SFXB Forum

Long ago, I attempted to build a model of the X-Bomber in an older version of Cinema 4D. That model was made from just a few crude sketches I had made by hand after watching only a couple of the Star Fleet videos and was also, in fact, one of my first attempts at tinkering in 3D. I soon became frustrated with it and gave up, leaving only this half-finished mesh. The textures were simplistic, the details were few, and the proportions were terribly skewed and distorted.When I recently joined this board and starting building new Star Fleet models, I thought back to the old mesh and tried to decide what to make of it. Should I fix it? No. I have finally decided to ignore it completely and start from scratch. Thanks to this detailed scan from the Manga Max article, I now have an excellent template to work from. In addition, I've captured a series of pans from the videos to my computer for reference. I'm really excited about this model and am prepared to put a lot of detail into it.Thus, today I started it all anew. I loaded that scan image into C4D and started extrapolating the key parts. I've only cleaned up the front half; so, the back still looks a bit blocky and weird. I'm also making new textures for each part, but I've been using the above scan as a texture in C4D to ensure I keep the shapes right. Here's a QTVR of what I've made so far. Remember, it's just one day's work... nowhere near completion yet.http://brad.project-think.com/starfleet ... est-vr.mov (3.3 MB)Well, I'm probably boring you all to sleep with my constant stream of "samples" of every little model by now. So, I'll keep quiet about this one 'til it is actually 100% finished and ready to go.Wish me luck! I hope you'll like the end product!

Keep it up Bradster quality work !

It looks remarkably good given that, presumably, that's just the 2D image stuck onto your original 3D mesh? The different coloured patches on the neck etc all in the right place... This VR Quicktime functionality is superb - I saw a similar thing demo'd for Flash which can now take Studio3D or 3DMax objects and render them on the Web. Note to self - must move to an area with cable!

Quote Quote: from AndyThomas on 1:08 am on Mar. 14, 2002presumably, that's just the 2D image stuck onto your original 3D mesh?Actually, that's the 2D image stuck on the new 3D mesh, not the original. Is that what you meant?The original mesh, as I said, was very badly proportioned and was beyond repair in my opinion. The new one has far fewer quadrangles, but the quality is much better than the original. The old mesh was basically made by doing a bunch of boolean operations on some primatives, which increased its complexity exponentially as more changes were made. The new one, however, is done by manually splitting and moving the individual points and quadrangles. This method is far less taxing on the CPU and also makes the mesh easier to modify in the future.

bigbadfatassshan, is that you, Shane? Why the new name? just curious... I never pictured you as a "fatass" Thanks for the support! Here's a tidbit about the new model: it uses actual textures from the X Bomber to add to its realism. It's a tedious process capturing shots from video, stretching and distorting them in Photoshop, color correcting them to match, and adjusting them onto the right polygons... but it looks nice when I finally get it to work properly.

Heh, I had a little problem with a lost password, and needlessly re-registered, very dumb, very silly, very me. The X Bomber model sounds like it's going to look the business, with all those real texures being used.Can't wait to see the first space battle with all these wicked models.Shane.