Bridge Commander Universe

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-02-2006 08:35 PM

huh?
I heard that 9of9 made an update to it, not the original
I heard (or read) "...Defiant replaced with 9of9's Defiant..." in an update for KM, maybe the 0.9.1

energydrank · Cadet 2nd Class Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 63

ACE_HIGH · **Posted**: 10-03-2006 06:05 PM

I would use one of the new defiants out of the DCMP 2.0, they are much better

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-03-2006 08:22 PM

And here comes ACE always saving my skin!
Thanks dude! this one looks more real!

DJ Curtis · Admiral Joined: 09 Feb 2006 Posts: 2381 Location: Canada

Nice ship. I'm not terribly crazy about the nacelles, but I think that the carrier concept has been absent for too long, so good on ya. Nice modelling too.

SuperSmeg · **Posted**: 10-09-2006 12:04 AM

Lose the 3rd nacelle. A third nacelle has never done any ship any justice whatsoever. Apart from that, nice job.

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-09-2006 03:50 PM

Better late than never.
Here are some updates. Added more detail on the pie. I mean, saucer.
And modelled the lateral cannons

Some torpedo tubes coming out...

Can't wait to show you the in-game version!!, some bugs out there tho.

CaptainRussell · **Posted**: 10-09-2006 08:32 PM

Be sure to put extremely detailed textures with small windows over this thing since it's going to be so big. Cool

-CR

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-09-2006 08:37 PM

Point taken.
I still have until late November to finish the textures, considering that I'm slower at texturing than modelling.
What do you guys think about the deflector? Intrepid-style, Sovereign-style, or Galaxy-style?

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-10-2006 07:38 PM

I consider the model enough detailed, so this finishes the modelling phase.
Final updates before beginning the textures:

added the aft torpedo launchers....

...and the quantum turret. The tail looks preety offensive....

Imperial_Destroyer · **Posted**: 10-11-2006 02:20 AM

make your own dish style

Phaser · **Posted**: 10-11-2006 02:28 AM

Wow. This is really progressing well!

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-11-2006 07:26 PM

i'm undecided.
What do you think about this plating?
it's just the top part, I didn't consider the bridge section.

**Nebula** · **Posted**: 10-11-2006 08:23 PM

hmm it needs something more than just that flat black...

will we see lots of windows in that section??

Phaser · **Posted**: 10-11-2006 11:33 PM

That is way too much black.

CaptainRussell · **Posted**: 10-12-2006 02:34 AM

You gotta put some heavily-azteced plating on that ship - you need a 2048x2048 on the saucer top and bottom since the ship is so big - if you put a map this big that has antialiased aztecing on it and very small windows, the ship will look really good.

-CR

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-12-2006 12:58 PM

FYI:
It isn't gonna be black. I just wanted to show the plating.

CR: Any chance of a tutorial on texturing? I have an aztecing pattern, but it is not as good as I like. I can make the big details on a ship (plating, registries and such), but the small details like aztecing, windows or lifeboats are not my strong point Sad

I always wanted to know how the h**l you and Scotchy did that plating over the Galaxy-style saucer.

EDIT:
ROFL. Look what I got accidentally:

I think I found the secret of the aztecing!!!!

CaptainRussell · **Posted**: 10-12-2006 10:45 PM

It's easy, and there are 2 ways of doing it.

The most common way is to used antialiased layering in Photoshop in order to just layer out a bunch of plating and then adjust the hues of each layer until you get the color you want - you should always start with a solid pale blue square or rectangle that has sides that have a pixel length that is a whole-numbered exponent of 2.

The other way is the way that I use and seems to be easier, at least for me. You take your pale blue base texture, and blow it up to 400% the size you want it to be, and then just use the polygon tool in MSPAINT in order to draw anything you want - this is very easy to do.

After you're done with this you'll have a ridiculously-large and jagged texture - use Photoshop to resize it to 25% its blown-up size and the jagged edges will automatically be antialiased on the smaller image.

For an antialiased specular, simply make a copy of the 400% sized image and put then put the saturation to zero and then tweak the other settings (brightness, contrast, hue, midtone, highlights) to get the desired effect.

