We need a "The Complete Guide to Making Ships"

Yeah...

Any one willing to make one or at least start one? I'm sure every one would like one... Including me.

Do you want a guide to making ship resources, or designing the actual craft?

-Bob

I don't think this is something that can really be explained in a guide.

I think hes really asking Zacha Pedro to make a guide for the ship rescource. When really he can do it himself.

Would this count?

I was actually thinking more of a guide through making a ship in... Mechanisto, Anim8or :D, Bryce, or Wings 3d... Then making the sprite and programing the resource... Yeah well ok judging by the response I'm guessing no one will do it.

Making ship graphics is dependent on so many things.

Certain aspects are generic, such as lighting angles and intensities and the camera's view, if you're trying to match Nova's graphics. Implementing these things depends on the person knowing how to use their 3D app of choice.

Design philosophy and some of the more generalizable techniques that can be used for the actual building of a ship are very in-depth and difficult to teach.

Anything that's on a more "beginner" level will tend to be program-specific, and it's quite possible I'd need more than two hands to count the number of different programs people could choose to use to make their graphics.

A "complete" guide to making ships would be a massive, massive undertaking. Not impossible, but fairly impractical.

I thought you did your research?

There are three stages to getting a ship into the engine...

1: Conceptual
2: 3D Construction
3: Resource Development

3, most people could help you with and dare I say there's a goodly number of references already floating around.

2 depends very much on your platform and the applications you're using. Pick one, and then someone might be able to help you. Be prepared for a long hard slog though.

1 can't be learned. Either you can do it, or you can't. Many people think they can do it, but actually they're just copying things they've seen before.

This post has been edited by Hudson : 07 November 2005 - 06:22 PM

There are tutorials for many 3d programs on how to make any matter of things- including ships, freely available online. If you had done your research you would know this

Though of course my bias is towards Mech', of which there are two good tutorials by Tycho floating around. Personally I can't figure out Bryce, and Wings is a nightmare.