Lookee what being bored can do.....

[kerensky]

Anyways, so I was bored and was showing my dad how DOGA works when I made this little ship. IT took me about another ten minutes to get the texture right and I had a basis for an energy based ship set.

[NullAshton]

Ooo. Now that is a decent ship. You need to make more.

[Ed Kolis]

<levar-burton>Ooh, it's so crystalline-like!</levar-burton>
(obscure Reading Rainbow reference http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif)

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Shiney!

[Atrocities]

Its very neat glowy looking ship. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[dogscoff]

Nice design. Perhaps this could be to the Cryslonite what the EEEvil are to the EEE..?

[AdmiralMartin]

Nice ship. It looks more crystalline that energy though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

dogscoff said:
Nice design. Perhaps this could be to the Cryslonite what the EEEvil are to the EEE..?


*blink* did I miss something? I always though 'EEEvil' was the same as 'EEE'.

[Ed Kolis]

No, EEEvil are the evil counterpart to the EEE...
http://seiv.pbw.cc/Download/filelib/468/eeevil.zip

[kerensky]

I haven;t really done much thinking into what the race will be but I think that they are going to be a crystalin race. The picture above will probably be something like a destoyer or such.

[kerensky]

So here's a question to all of you who have made a shipset before. How do you make good resolution mini images using DOGA? Whenever I render them in the 128x128 size, the ship doesn't look as sharp as it does on larger renders.

[PvK]

Nice!

[dogscoff]

kerensky said:
So here's a question to all of you who have made a shipset before. How do you make good resolution mini images using DOGA? Whenever I render them in the 128x128 size, the ship doesn't look as sharp as it does on larger renders.



On the KanesS set, I had to boost the brightness of my mini images to get them looking nice, and sometimes you have to just go in there, roll up your sleeves and tweak a few pixels by hand.

Also, trim off any excess black bacground before resizing, and where possible try to render and trim to resolutions that divide neatly into the target size. I rendered everything (including portraits) to 512*512.

[Atrocities]

A lot of positive posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Good work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[kerensky]

Okay well here is the prospective cruiser. I'm messing around with the "shininess" of the different parts to help the details of the ship stand out better.

[Atrocities]

Very nice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Xrati]

Nice work! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Where can you get this Doga program? I remember reading a post about it and you also need a translator program? If I remember right it's in Japanese? I'd like to try it.

[kerensky]

You can find it here....

http://www.doga.co.jp/english/

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I like the detail, the windows, and the claws.

[JAFisher44]

I render my ships at 1280x1280 and use a graphics program to reduce them to 10% of original size. I find that it gives better images. Even if you only use paint.

[Xrati]

I just downloaded DoGa. My first attempts at "being bored" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Pretty good. Looks like a whale.

[Xrati]

Hey, from download and some more posts here, to an actual rendering, this was only five hours of total time used. Tonight I'll get around to reading the manual to really find out what this program can do.

That would be a good name for it. The Whale Heavy Assult Fighter. Kinda like an A-10. Here's another view.

[AgentZero]

Speaking of being bored, here's a Titan-class Explorer ship from the Hell is for Heroes universe I rigged up while trying to get around a nasty case of writer's block. Haven't finished up the texturing & fine detail yet, but I think I've managed to capture that 'big' feeling (Explorer ships are on average 20-25km in length). The bad news, didn't help at all with the writer's block.

[El_Phil]

Well if I was going to explore the universe, that's about the size of ship I'd want. However I'd be concerned by the lack of obvious shooty guns and/or gun ports. Yes explorer not shooter ship I know, but still. What if your exploring finds someone who isn't friendly?

[Xrati]

Nice! And sooooooooo big! You must have the L2 version. I can't do texturing yet! I will be getting it shortly...

[AgentZero]

Well, like I said, the fine details (ie: guns) aren't there yet, but rest assured, an Imperial Explorer ship boasts some of the most formidable firepower in the known galaxy. Even the invincible Second Dynasty superdreadnoughts are only about 15km in length, and current Third Dynasty SDs average about 5. So don't worry, once I get the texture sorted, there'll be guns galore.

