Creating an animation.

Although it's really not a good idea to bring up year old threads...you're right, you weren't that bad for a beginner. Nice concepts. I take it the animation never quite panned out?
 
nope, it was never fifnished.. or i should say, still not finished :)) I'm really planning on finishing it. No joking, cause i got lots of experience during last year. I reall think i can do it, and i found a few friends to help me out :)
Anyway, this thread was sticky, so i don't think it hurts anyone to bring it up again. If yes, then im sorry :)
 
Okay, I only reopen this thread cause it's mine, and this is where i already posted about my Longbow earlier. Lots of thanx go to the WC3D team for provieding a modell to start with. I used the longbows hosted there as reference to make mine.

Finally I mapped it. It took some time, and I'm not happy with it, but I think it'll do. I just don't have the power to work on it more. I don't know how to relly improve it. One question: where should I put the confed logo, and what olor it should be. just paint on the posted image so I get the idea right :D
Click on images once loaded for full size (image shack resizes em for you, and it becomes jaged)
)

 
Well, this model looks great! You say you’re not happy with the textures but to me they look spectacular. Good job.
 
I also think that the textures are looking good. Maybe a little bit more spec on it to make it look more metal like but for anything else its great...better then anything I have done so far.

One little thing you seams to have missed is an intake (or whatever it is) that is on these little front "wings".
See picture https://www.wcnews.com/ships/images/wc4longbow.jpg

For the confed Logo I would take the first blue ring after the cockpit if you want it...but I wouldn't put it on the model anyway ^_^
 
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THE INTAKE!!! Ahh, thanx, I knew something was missing :D Thanks for the ref piture! I think I'll try your idea with the logo. There's too little specular here cause of the GI. Btw, poly ount is around 9000, but an be clipped ot around 4000-5000 by remodelling the guns, and I'M sure I can get to 300 by cutting some more, and replaing the rear window with a new one.
 
Well the pic is from the CIC tech-database. I mostly look their first when searching for some quick infos.

Another thing is the front window. Do you have a smooth on it? Something causes visible steps in the gradiants..maybe some smoothing might help.

Also the engine flames look quite static. Do you use a atmo gizmo for it or a cone with some textures?

What I realy like about the pic is the lightning...do you use HDRI (or what was it called) for it?
 
Yeas, thats HDRI, rendered with VRay. (+1 VRay light, for darker shadow and specular) The engine flames are simple cone with with texture. It was made years ago :D I forgot to take it off of the modell.
Yep, your right about the smoothing too. Will do that later on. (only prbolem is that the window frame and window are one piece, so setting the smoothings groups will be a real pain :D The frames were extruded from the window.
 
HDRI-> As I thought. Man someday I also have to get into that. Its a great tool when combining CGI with real camera stuff.

Smoothing-> Might be some work but I think it will improve the look a little bit more.
 
HDRI is great for both giving enviroment to be reflected by metals, mirrors, windows, etc., also, it provieds Global Ilumination lighting. If used as enviroment and lighting at the same time, you can get fantastic results, cause the light comes form teh enviroment image itself. Also, games are starting to use it. Check out Day of Defeat:Source, or Lost Coast (Half Life2 mods), or for example NFS:Most Wanted is useing it too! (seems like it anyway, but I'm not sure about that) Yeah, smoothing will done. It's a must :D And a new cokpit. There is one insede, just he window tint is a bit too much :D
 
HDRI isn't only good for that. If you can make your own maps you can easly get the light-setup of a green/blue-screen studio and use that lightsetup in your scene to light it. Its a lot easier then placing every light by hand and adjusting it to fit the real scene...at least I got the impression when someone told me about how it should work ^_^

Sadly games using HDR wouldn't run on my old system...would like to see the differance myself instead of some fast moving videos.

