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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:45 am 
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Owen,
Thanks for the info, yeah that's a major difference, in Blender you add multiple layered images to map to a surface, where in SW there is no layers to use multiples, just a single image file. Although SW must use some form of layered image for their p2m format material files, just have to figure out how to make one. And that tab for mapping you saw is just for how to apply the map, like auto, surface, projection, circular, and adjust the size, angle and placement, but it doesn't unwrap.

Cycles does look like it will be really good once they finish it, and I have LuxRender and Yafaray downloaded ready to go, once I get something modeled and mapped to try them out. All the more reason for me to get using Blender so I start learning to make my own maps.

Speaking of taking hours to render, when I make a short animation in SW and then render it, that will take all night or more to do, and even then it's not that great looking.

Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:24 am 
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Roscoe wrote:
In the mean time, here's one more pic of my first attempt at ship modeling, (only started modelling ships recently) still a WIP and not too scale because of the reference material I used, but I tend to have multiple projects going on a one time, it keeps things interesting, whether it's planes, tanks or now ships, if it has guns on it, I like it.



I don't have anything to add to the Blender/CAD aspect, but a quick comment on your CSS Neuse model. She only had two guns; they could be swiveled to point out the different ports fore and aft. This was a common arrangement on the CSS casemate ironclads; Palmetto State & Atlanta had this feature. It's possible you just had the barrels out of each port to make it easier to freeze/thaw to "move" the gun, but in case not I wanted to throw that out there.

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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:58 am 
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Tracy White wrote:
I don't have anything to add to the Blender/CAD aspect, but a quick comment on your CSS Neuse model. She only had two guns; they could be swiveled to point out the different ports fore and aft. This was a common arrangement on the CSS casemate ironclads; Palmetto State & Atlanta had this feature. It's possible you just had the barrels out of each port to make it easier to freeze/thaw to "move" the gun, but in case not I wanted to throw that out there.


Yes, your absolutely right, I ended up finding that out some time later, of course after I had already put them in there, I will fix that.
Thanks for your input, it's appreciated, and feel free to jump in anytime, it's good to have as much feedback as possible.

Regards,
Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 7:10 pm 
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Well here's where this stands, I'm pretty much done with the modeling part (except maybe the lifeboats), but I'm not too happy with some of my textures, so until I get better at making them, I'll call it done for now. I'll post some updated pics once it's re-textured though.
And since this isn't really a historically accurate model, considering what I had to go on, I decided to leave some of the color and wood parts as they were, but with a little different color scheme (thanks to Owen :smallsmile: ), so think of it more as an interpretation.
So here's a few pics for now, and let me know if they seem a little dark, I just switched to an LCD monitor from a CRT and I'm still working on getting the settings right.

Image
Image
Image


Anybody got anything they want to show or share?

Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 6:35 am 
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Oh wow, that is brilliant! The water is spot-on now. You can really see why they called her the "Damned Black Hulk". I can just imagine being on the Tennessee and hearing these hissing steam engine noises and propeller wash noises coming out of the cannon smoke. Suddenly the smoke clears and there is that thing right off your aft quarter. The turrets turn in sync to present the maws of the cannon.... B-BOMM B-BOMM followed instantly by deafening reports as the shells hit the casement.

I've still been beavering away on my Tecumseh, which has been pretty well detailed in my thread. Recently I took some of the detail pieces like the ships bell and the cannons and got them sorted out to go up on Turbo Squid. I did some 'presentation' renders for that which I'll show here. Just a note, the materials are deliberately not worn or pitted. I was after a 'showroom' look for them. I've mounted the cannon in a standard ship/fort pivot mount to broaden the market a bit :D

All renders are Yafaray, except the Anchor, which is Cycles.

Attachment:
CANNONRENDER1.jpg
CANNONRENDER1.jpg [ 117.38 KiB | Viewed 1610 times ]

Attachment:
anchor24.jpg
anchor24.jpg [ 144.7 KiB | Viewed 1610 times ]

Attachment:
bell2.jpg
bell2.jpg [ 100.62 KiB | Viewed 1610 times ]


I've been playing with Cycles for a bit and I'm really liking the speed and the interactive renders


Last edited by tea monster on Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 10:06 am 
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Owen,
You should be a storyteller, that was a great little diddy you wrote there :smallsmile: .

