whatever im a currently playing with...

[mightygoose]

going for a late 18thC/early19thC fantasy warship.... fantasy in its about 2.5 times longer than any ship ever made.... in the period. its beam however is the same.... dont really know what im going to do with the ship.... maybe make a historic dock type thing... ive always wanted to do ships in the traditional way... so after watching pirates of the caribbean and seeing glenni's uberdetail i thought id give it a stab....



here is a render minus the bow, using a sunlight.... for shadows...(a little experiment)

here is how i made the bow, the same priniciples apply for the stern....





and here is the completed spine and bracers...

[TheTeaCat]

Now this is an ambitious project.  Its looking good so far


As far as I know the main keel was one beam steamed into shape for the bow and the side struts also. This would mean the grain of the wood would hold its integrity better once the hull was applied over them (less chance of the beam splitting along the grain)--  thought this may be of help for the texture of the main beams

Will be keeping an eye on this but its a great start

ps movie any good? No.3 I take it

[mightygoose]

actually no i was watching the first one...

yeah i know the keel and beams where steamed... i will play about with uvw
maps....

while researching it seems that the beams are much more frequent.... so i have fully beamed the midsection of the ship... just the bow and stern to rework now...



every other beam is shorter to allow for cannon ports etc...

[TheTeaCat]

Wow looking much better with the extra beams

eagerly awaiting the next update

[threestooges]

That looks like quite an undertaking, but it looks like it will really be something spectacular when it is done. I'll be following this as it goes along.

[HabLeUrG]

wow! 

[jeronij]

nice experimenting mg 

I can see you are really enjoying the MAX 

[mightygoose]

thanks for the comments all im doing the interspaced beams at the front and back in between other things... today i put the galley stove pits in... only five for a crew of nearly 500.... most days crew were fed only 600g of bread or crakcers and 250g of meat... the pots were used for beans twice a week. thats real info..... id starve...

anyway a pretty render still experimenting with sunlighting.... tweaked mental stats and the raytrace setup to increase the density... this took three hours lol....



i have started adding the deck crossbeams and done another rib crossbeam... also notice the chimney for the primary galley. what do you think of the lighting???

[callagrafx]

Unless you're setting up an environmental scene, a skylight is a waste of render resources...A key omni with a couple of subtle fills would be less processor intensive...and why have shadows on a development model?

[mightygoose]

well its more an idea to see what max can do.. i have never really pushed for the fancy stuff before and as i intend to put a reasonable amount of detail in this.... i thought i'd play about... and i revise while it renders... and its not a skylight its a sunlight.... its not the same thing...

[callagrafx]

Using photometric lights just eat up render time and resources..you can achieve the same effect by a target direct (and sun/sky are pretty much the same, except the sky produces much softer shadows).  The first lesson to learn is when not to use the different lighting modes, as they will have a drastic effect on your textures too...If you are rendering for game inclusion, you should stick to the lighting types most common to BAT otherwise when you come to export, it'll look completely different to what you expect.

As for texturing the main keel beam, a suggestion would be a change of model technique.  If you use a LOFT rather than an extruded shape, the UV map will follow the path of the loft, curving textures where the model curves.  It also gives you greater flexibility in terms of alterations to the shape.

[mightygoose]

hmmm lofting i forgot about that... however with certian taper effects and manipulations of the objects it is more difficult to convert to lofts... i would have to start from scratch...   wouldnt worry too much about the keel......



90% of it is below the waterline...

[callagrafx]

however with certian taper effects and manipulations of the objects it is more difficult to convert to lofts

Well, you can apply tapers to shapes that form the loft shape, and it if infinitely more editable and quicker.

This took 25 secs to make the loft path, a further 10 secs to make the cross section, 5 secs to loft and a minute or so to add the taper.  Allow a couple of minutes to texture and render and you have this in 5 minutes (approx).



And if you weren't worried about what was below the waterline, why waste polys by modelling them?

[mightygoose]

1. all the cross beams are made to fit the keel in its current shape....

2. am i not allowed to model the way i want. i said don't worry about the keel....

thanks for all the feedback... but people telling how to do things im happy doing already does peturb me slighty.

[callagrafx]

Just offering an alternative, quicker, simpler method of producing something that doesn't have millions of faces and more importantly, has it's own mapping which follows the contours of the model.

After all, where would we be if we didn't learn from each others experience?

[Glenni]

How do you do that loft thing anyway??

[callagrafx]

Hi Glenni

It's a fairly straightforward process and there are plenty of tutorials around.  Here are a couple:

http://www.rsdg.net/files/tutorials/lofting.htm

http://www.tutorialscentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=28

The second one teaches you how to make loft objects follow certain shapes...they are fairly rudimentary but accurate.

[mightygoose]

i will try the loft.... but as i said the positioning of the ribs is perfectly matched to their contours. getting the loft to fit the shape will be a major pain... i think the easiest thing to do would be to replace the keel once all the ribs are done.... would you agree?

anyway tried an alternative water method... better results i think...



well i was advised this water was too loaby so i upped the density...

think i nailed it pretty much...

[sobol]

add a few masts and you will have the HMS Surprise.. 

http://www.patrickobrienstudio.com/maritime%2520art/paintings/assets/HMS%2520Surprise.jpg

Edited link to remove page stretch, please be careful next time. - Fred

[HabLeUrG]

that looking pretty nice!  you are making the ship like if you were constructing it in RL, i sure this ship will be so realistic, excellent work! 

btw how you do that water effect in 3dmax?