Hey Jim,
Martin here, Sammy’s buddy (Outback - just to jog yer memory) just checked out yer tutorial and this thread, coming along very nicely. I think I asked this before but I forgot… how did ya do the ship itself? I mean did you use splines to do the subtle curves of the ship? Oh ya please read the PM I will be sending you in a moment. Thanks bud! 
doggy signing out…
I think I asked this before but I forgot… how did ya do the ship itself?
Hey bro, I started with a flat disc and used smooth shift to create an inset (you can use extender pro if you like, it kinda negates smooth shift now) then I deleted the big disc leaving you with a ring of quads. then I removed the polyies at what was going to be the front creating the two main arms. Extrude to add thickness. the I hit subpatches and srated tweeking the main body area was smooth shifted out of the ring’s closed end. starting it this way gave me a very clean mesh along the arms. the basic modeling only took me a few min since it’s very simple shape and if I were to show you the mesh I think you would understand.
Kragh: do you mean adding segments to smooth it out?
_| from this…
[color=darkslategray]…| [/color]in to this?
_/
and exactly where?
Hey Jim, I sorta got the gist of it, now the extrude part is the ends join together in the middle right? Man, if you delete the disc, you will be left a lot of points, that is a lot of polys to be made! You mentioned about knifing the polys in an earlier post, but I guess stenciling would also be a good option as well.
Martin
Oh man, this laser going thru the ship wing… if I were a girl I’d be wet! :twisted:
Amazing work you got there!
Again great artwork man!
The destroyer kinda reminds me of the ship Andromeda from the tv show Andromeda.It is like a hybrid from Andromeda and the Bat plane from Batman.:wise:It has an original feeling and shape.
I LOVE the lasers,gr8 effect
Good luck in the contest James.
getting closer I think, I’ll have to throw this comp out by the end of it but there are just a few things I’d rather do in AE.
Hi
This will definitely be the last post about angles. For two reasons; it didn´t really matter in the first place, and I´m getting so used to the look of your ship, that I like the angles as they are.
Now this is a matter of principles at this moment; Why can´t I explain myself in an understandable way ?
[b]
[/b]
[b]_| from this…
[color=darkslategray]…| in to this?
_/
[/color]…No…
[color=red]…| [/color]From this…
_/
_| in to this!
(To show that this is made of solid steel, not rubber…)
But I like it now, just need you to understand my crits. As english isn´t my native language, it´s sometimes hard to explain myself.
That´s it for angles!
I like your new pics alot, I really need a fire plugin.
:bowdown:
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heheh thanks anyway though
I don’t use special plugins for anything but the hull plates. the fire you see are image maps.
no one uses particles and volumetrics when fire on a polygon will suffice. now that’s a differant matter when you have to do certain things, but I’ve figured out a way to five 2d elements a volumetric feel when objects pass through them useing a depth map, but it’s really only good for animations and using stills just comp them together in photoshop of some other compositing program.
Well, image maps I can use…:)- but to find them…!?
Searched the net for pictures of explosions and fires, but primarily found them to low res. As my scene needs a lot of explosions, I need a lot of different shots of blasts etc.
I have found a way to make explosions though, using a model with a rather complex map. I´ll post an example soon, and would like some crits on it, as I have lost the ability to watch it with objective eyes. But I´ll let you know.
As for the angles…
Btw, are there going to be other ships in the scene, or is the counter attacks on these scary birds going to be from ground all the way?
What is a depth map??
A depth map is a version of your render that shows depth a render is usally grayscale since color would be pointless here. there are plugins out there to make depth passes of your scene, but the easyest way to do it is to make everything in your scene black except for your back ground. ***in lightwave just make everything a matte object. *** then set your back ground to white, then set your fog to white and set it’s range from the nearest object to the farthest object and render.
once you have one you can then make effects like fog that you don’t have to render in your scene, depth of field, rack focuses and all that good stuff using your depth pass as a alpha. you can control it using levels. I know it probably doesn’t make sence, but I’ts hard to explain with out visual aids
Thanks alot guys! there would probably be an update but I’ve been playig the WOW beta 
Heh… your post about the depth map just gave me an idea for making my explosion, thanx
Carefull with that environment, it’s a bit boring though. Have you thought of adding some lighted signs to those buildings ? Sky needs some extra work too. :wise: But I think you didn’t got too deep into this yet
I also love the last composition. With a lot of details on the ship in the foreground. Maybe because of the panoramic format ? Anyway, it’s good.
thats a proxy object with procederal textures for the windows, thanks for the sugestion though.
Excellent last update, it’s working well here!!! :wip:
Like the laser and explosion, also the style of the ship!!
Perhaps just the background seems to be not really in the pictures, i don’t know how to explain in english… 
…
But, i think it’s just for a test… you working very fast… keep going!!