When you use the resize technique, you'll get smoother edges a lot of times too.

-CR

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-13-2006 01:30 PM

I've already tried something like what you said.
The problem is that I can't get that circular sorting on the plating. All I get is a tiled pattern, yes, but it doesn't look like a hand-placed pattern.
If so, all the faces should be aligned from the center to the edge of the saucer, from bottom to top, as a real plating should be.

Find the Typhoon-class in BCFiles, it has the first hull plating I did using that method. The saucer has another layer of plating I made with lines, and then beveled it to make them look so. also the engineering hull. but I can't get a sovereign-style or a galaxy-style pattern.

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-13-2006 03:15 PM

Nevermind.
I think I got it:

CaptainRussell · **Posted**: 10-13-2006 06:19 PM

That's sort of what you want; you should draw several semicircular lines with straight lines perpendicular to them coming out of the center, and use this as a guide for the hull plating.

After you've drawn one-half of the plating, mirror the image left-right and then flip all of the colors - for example, pale blue should be flipped with medium blue, and dark blue should be flipped with light blue - at least this is how I do it - take a look at the phaser cannon texture for my Nebula Variant 1 Refit II and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Good luck with texturing.

-CR

UPD Equinox · **Posted**: 10-15-2006 01:43 AM

Hey dude great stuff! I love the idea of having a massive carrier ship with a 80 deck saucer! Fed ships have too long been small cruisers. My only gripes is the third nacelle which you have said will be optional so thats ok and the tail end. It just seems a bit flat... and thin. Like compared to the saucer it seems a bit spindly. And certainly for a carrier you would want to maximise space so for a ship that has a saucer that large you would expect the rear end to be a bit larger or at least a bit curvier. The curves would give an ilussion of chunkiness with a ship that large. just my 2 cents.

EDIT: Also as a carrier i think it would have more Phaser coverage as apposed to torpedoes. You seem to have 16 torp launchers and 3 phaser strips... As a carrier you would want to have maximum defense coverage. You can look to my attempt for refernce if you wish.

http://bridgecommander.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=20010&sid=4d1d866015ae4e63d951539e734fa4c2

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-17-2006 11:49 AM

In fact, it has 3 phasers on the saucer, two below the pylons, and one below the main shuttlebay, I can cover almost all the angles with them, filling the gaps with torpedo launchers.

An issue to all the modellers out there:
When I shoot to the ship trying to damage it, some faces just dissappear, leaving a sharp edge on the hole, with no burned ring and no damage texture. I tryed changing the damage radius in the harpdoints and in the pointer file, but when I touch the ship with a phaser the game crashes.
I'd post a screenie, but I didn't bring them here, maybe tomorrow.

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-17-2006 06:15 PM

update on the aztecing
I decided to use modelled (yes, you heard modelled) aztecing, with overlayed faces on the hull. Since the previous face triangulation (division into triangles) of this part of the hull was near 3000 faces, I decided to use this aztecing rather than the texture, since this has almost the same face amount (well, a bit more Razz

) an looks way more cool

I hope this plating to jump off the hull when damaged, but, who knows? Wink

MScott2273 · **Posted**: 10-17-2006 09:44 PM

texturing is looking great so far!, u could say its the federations death star... LOL

CaptainRussell · **Posted**: 10-18-2006 04:22 PM

I still feel that the aztecing is lacking a little bit - examine the Sovereign and Galaxy hull plating and you'll see many repeated patterns - these are what I try to stick with because when I deviate too much I end up with something that doesn't look quite right.

-CR

N1GH7H4WK · **Posted**: 10-18-2006 07:53 PM

because you used tiled patterns. you drew a small pattern and repeated it all over the hull.
this is a random tiling, with no defined sort, although the components are rotated, scaled and moved, 'cuz the template is limited.
I got something like what you said this morning, but it wasn't what I expected. I'll keep trying new combinations.
Thanks, now I'm starting to figure out how to make the plating.

CaptainRussell · **Posted**: 10-19-2006 03:13 AM

Yeah I do repeat some of them but I try to improvise where I can and also try to make lots of color changes so that everything looks decent at the end. Razz