Some plating, not much of a update spent most of today moving boxes around looking for things and better setting up the pcs. Still will have to do a full tear down to properly wire things up. Much harder to hide things here for some reason. Maybe less stuff around my desks to block the wire paths from view. That or just much more light to see by!
Either way next thing to get the axe on this is that bulkhead where the pipes go into just above the belly cannon, Those narrow panels really bug the hell out of me. In some ways I do sort of want to nuke everything in this area. Just soo much discordant features and detail.
I also need to sit down and decide on a paint pattern for this thing too. It was suppose to be a pre tos era ship but it looks more TMPish right now only thing lending to it is the ent era plates and that single gun. Go fig. I still want to do the old kitbash trick of scaling things all over and make the belly cannon 3X or more in size.
Either way next thing to get the axe on this is that bulkhead where the pipes go into just above the belly cannon.
I guess you're referring to the pipes that run down the neck from the bridge area? I personally like them, but as I said before you always come up with something that's an improvement.
Short session today as errands to replace used up or tossed out stuff from the move. lol.
Anyhow the update might be a cop out as I just plated the aft end of this bulkhead. I had though of doing some floating skid plate like things back here to make it like some sort of replaceable blast shields. Granted not much of this stuff makes sense with ships slinging about weapons that can wipe a planetary surface clean, no shields no ship really. But just to add that bit of greebly realism I suppose. It is why I have all those collars on the turrets as deflectors to keep crap from getting to the bearings they ride on, or worse get into the internals of the weapons systems or the ship itself. Anyhow all moot atm as this is just a looks thing. This area is sorta critical as it houses the aft mega torp and the belly cannon. If it isnt clear the neck pipes all connect to the aft torp system if you were to strip the ship those pipes would run from one end to the other.
Ok a few renders of the whole ship. Tempted to redo other parts to cut down on the overall roughness of the hull and unevenness in the detail. The head is a good example of a lot of fiddly plating that does not match the rest of the model. I also need to get off my arse and deal with the spine plates. Though I have thought of redoing them or replacing them with something more angular and sharp to match the rest of the model. ATM they are very much visually subdiv blobs on the ship. Heh, I also need to approach that dome with some plan too Keep chickening out on that part just putting some small portholes into it. I hate cutting on 4 directional curves. symmetrical domes ok but some oblong pill shaped thing eugh.
ok well only 2 images not 4 as planned ran out of time so Ill do the under shots wen I get back.
I should also look into redoing the hdri so it is more WIP friendly. Also really really hate this habit of max19 in randomly flipping hidden edges on polies. Had to turn a mess of them on the head of the ship around windows as all the "hidden" edges were flopped to some direction that causes smoothing issues. It is like I am constantly reflipping the things. Add insult to it all max at times will stop allowing you to interacts with them on certain faces. You have tro cut into it or boolean something into the object to allow you to go back to flipping (that is IF it works) This sort of crap is what really dampens the fun of modeling, like the tooltips that block you from clicking on icons so you have to full halt and click till it takes. And no turning them off does not remove these as max seems to use 2 or 3 different methods and this one is tied to the OS and well, win10 removed the controls in the registry I was able to change in win7 to disable or lower the timings of appearance and disappearance of the stupid things. I think I tried 2023 version of max and this stupid bug is still there. Been there since like max 2016? I am guessing most ppl have hotkeys and macro pads to get around this issue or just move that much slower in selecting the icons as I have found no documentation on this and I refuse to pay the rental fees needed to get "live" support. I would swap software but at this stage too old to relearn and bend to the linux like UI elements in blender. But who knows I might just have to move, like with windows, someday itll die and I will have to shift HDW and software needs be damned. I refuse to touch win11 and 10 is closing life soon and with how fast 7 and 8 became impossible to just browse the web or get key components to work in it eugh. Anyhow wall of text of me pissing about shit.
Here are the other renders with l;ess diatribes of complaining. . . . .
lol just noticed the backdrop date is wrong. . . . wonder did I ever repoint it to the new one or just brainfarted all this time ?
uh, no I did repoint it to the right file but it reverted somewhere along the line. . . . . . that is concerning for more than simple backdrop but for all the textures etc.
