necessary."the drone will order the torps to light up and target that motherless motherkiller. With a little luck" Another set of famous last words to be avoided whenever possible. "the torps will catch it by surprise and break that things jaw, or maybe at least poke it's eyes out and bloody it's nose."
The gathered officers smiled, hope surging back like adrenaline after first finding they likely had no chance against their larger pursuer, then being offered the possibility of deliverance by their Captain, who they all looked to, eagerly awaiting more assurance.
"Now,either just as the enemy should be getting our surprise package or just an instant after it does, I want a massive deceleration." Before more than an eyebrow could raise, he went on confidently. "I want to close with it enough to ascertain how badly" If at all. "that monstrosity was hurt by our opening move. If it's hurt but not badly enough, we'll run for it since it will probably not be able to match our speed if it's taken drive or structural damage." The machine would also be unlikely to follow the destroyer's course as precisely as it had apparently been doing before.
"If it seems hit badly enough, we'll give it a full salvo from the forward torpedo tubes and see if we can finish it off."
He smiled a moment, seeing the expression reciprocated on the faces before him, then shifted to a somewhat grimmer demeanor.
"Remember, our ultimate priority is that not one single intact fragment of this ship or crew fall into HAI hands." he said, tempering their hope with realism. We'll blow ourselves to elementary particles before we let the HAI have so much as a fleck of paint off out hull. "But if our attack comes off well enough, we may just end up taking a few pieces of that motherless bastard home with us, along with the United Terran Starfleet's first encounter and victory involving a HAI!"
Waiting just long enough, he finished with "Let's make this happen!"
Time again tortured the crew of the Blacksburg, the long minutes spent enacting the Captain's plan had passed in a controlled frenzy of activity, because they were doing something, committing affirmative actions to aid their survival. Now they could only wait in tense silence, each kept company by the unwelcome but undeniable possibility the machine cruiser had spotted their trap, or had detected the earlier pod and had altered it's course just enough...
"Torpedoes lighting!" The sensorman shouted a bit too loudly, but not problematically so, his voice an ejaculation of released tension. Now the waiting was over, things were happening!
At very nearly the same instant the ship groaned softly, an almost polite counterpoint to the sensorman's outburst. The forces impelling her along were being massively redirected at the limits her hull could endure.
"Massive energy flashes! Look like all four torps detonated!" The sensorman's words sparked the bridge crew to a higher level of morale.
The sudden deceleration did not quite bring the enemy vessel close enough for the destroyer's Distant Early Warning Arrays to get a good enough look at it to judge the extent of any possible damage it might now be sporting, but this was unnecessary. The ship's scanners activated. Invisible searchlights, each a highly powered, narrowly focused stream of revealing energy that caressed the enemy vessel with quadrillions of quantum fingertips, reading it as a blind man might read Braile and reflecting back pure information which the Blacksburg's data analysis assets, hardware, software and wetware all consumed voraciously and processed furiously.
The UTV Blacksburg had just completed her 180 degree sweeping turn, made possible by her non-Newtonian propulsion systems, when the initial conclusions and best guesses as to the state of the enemy vessel were being rushed to the Captain.
"That thing's hull is hot as hell, there seems to be debris and plasma streaming off of it, the structure appears uneven and asymmetrical in places, it's speed's way down, it may be trying to bank away from us, but slowly, it might be too badly damaged to turn quickly. Best guess is we hurt it bad, Sir."
Or it's doing one hell of a sham job to lure us into range. The captain thought.
But, he just had a feeling it wasn't. In the end having a feeling was perhaps the only advantage living sophonts had over their self-appointed exterminators.
"Full forward tube salvo as soon as we're in range. Staggered fire, randomize lauch pattern." Anything to make the incoming ordnance less easily plotted and eliminated by whatever point defense capability the machine might still posses. "Charge turrets, full power to forward shield, comms get the combat log off to HQ now."
Actions spoke louder than words, each person on the ship responded to their orders appropriately.
The UTV Blacksburg, the first human built and operated vessel to encounter a Hostile Artificial Intelligence ship, closed with her apparently staggered, bloodied enemy, intent on letting it's creators know that extinction was not an option to humanity.