Topic: New Modder Needs Help!!!!!!11

[KBF-HangNail]

Ok Finally got 3DMax Ver 3., I have the SFC plugins as well. Was wondering what other things do i need to make some SFC Ships? And where can i get some good tutorials? Also was told I can edit hardpoints with 3D Max anyone have a clue how I go about doing it? It will be for SFC2/OP and SFC3. All Help will be greatly Appreciated. THNKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1  

[Jake]

As for anything ealse u need is either paint shop pro, or photo shop pro. As for the tourtals i know there are some but not sure where.Hardpoints are made from Dumbies numbered 1-15 it whould have to be named Hardpoint01 ext.  I beleave i'll have to look it up. For hardpoints for SFC 3 you'll need to have the hardpoint/system/weapon  placer and the SFC 3 tool kit.Anyone did i miss anything.  

[KBF-HangNail]

Would Adobe Photoshop 7.0 work? Thats all I have.  

[Jake]

yep that'll work
 

[ancientangel]

I would highly suggest that you focus on one area at a time. Most of these modelers around here have been doing this stuff for 3 years not counting time they have spent before the SFC game series came out.  The best first steps you can take is to just design a mesh and texture it with say a blank 3 View ship sheet. When your done getting everything lined up, then texture it, in some sort of paint program. Hell MS Paint will work but you want something with more options than that ...Use anything you are fimilar with and just try it. Things will come to you with time when modeling.  

[KBF-HangNail]

RGR I have no  Clue as to where to begind doing ship models for SFC is there a good Turtorial on how to begin and such....?
 

[Captain Ron]

Nope most people begin by kitbashing others work, take a part from here take a part from there and merge them. Well you are doing that you can see how most people have done their work. Most start off as a box and more and more get added to them so it all starts as basic shapes.

[Sbloyd]

I didn't start out as a kitbasher, thank god

Best thing to do, is just play with shapes.  Make a sphere, squish it and squash it and see how you can manipulate the shape to look the way you want it to.  Look online at starship schematics and see how ships are put together; look online in these forums and see how the modellers here have put things together.  

Start small, think big.  

Early on I started doing 'non-standard' ships - first a couple weird Federation TMP era ships, then a slew of custom Romulans and a handful of other ships I've since gotten a lot of recognition for.  I like playing around with Gorn designs, both because the SFC gorn ship designs never delighted me, and because I've never really been warm to the old SFB Gorn ships either... plus there aren't piles of canon Gorn ships around to have to conform what I think they should look like to.

Make and save pieces of ships to kitbash yourself.  I can't find my nacelles, and it's driving me crazy!  It really helps unify a set of ships if their nacelles are from the same source.

SAVE OFTEN!

hm, what else?

 

[EmeraldEdge]

There were a couple of video tutorials that were done by Joker, that helped me quite a bit.  I had been playing with shapes initially and getting somewhere, but when I saw those it increased my ability by a lot.  They aren't specifically about building models, I think the only ones out there (at leas tnow) are the texture tutorial and the break model tutorial, but they even helped in the basic model building area.

Beyond that, try out different options, and combinations of tools.  Sometimes a tool will do one thing with everything selected and another with only a couple, you just have to try it out to know what to expect.  

[Mackie]

but in defense of kitbashing, i urge you to take a peek at my works

[sandman69247]

There's a great tutorial  here for building the original USS Enterprise NCC-1701. Mind you, the tut is for a higher poly model than most can use ingame, but gives you a good workout on the tools and methods that will be the basis for you work. Then there are the ones  here that will give you more stuff to work with. Like has been said though, consider these just the basis for your work...you will develop your own style that better suits you.

Hope these help.  

[Anthony_Scott]

I personally use  Photoshop for my trextruing and all other grpahics work. I use illustarator for some of the hull graphics and text effects.


Semper Fi, Carry On

[Praxis]

Yeah, you'll need Photoshop for the textures, but MAN it is difficult.  I have 3ds Max 4.2 and Photoshop and while I am now really good in 3ds Max, I still know zip about Photoshop.

There used to be some good tutorials on www.scifi-meshes.com, but they took them down  .  However I saved a few of them on my HD  The ones I saved were mostly about special effects (creating Photon torpedoes, particle generators, water, phasers, etc) than models, but it still teaches you to make some models.

The best thing is to use the tutorials that come with 3ds Max.  The tutorial to make a 3d model of a plane helped me the most.

Do you want those special effects tutorials I have?  

[KBF-HangNail]

Thnks For all the Help Guys!!!!!  In adobe Photo Shop 7.0 what do i select to change weapon textures? Thought I would start out small before i leap to big. Once again THNKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

[Captain Ron]

all the weapons are in the \Assets\Textures.

Be careful of the phaser you can change that one off the colour scale they use and then you will not see all of them.

[Kurok]

ill take the tutorials on making weapons textures. GHOODLUM@msn.com  

[starforce2]

Deemon also made a sacuer making tutorial that can base used to make federation starbases as well. I think mackie might have linked to it but I can't be sure.
 

[Kurok]

cool ill check it out
 

[KBF-HangNail]

Anyone kNow where some good tutorials on changing weapon textures are? For OP and SFC3?