Your description of problems with Max is strangely comforting. One always wonders if one's own program is the only one that can be a pain in the ass. Lightwave has this problem that leaves me swearing EVERY time. Early on in it's development they added this "feature" that when you click on the border of an image, every polygon or point or edge you have carefully selected is deselected. There is no recovery from this. It's awful because the icons you use to rotate the model or change from looking at a line drawing to textured wire or plain texture are so tiny that you can easily miss them and deselect stuff you have spent considerable time selecting. I wish they would add the ability to turn this crappy "feature" off and also make the control icons bigger. My monitor pixel size is 3840 x 2160 so the control icons are REALLY tiny.
Early on in it's development they added this "feature" that when you click on the border of an image, every polygon or point or edge you have carefully selected is deselected. There is no recovery from this. It's awful because the icons you use to rotate the model or change from looking at a line drawing to textured wire or plain texture are so tiny that you can easily miss them and deselect stuff you have spent considerable time selecting. I wish they would add the ability to turn this crappy "feature" off and also make the control icons bigger. My monitor pixel size is 3840 x 2160 so the control icons are REALLY tiny.
That pissed me off more times that I can remember back when I was using Lightwave. I don't know why selecting and deselecting are things you can't undo and redo in Lightwave. That would solve a lot of headaches.
That pissed me off more times that I can remember back when I was using Lightwave. I don't know why selecting and deselecting are things you can't undo and redo in Lightwave. That would solve a lot of headaches.
Well there's that too. I can undo a deselection in Affinity Photo. More comfort that I'm not the only Lightwave user that hated that. Cheers Chris.
Augh, that would be rage inducing. I wonder if there is some hidden hot key to apply or un-apply this "feature" It really doesnt sound that useful unless some action you need to do in LW requires all objects in a unselected state?
Reminds me of when max moved to the deselect edge fave vert to ALT vs just clicking on the item. Drove me nuts as I had ti unlearn a habit pushed by the rest of the OS since like win3 and software from in the way way back since a mouse became a thing and some 12yrs or more of using max. I know most other apps this has been the de regular for years. But at the time it was just a massive aggravation. Took me a year or so to unlearn it, issue is Ill do alt to deselect in other apps now and get some other reaction. . . . . . . . . so yeah.
Seems all programs have undo redo issues of some sort. I have icons set but, those are not the same undo and redo as the ctrl z/y so go fig. Or rather they decide randomly to be part of the same undo redo system as does the hotkeys. So in the end I have to keep swapping back and forth to get my undo to work. View changes though has it's own system so I can undo or redo viewport changes. Shrug. I could never get past the all object wires are one color thing. In max I can assign wire colors to each object. It is randomly assigned on creation too. It lets me know what I am looking at and what things is part of what object.
I am also on 4k mostly in a attempt to make the UI and junk smaller for a larger work area. . . but some of the text is super dinky or I'm having to lean over to see things. The fight of push the monitor further away to see stuff as a whole or lean in to see wtf I am looking at. I have most things memorized but some of the Vray menus are just text. And cause it is max it is some screwy font that is no scaleable and now cause of win10 I'm fucked for fine tuning font size, cause the whole everyone just use percentile scale on everything. Which I never use cause it fucks up the explorer (file browser) and other ui bits so badly. Or never has a fine enough step go up to the next scale and it is way WAY too large worse than 1080p 100% on a 4k display, what is the point then. (other than higher pixel text)
Ok even more comfort. Like you, Lightwave just happens to be what I learned as Max happens to be what you learned. There is no way I am going to start over with a new program. Love it or hate it, you work with what you know. I had just always assumed that the more expensive programs had more of the bugs worked out. I guess I should have known that every program has SOMETHING.
As someone who has used 3 different programs over the years, I can confirm that switching CGI software is a giant pain.
I've also seen many times over the years where MKF has had some kind of issue with Max that he let us know about that made me realize that no company who makes this software has it all figured out, no matter how much it costs. Every bit of software has its quirks, issues and bugs. But, as you said, Brandenerg, it just comes down to what you know and use.
think his first was truespace 3D. I used it ages ago when it was sold as a house decor app lol. Thing did not even have any sort of poly editing just splines (could lathe and extrude from) and your basic shape set. But that was like 1993 so not the same software as it was later on.
