New Version of DevilRay fighter.

Les,
Nice to see you back on the forums.
I’m just the same with my space and si-fi textures, more often than not things just don’t ‘look’ right and I can’t put my finger on what it is thats wrong. So I end up just changing things, a bit at a time, untill I get an improvement, maybe it’s an artistic knack we don’t have. <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

I don’t know if this is any help but this is roughly how I did the textures for my spaceship ‘ Whatever it’s name ‘
I used about six of these panel pattern textures in different sizes from 256 x 256 down to 32 x 32. I found you need to be careful not to over-do the fine detail as this tends to destroy the overall effect when the ship is viewd as a whole.

1) I start with just a plain foreground colour and apply about 5% of noise.

2) Make a copy of this first image and make a background colour which is quite a bit lighter than the foreground colour.
Then use the Straw-wall effect on this second image…the settings for this one are…BLUR = 20, DENSITY = 2,
LENGTH = 20, WIDTH = 1, TRANSP = 0.
Colour was left as default ( a dark grey) and the ANGLE was set to 100.

3) Using the Lighten RGB effect in the Retouch tool, mark out the panelling on the first image.

4) Use the Clone tool to copy areas of the straw-wall image to areas of the panel image.

5) To give the panel some depth I used the Darken RGB effect in the Retouch tool to add the shading to the panelling. For this one I assumed a light source from the top left corner.

6) Use the Smudge effect in the Retouch tool to GENTLY smudge the remaing flat areas of the panel.

7) Using the Burn, Darken RGB, Lighten RGB and Smudge effect in the Retouch tool, give the flat areas of the panelling a weathed effect.
Use the Lighten RGB to increase the highlights. This is then the completed main panel texture.

Make a copy of this main image…apply the text as a seperate layer and adjust the transpareny until it is just visible.

This type of panelling may be a bit OTT for your design but if you produced something along these lines and calmed it down a bit a, it might work. Even if it were applied to just certain areas of the ship. It would certainly look effective on the underside…I think.

Bazza

Hey everyone, long time no see. <!– s:D –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!– s:D –>
Here’s a shot of the new more streamlined DevilRay fighter. It’s not quite finished yet. Any texture ideas would be appreciated.

Hi Les,
Looks great <!– s:D –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!– s:D –>
I must get back to doing some spaceship designs, I really enjoy it. I always use some form of faded lettering/ID marking to break up the overall texture, you know the sort of thing…[b:t83y6gz7]RXJ-76-P//3[/b:t83y6gz7]

Bazza

Great looking model, Les. Dull silver?? I like the red accents. This model reminds me of a fighter found in Descent Freespace The Great War. Excellent work!

<!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Richard T.

Thanks guys. This one has been sort of a challenge in getting it just the way I want it to look. I’m hoping once I get this into povray, that I can give the engine port color some luminous or irredescent effects in order to get a glow of sorts. Still a lot of work to do yet. Also I used the auto-smooth feature in 3DC on this model and I’m pretty impressed by it. Richard is doing an excellent job with 3DC.

Bazza,
I have Paint Shop Pro and still cant seem to get textures to look the way I want them to…LOL Must be a creativity block of some kind. I’ll look into just some lettering like you suggest. I think the skin needs something too, but just cant decide what.

Richard Thompson,
Funny you should mention FreeSpace <!– s;) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!– s;) –> as the model you speak of is actually what inspired the DevilRay. Hopefully it doesnt look like a copy hehehe. The color is just plain gray, but when finished I plan to give it a metallic, and a slightly more shiny appearance.

Les

P.S.
It may be a little while but I’ll post a picture of the model when its complete.