About making the guy inside visible...maybe giving him a little light inside the cockpit could also help.
 
ture, some dashboaard lighting will help :D

Your right about the HDRi thing, I think. THats another great use for it.
Well, I don't think you missed too much cause of no HDRi ingame. It is fun for about 5 minutes, to walk into a dark place, and then ome out and see how the lighting adjusts like in real (means: you get almost blinded when coming out from the dark, but it adjusts so you can see inside dark rooms , but can't see in fomr the brighter outside :) ) It an get very annoying, especially whe the game misalulates the amount it should lighten the scene, so everything gets very very overbright (mostly a problem in NFS:MW, can't see a thing after a rain...) SO, I wouldn't buy a new graphics card just for HDRi games. And DX9 stuff also ain't worth it yet. For example in Call of Duty, DX8 looks just as good, and without unrealistc shine on everything (cause everything is bumpmapped.. sigh). :D

Sorry for misspelling so much, my "C" character only works when I HIT it really with intent.
 
I think the biggest problem of the comming games will be the missing experiance with all the new technologys they have now. (Hardware and Software)
When the companies gathered enough experiance the new generation of games will most likely look realy awesome and even more realistic then games today.
From what I heard from a friend with a little insight is that even the XB360 is just using 1/3 or at max 2/3 of its capabilitys....because they don't know how to use it.
Same goes with Sonys Cell-chip. Great technology but they can't fully use it since the programmers don't know how to use it right.

And that brings me to the artistic use of these technics ingame. Most of the new games I have seen screenshots/videos from..as said I can't play them...they are mostly to bright, use a lot of booming effects and other new stuff just a little bit to much for my taste.
Well time will tell what new artistic feeling the new games will have.
 
Update on Longbow: I'v made the changes thanx to "gevatter Lars"'s instructions. The intake and the window fixed, plus I added the already done pilot modell into the cockpit (seen on page one). There was a small error when useing GI dureing rendering thats why there's a strange white spot on the lower side of window. I'm thinking about remodelling the whole thing based on this modell: that would be a totally geometrically detailed (not panted-on panels and such). Dunno, maybe if I got some time :D
 
Looks really good...however it seems like AA isn't on because I see a lot of jagged edges. Could you render again with some AA turned on? It would really set this picture off I think. :)
 
AA is ON :D You just forgot to click on the image after you opened it !!! Imageshack Resizes the images, thus makeing them jaggy, but if you click on it again it gets back its original size!
 
I made a bakground image with some longbows takeing off... hope you like it. there is a version without the black "widescreen" stripes, if someone wishes to take a look I an upload that too. (if your interested in the original render without postwork, I may post that also)
DON'T FORGET to click on the image after opening it to get the fullsize version! Thanx.
 
I like the first pic. The new smooth and pilot makes it look more complete.

For the second pic. The odd thing for me is while the other ships are blured the nearest longbow seams to stand still.
I got that impression for two reasons. The first is that the landing gears are still at the ground when the ship is so close to the exit. I would expect that the nose would point upward just a little bit. Sure in an envoirment like that their is no need for that, but still it would serve the impression of a starting fighter/bomber.
Second thing is...their is no motion in the picture. Means that I would expect a motion blur effect on the background or the fighter...depending on the camera movent. When the camera moves with the ship the background would be blured. If the Longbow passes by very quickly the Longbow would have a motion blure applied to it.
I would play around with the effect a little bit...but since you most likely would like to show your Longbow model rather then the background I would choice a camera that is moving with the Longbow and so give the background a motion blur effect. That would have the nice side effect that it would mask the, compared to the Longbow, low detailed background.
You could also make something between and give the Longbow a very low motion blur while the background is more blured....personaly I think that could serve the effect of ongoing action/motion the most.
What I realy like about the pic is the..think its called haze-effect...on the engines.
(How did you made this effect?)
It gives the image a little more realistic look to it. Also that you have a focus placed on the closest Longbow and that the others get blured with the distance.
I also like the lightning in the scene. Personaly I prefer it more darker...as most of my stuff shows but its quite good in your scene.

I think you are making realy good progress. Keep up the good work we can't never have enough good WC pics.
When we have gathered enough tallented or hard working people we could start our own movie ^_^
A WC Fanmovie in comparable quality to StarWreck...that would be great.
 
the biggest problem i see there is a visual one. there is a BIG disconnect between the hand drawn cleanliness of the textures on the longbow and the repeating tilable texture on the victory. the dramatic shift in looks looks really off to me. the scene setting is quite nice though, just...that change in texture style is not so good.
 
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