Yes, exactly. I started with TrueSpace 2 back in the year 2000. I'd been watching some DVDs with special features about CGI and I got interested in it. I priced Lightwave and Max and almost soiled myself, but I found that TrueSpace was more reasonably priced. Since I didn't know if I was even going to like it, I went with the cheapest option I could find. Then, in 2007, Microsoft bought Caligari, the company that made TrueSpace, and promptly killed it. I think all they wanted from it was the 3D code so they could use it in their own software. Sometime after that is when I switched to Lightwave because I got a deal on it from an Ebay seller. Then, when it seemed like LW had gone the way of TrueSpace, I switched to Blender.
So much of this could have been said in my thread when we were debating about me trying CGI, but I feel like I can't be smug because sometimes finding the same type of paper across brands is difficult even when the numbers are the same, AND all the convenient-to-me office store places have shut down.
So there's issues any way you approach it, I guess is what I'm sayin'.
Took a few days off, well didn't take time off, actually. . . . lol did unpacking and setting up the tv and media pc vs modeling. Larger tvs even if they are lighter are so bloody awkward to move about. SO just a few secondary plating to match up to the head and other bits of the hull.
first a few full ship renders mostly done for something else but it shows the plates at a distance.
Dams Mads your skills evolution have reached Epic Status. Well done buddy. You know how I love it when you tackle non-federation vessels, but yes Fed ships are off chain as well
Man I do hope you are able to use these skills for income, sadly though that would take you away from these artists "hobby posts" that you entertain us with ... a bittersweet thought
Posts
Either way next thing to get the axe on this is that bulkhead where the pipes go into just above the belly cannon, Those narrow panels really bug the hell out of me. In some ways I do sort of want to nuke everything in this area. Just soo much discordant features and detail.
I also need to sit down and decide on a paint pattern for this thing too. It was suppose to be a pre tos era ship but it looks more TMPish right now only thing lending to it is the ent era plates and that single gun. Go fig. I still want to do the old kitbash trick of scaling things all over and make the belly cannon 3X or more in size.
A much less busy bulkhead.
Anyhow the update might be a cop out as I just plated the aft end of this bulkhead. I had though of doing some floating skid plate like things back here to make it like some sort of replaceable blast shields. Granted not much of this stuff makes sense with ships slinging about weapons that can wipe a planetary surface clean, no shields no ship really. But just to add that bit of greebly realism I suppose. It is why I have all those collars on the turrets as deflectors to keep crap from getting to the bearings they ride on, or worse get into the internals of the weapons systems or the ship itself. Anyhow all moot atm as this is just a looks thing. This area is sorta critical as it houses the aft mega torp and the belly cannon. If it isnt clear the neck pipes all connect to the aft torp system if you were to strip the ship those pipes would run from one end to the other.
ok well only 2 images not 4 as planned ran out of time so Ill do the under shots wen I get back.
I should also look into redoing the hdri so it is more WIP friendly. Also really really hate this habit of max19 in randomly flipping hidden edges on polies. Had to turn a mess of them on the head of the ship around windows as all the "hidden" edges were flopped to some direction that causes smoothing issues. It is like I am constantly reflipping the things. Add insult to it all max at times will stop allowing you to interacts with them on certain faces. You have tro cut into it or boolean something into the object to allow you to go back to flipping (that is IF it works) This sort of crap is what really dampens the fun of modeling, like the tooltips that block you from clicking on icons so you have to full halt and click till it takes. And no turning them off does not remove these as max seems to use 2 or 3 different methods and this one is tied to the OS and well, win10 removed the controls in the registry I was able to change in win7 to disable or lower the timings of appearance and disappearance of the stupid things. I think I tried 2023 version of max and this stupid bug is still there. Been there since like max 2016? I am guessing most ppl have hotkeys and macro pads to get around this issue or just move that much slower in selecting the icons as I have found no documentation on this and I refuse to pay the rental fees needed to get "live" support. I would swap software but at this stage too old to relearn and bend to the linux like UI elements in blender. But who knows I might just have to move, like with windows, someday itll die and I will have to shift HDW and software needs be damned. I refuse to touch win11 and 10 is closing life soon and with how fast 7 and 8 became impossible to just browse the web or get key components to work in it eugh. Anyhow wall of text of me pissing about shit.
lol just noticed the backdrop date is wrong. . . . wonder did I ever repoint it to the new one or just brainfarted all this time ?
uh, no I did repoint it to the right file but it reverted somewhere along the line. . . . . . that is concerning for more than simple backdrop but for all the textures etc.