[zircher]

L2 and L3 are essentially free for the purpose of making images and models for SE4 and SE5. You only have to register L2 or L3 if you want to make movies or if you're a nice guy and want to support Team DoGA.

It's true that L3's help files are in japanese, but if you spend a couple of days with L1 and L2 you can use L3 just fine.

I do have a translation of the L3 Parts Assembler help file on my DoGA fan page at http://zircher.iwarp.com/doga.

In basic edit mode, L3 is just the same as L2 with a few more materials and shadow options. The power of L3 is that you can import your own textures, convert DXF files into parts, and change the texture projection settings on new or existing parts. This gives much more control. And, if you're a Metasequoia LE user, you can easily bring in new SUF (part) files via a menu.
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TAZ

[Xrati]

Thanks for the heads up.

[AgentZero]

So it took me ages. Sue me. Here's the finished version of the Titan-class Explorer ship.

[Fyron]

Fyron contacts the law ninja...

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Pretty.

[Xrati]

It looks really BIG!!! And that front end looks like it can ram a whole fleet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

You can perform well with L3 without spending time in L1 and/or L2 first. Heck, I created my first shipset without yet having fully exploited L3's possibilities, and I think it turned out pretty well.

[TerranC]

Post deleted by TerranC

[JAFisher44]

Nice TC I really like the bottom two. They are... original.

[AgentZero]

Very sweet, Terran C. I'm assuming the 'lights' on certain sections are a 'glow' bitmap? If so can I rob it off ya? I'm too lazy to do my own textures for recreational modelling.

[Atrocities]

Damn nice ships TC.

[kerensky]

To make "glowy" things in Doga, just bumb their emittion up really high.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Great ships, TC.

[El_Phil]

Ohhh now there's a different style for ships. My natural fear of change aside they do look good.

[TurinTurambar]

I especially like the second to last one. It looks like a colony ship or a deep space refueler. 'Twould line up nicely next to a Battlestar.

T

[Patroklos]

Do those glowing bitmaps work for SEV models in game?

[Phoenix-D]

DOGA models in general have a ridiclously high number of polygons, so they likely won't work in SEV..

[AgentZero]

Not really... The big explorer ship I posted further up is only about 2500, and that's with lots of little guns & turrets that you could trim off a SEV model. A trimmed version of that Explorer came in at 895 polys which should be quite manageable for SE5.

Only problem is that, in Starfury at least, .X models created in Doga have a slight wee issue with the textures. Unless I'm doing something wrong. Not an unprecedented occurance, but rare.

[Patroklos]

Certainly that effect is not limited to DOGA only (I use Rhino).

But assuming I did put that DOGA model into SEV, would the game actually show the glow?

[zircher]

No, the glow is an effect of the rendering engine in DoGA. You can have 100% ambient textures in .X models, but nothing with a glowing aura unless the game engine supports that effect. Given what I seen, some special effects are supported, but I don't know if they're available to the ship mod author.

As to DoGA having too many polygons, you have to (of course) be wise in choosing your parts. When making models for real time use, if that model is the size of a stamp, you don't need high resolution parts.

I wrote of a handy game mesh creation tutorial for Metasequoia that uses DoGA to create the basic ship design. So, I know it's doable since I used DoGA and Meta to build a complete and functional ship set for the SEV beta.
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TAZ

[AgentZero]

zircher said:
I wrote of a handy game mesh creation tutorial for Metasequoia that uses DoGA to create the basic ship design. So, I know it's doable since I used DoGA and Meta to build a complete and functional ship set for the SEV beta.
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TAZ



Linky?

I remember from Starfury that the problem with the textures was that the game stored them as an external bitmap, but when you export from DoGA, the texture is included in the .X file, but SF doesn't read it so you wind up with a 'blank' model.

[zircher]

Sorry about the delay on this, I missed the reply.

Go to http://www.virmin.com/doga and scroll down a little bit.

When doing the raw export from DoGA to .X, you can have problems with path names. Edit the .X file with Notepad, remove the texture paths, and then keep the model and textures together. It should work out fine (with the exception of intersecting parts, but that's what the tutorial is about.]
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TAZ