{Star Fleet: R & D} One wiled ride........

[hobbs]

Is it just me, or does the USS Griffin look a bit... flat?

do you mean as in no modeled details like hull pannels etc? yes i supose you are right never thought bout it before.

but i like my ship, i like that some of the guys on here have helped get her made and i am not at all fussed about lack of modelled detail...

1) and this is the main reason: my ship is built and is great. and as i have few modeling skills i am hugely thankfull and greatfull for the work done on my behalf (bankruptstudios im looking at you here lol)

2) an important one for me: i would imagine it would be more resource hungry with modeled details which would mean my poor old pc would not like it. so again not fussed about the lack of modeled details.

3) finally: it would be great to be able to fly and play the game with the sort of models we see in the episodes, but then i am more than happy with the excellent work done for those of us without modelling skills, and i do not want to take anything away from those who have helped me so much. If anyone can better the modles you see on these forums then id love to see them but please try and be somewhat more....choosy about the comments made about submitted models... bankruptstudios for example has stated above that he spent 3weeks doing this model. at least praise him a bit.

[CyAn1d3]

you guys get praise, it looks good, we were just constructively criticizing it, its what we do
i understand that you guys are taking performance of user PC in mind when making the ship as well, thats not a bad thing, it looks good as it is, i think DT and I were just stating that it wouldnt hurt to throw a few details in, we get spoiled with all the high poly stuff.
hell taking 3 weeks to do out a model isnt bad either, it looks good
i dont think ive EVER seen a WIP thread where its all just the usual "looks good" or "nice" type comments.

[Darkthunder]

do you mean as in no modeled details like hull pannels etc?

No, I mean... physically flat. It doesn't look to be a very tall ship, and the nacelles look near paper thin.

Besides the obvious "lack of mass" to the ship, it doesn't hurt making it more detailed than it currently is. I understand you want to keep it relatively low-poly so it works for a larger crowd of hardware setups. But any ship in BC, can go with 8-10k polygons on pretty much any PC capable of running BC even without having super high definition hardware.

I'm not saying it's a bad model, just saying that it could use some additional mass to it.

[pointman]

I would say it is no flatter than the defiant, and I like it. But I can see what darkthunder is saying, but it does depend on the scale of the ship, it looks small, and if so should be good. If its big like a galaxy class though then it would look a little "flat" as he said.

[bankruptstudios]

I did a size comp to the Nova class and the Griffin class is about little over a 3rd in size. I welcome any input from all of you that could make this ship better. Jest keep in mind that 3 weeks ago i started this project with no modeling experience so as i was going i learned from you all the the tutorels. This is my first ship and the only reason i attempted it was the dedication of Hobbs to this ship designs. This ship is for a story idea for my show that we came up with so to honor Hobbs for all the help he has done with me i thought it best to use his ship. But i run my PC to the max the render best quality recordings to use for my show and the original model of the Griffin showed way to many errors for recording. SO i set out to fix thous errors with Hobbs blessing and to possibly touch up the textures. I did however tried to change some of the ship design like the nacelle but Hobbs wanted to stay true to his original design and with another request to do a escort type for the Dragon. Half way done i realized that i had made an error so i had to scrap everything and start from the original once again. For this model my top concern was pleasing Hobbs for all the work he has done for me and judging from his response i think i did OK. Now that he has it and he's working on her for relies I may later revisit the Griffin and do a Mark 2 re-design. But for now i'm neck deep in work for the show and also the work on the CORINIUM CLASS witch im very excited about.

[hobbs]

you THINK you did ok? geez man you did awesome. its taken me years just to get to the point i'm at and as you see from my posted scorpion class im no where near your skills and you did it in 3, THREE weeks. I thank you!:)

I would say it is no flatter than the defiant, and I like it. But I can see what darkthunder is saying, but it does depend on the scale of the ship, it looks small, and if so should be good. If its big like a galaxy class though then it would look a little "flat" as he said.

the size of the griffin is meant to be slightly larger than the DEFIANT (see: http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/topic,6312.msg122476.html#msg122476 ) as you see the griffin is the same width as the defiant but from defiant's outer nacelles and she has more decks (6 infact) but im not sure my design is accurate in that respect may have more.

darkthunder and CyAn1d3: sorry if i got defensive my friends but i was so pleased to see her as she now is...  if you guys want i'll send you the ship by email and you can check it out in 3d, see what you think. my apologies again.

[bankruptstudios]

thanks for the kind words my friend, i hope you'll be even more surprised with the new ship i'm building.

[CyAn1d3]

we all may, looks to me like you got the basics down pretty good, mess around some and kinda "sketch" model with a copy of the mesh, you may find that while playing around you come up with something that you never thought about doing in serious planning ;)

[bankruptstudios]

Hi all. I'm working on the CORINIUM class and it's ruffly 90% done. One thing i'm stuck on is when i try to export it from Max to NIF it says something like You have attempted to add a child to a NINode witch is already a child of another. What does that mean and how do i resolve the problem? The base model is the CR Intimidator.

[Kirk]

Please attach a screenshot of your export settings.

[bankruptstudios]

I'v imported and exported models before put it seems that the CG and CR sovy models are the only ones giving me trouble. SO to test it i imported a fresh sovy and right away exported it with no modification and i got the same thing. I'm stumped. Also i did not change my export settings, there as they were when i installed the plug in.

[bankruptstudios]

Here is an update to my wips thus far. Hobbs's CORINIUM class constellation/sovy hybrid  is coming good except for my exporting error on witch i hope someone can help. The original print is at the start of this topic if you want to see Hobbs design. I love the overall design of the ship but i also tolk some liberality with Hobbs design to add my own personal touch. The forward saucer in the prints is flat but i put a step in to add style for the later forward hanger bay an also cut it's length down a quarter. Also i placed the nacelles on an angle wile to connect the struts to form the upper and lower nacelle support housing. I plan to add more to this area put this is what i have this far.

[Kirk]

Uncheck everything in the exporter, and also let me see your import settings.

[bankruptstudios]

I'll do it right now, give me a minuet.

Here you go.

I jest tryed to export with everything unchecked but with the same result.

[hobbs]

thats so cool man! you made my ship!

lol i looked at my original design and realised why you put the dorsal nacelles on pylons but i have to say that my original idea was to have the nacelles mounted directly to the secondary hull.

please dont think you have to change it just thought i'd clarify... but i love it you can have a bit more creative license with this one lol (though i'd love to see how she would look with the nacells directly on to the secondary hull lol)

[bankruptstudios]

Hey buddy. In your design there was no clear way to attach the nacelles to the bottom so i concentrated on the front and top views you gave me. In the end i went to the constellation for ideas on how to do it. I will be altering the bottom one and adding to the top. I had thought about attaching it to the hull but i have to maintain the alignment with the top nacelles. The bottom were not toughing much and it didn't look real that it would stay on and if i pushed it further forward the top ones would be in the saucer. Thats the diff between 2d design and 3d. You see some things have to be altered.

[limey BSc.]

You have attempted to add a child to a NINode witch is already a child of another. What does that mean and how do i resolve the problem?

Open up "Select from list", select all bones (should be 2 blank and a "Scene root") and delete them.

[bankruptstudios]

Where is Select from list?

[Kirk]

And for the future, deselect everything in the import list except for "Flip UV" and "Render Textures in View."

Edit: Select list default keybind "h"

[limey BSc.]

Where is Select from list?

Up the top, near the standard select. Its a pointer with lots of lines next to it.