Your description of problems with Max is strangely comforting. One always wonders if one's own program is the only one that can be a pain in the ass. Lightwave has this problem that leaves me swearing EVERY time. Early on in it's development they added this "feature" that when you click on the border of an image, every polygon or point or edge you have carefully selected is deselected. There is no recovery from this. It's awful because the icons you use to rotate the model or change from looking at a line drawing to textured wire or plain texture are so tiny that you can easily miss them and deselect stuff you have spent considerable time selecting. I wish they would add the ability to turn this crappy "feature" off and also make the control icons bigger. My monitor pixel size is 3840 x 2160 so the control icons are REALLY tiny.
That pissed me off more times that I can remember back when I was using Lightwave. I don't know why selecting and deselecting are things you can't undo and redo in Lightwave. That would solve a lot of headaches.
Reminds me of when max moved to the deselect edge fave vert to ALT vs just clicking on the item. Drove me nuts as I had ti unlearn a habit pushed by the rest of the OS since like win3 and software from in the way way back since a mouse became a thing and some 12yrs or more of using max. I know most other apps this has been the de regular for years. But at the time it was just a massive aggravation. Took me a year or so to unlearn it, issue is Ill do alt to deselect in other apps now and get some other reaction. . . . . . . . . so yeah.
Seems all programs have undo redo issues of some sort. I have icons set but, those are not the same undo and redo as the ctrl z/y so go fig. Or rather they decide randomly to be part of the same undo redo system as does the hotkeys. So in the end I have to keep swapping back and forth to get my undo to work. View changes though has it's own system so I can undo or redo viewport changes. Shrug. I could never get past the all object wires are one color thing. In max I can assign wire colors to each object. It is randomly assigned on creation too. It lets me know what I am looking at and what things is part of what object.
I am also on 4k mostly in a attempt to make the UI and junk smaller for a larger work area. . . but some of the text is super dinky or I'm having to lean over to see things. The fight of push the monitor further away to see stuff as a whole or lean in to see wtf I am looking at. I have most things memorized but some of the Vray menus are just text. And cause it is max it is some screwy font that is no scaleable and now cause of win10 I'm fucked for fine tuning font size, cause the whole everyone just use percentile scale on everything. Which I never use cause it fucks up the explorer (file browser) and other ui bits so badly. Or never has a fine enough step go up to the next scale and it is way WAY too large worse than 1080p 100% on a 4k display, what is the point then. (other than higher pixel text)
I've also seen many times over the years where MKF has had some kind of issue with Max that he let us know about that made me realize that no company who makes this software has it all figured out, no matter how much it costs. Every bit of software has its quirks, issues and bugs. But, as you said, Brandenerg, it just comes down to what you know and use.
Yes, exactly. I started with TrueSpace 2 back in the year 2000. I'd been watching some DVDs with special features about CGI and I got interested in it. I priced Lightwave and Max and almost soiled myself, but I found that TrueSpace was more reasonably priced. Since I didn't know if I was even going to like it, I went with the cheapest option I could find. Then, in 2007, Microsoft bought Caligari, the company that made TrueSpace, and promptly killed it. I think all they wanted from it was the 3D code so they could use it in their own software. Sometime after that is when I switched to Lightwave because I got a deal on it from an Ebay seller. Then, when it seemed like LW had gone the way of TrueSpace, I switched to Blender.
So there's issues any way you approach it, I guess is what I'm sayin'.
Yeah, that's some sage-like wisdom. If you don't embrace the bad with the good, then you'll never get anywhere in life.
first a few full ship renders mostly done for something else but it shows the plates at a distance.
Man I do hope you are able to use these skills for income, sadly though that would take you away from these artists "hobby posts" that you entertain us with ... a bittersweet thought
this ship is awesome!