Quote:

---

Originally posted by LtNOWIS:
Nice, you even included the shuttles!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by shoeFly:
Thank you for sharing your awesome work Treybor. I made an image using the images you posted (I don't have Lightwave so I photoshoped it) and I wanted to see what you thought and also how do you post images on the forum?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AnotherFireflyfan:
You must tell us how you went about doing this. Did you make use of the high-res pics? Did you watch the episodes tons of times over for scenes with Serenity?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AnotherFireflyfan:
That model is amazing. By the way, what program do you need to view it? I would be interested in downloading it, but I am unsure if I can open the file.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AnotherFireflyfan:
PS: Be sure to post this on the OB, I'm sure all of us over there will be quite pleased as well. http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/

~AFf

Keep flying

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AnotherFireflyfan:
I think this requires a bump. Have you posted to the OB yet? I haven't seen it. If not, I'll post there and link to here and the gallery on your website.

Keep flying

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Forrestwolf:
Wow. If I understand this correctly, I'll get the shuttle when I download it, as well as a Firefly-class transport. I've needed a shuttle for some time - THANK YOU!

How many polys for just the shuttle? Do you know?

- Forrestwolf

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lindley:
Apparently Cinema 4D can import Lightwave, so problem solved.

However, I can't figure out exactly how to animate the shift to full burn as shown above----what exactly needs to be done for that?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lindley:
Well, Cinema 4D's import seems to have simplified things somewhat so that isn't directly possible.

Too bad, I guess, but it isn't a huge deal.

Back to my original request for someone with Lightwave to render according to a very specific request of mine, I guess. Any takers? (This would just be a bonus for me; I can still make a simplified glow effect myself.)

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lindley:
Resolution would be fairly low, so that's not really an issue.

The thing is, I'm trying to make an EVN sprite which includes engine glows. I'm using a trick of the engine to make a seperate glow for "Hyperspace" than for "normal maneuvers".

The main issue will probably be that, in theory, glows are supposed to be rendered seperately from the ship, but in the proper location. However, the ship should still be able to eclipse them when necessary, so simply disabling rendering of the ship itself isn't an option.

Is there an easy way to make the entire ship, save the glows, render as matte black? I know how to do that by adjusting the textures, but there are a *lot* of textures in the model, so I don't want to do that to all of them if there's a faster way.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lindley:
Well, in the meantime, here's some caps of the sublight and full burn glows that I came up with. The lameness of my full burn glow is the main reason we're having this conversation, but I'm more or less happy with how the sublight glows came out.

If you do the render for me, I'd appriciate it if you could do all of it, including similar sublight glows-----more accurate that way. My glows are just really short cylinders with one end stretched out, a fog texture, and direct from-the-camera lighting. But you can do them however works best in Lightwave.

---

Quote:

---

2. How big is a typical sprite? 100 x 100 pixels? 500 x 500 pixels? Larger?

---

Quote:

---

3. Does the animation need to have a transparent background?

---

Quote:

---

4. How soon do you need this? I'm travelling to Japan next week and will be away from my rendering system.

---

Quote:

---

5. If I could provide PICT files or a Quicktime movie, could you create a sprite out of that?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Lindley:
All right, here are my initial thoughts:

The full burn rotation and the no burn rotation are good. The only possible problem is that the ship might be lit a bit too much----I'd prefer there were more of a change in lighting depending on its orientation. In my description above, what I referred to as the "primary" and "secondary" light----I'd say bring up the primary, reduce the secondary somewhat.

Here's what I initially came up with using your model. I think this version is too dark, but haven't bothered to re-render yet. So something lighter than this, but a bit darker than yours:


The sublight engine glows are great. The only possible problem is that the alpha masks you provided have some shades of grey in them. Usually an alpha mask should only have pure white and pure black in it. But its *possible* this might work properly----it depends on how intelligent the EVN engine is. I'll see.

Regarding the transition from standard flight to full burn, the animation you provided won't work. Here's the thing----what you provided would allow the ship to transform when its facing upwards, but only then.

I don't actually need an animation of the ship transforming directly. What I need is a spin-animation of the ship, during each phase of the transformation. Obviously it isn't practical to render a complete spin for each of the 36 frames of the process you provided---that'd take up too much time, and probably too much space as well. But split the transformation into, perhaps, 4-5 "stages" (2-3 would probably do it, acutally), and do a complete 36-frame spin for each stage.....I think that would work well.

So, perhaps, one spin with it 1/4 open, one with it 1/2 open, one with it 3/4 open, etc. That would also make it practical to animate the burn-pulse correctly----2-3 stages of "build-up", 1 spin with the full pulse, and then the final, fully-open stage is just as it is.

I'm sorry, I know this can be kind of confusing when you don't have direct experience with the engine. I hope I'm making this relatively clear.

---