Thanks for the comments, but man, those renders of yours look awesome, just spot on with everything. So your happy with Yafaray? Is it fairly easy to set-up your model and scene in?
OK, one more, do you get many model sales on Turbo Squid, or is it kinda hit & miss? just curious.

Thanks again for all your help,
Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 12:17 pm 
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Thank you!

Yafaray is pretty good. It is one of the best at easily transfering materials over from Blender to another renderer. It now has it's own materials panels where you can set up mats separately, but usually it will 'remember' well if you already have mats set up in Blender and you swap over. You can get some brilliant renders and it's relatively fast. Cycles is very good, but it's still alpha, so there are a few things not there yet (like transparency). But I think that when it's closer to beta, I'm going to jump ship. The great thing about Cycles is that it's 'live'. The viewport is continously updating and it is great for checking materials and lighting changes. As it's constantly updating, you don't have to wait. One good one I'm looking at is LuxRender. I think it gives more realistic results, but it's very slow. As I said earlier, it's now got a few speed bumps, so I'd check it out as well. You can get some decent results from Blender's internal renderer. I'm looking at this tut at the moment.

A good place to get hold of the latest builds of these things is Graphicall.org, where you can download pre-made builds of Blender with different renderers built-in. Just download, upzip and click on the render tab to swap over to the renderer you want to try out.

One thing to keep in mind is Kerkythea. You could take your model straight into it directly from your CAD program and not have to touch Blender at all. It has it's own lighting studio built in. The only thing with it is that it's 'legacy' which means that it's not being actively updated anymore, but it is being maintained.

Turbo Squid is OK. You need a shed-load of stuff up there to really make a lot of money.


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 4:48 am 
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Beautiful work, Dean. The second panel in particular really make you feel lke you are there. Very different image from the delicate, intricate balsa structure of your DeWoitine ...


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:35 am 
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Thanks Michael, I looking forward to seeing more of your work, I'm really enjoying your Monitor turret drive thread, it's fantastic.

Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:49 pm 
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Looking forward to seeing the other models textured and rendered!

Is it possible to render smoke with SolidWorks? Can you render composite images out? That is the water on one layer (with reflections) and the monitor on another, with alpha? Just thinking that would allow you to composite images in GIMP/Photoshop and that would open a world of possibilities then!

Got to say, for what you have said about it's 'limited potential', you've kicked out some storming images!

Seconded on the Monitor Turret Drive thread. I'm really looking forward to seeing that one progress!

I was on a friend's PC recently without my files, and I got bored and decided to model something, so I started this:

Attachment:
Untitled-1.jpg
Untitled-1.jpg [ 21.9 KiB | Viewed 1628 times ]

Very WIP

Owen


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 12:13 am 
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Thanks Owen, I've been a bit lazy CAD wise lately, took a little break playing with my other hobbies, but your right I really need to get some textures on those other models, soon my friend, soon :smallsmile: .

For the smoke, there's no real smoke/particle effects in SW like in Blender, probably could fake it in Gimp somehow, but with me, I'm sure it wouldn't look that good... and I'm not sure about the composite images with the internal renderer (Photoworks, which I found out recently is based on the Mental Ray renderer), but the external one Photoview 360 will save out a png and alpha separately, just don't know enough about how to use them yet, and it has less environment options than the internal one. Although neither one renders as nice as Yafaray (your renders kick butt), I'll keep experimenting with both trying to get what I can out of them.

Very nice start on Untitled-1 there :big_grin: , so is this going to be another awesome, fully lay-ed out model like the Tecumseh?

Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:03 am 
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Sorry, didn't meant to seem like I was rushing you!

Yes, I am planning to make as complete a model as I can of her. It was my Brother's favourite Ironclad. There isn't a lot of detail out and about on her, so I'll have to wing a lot of stuff, or adapt info from other casement ironclads of the time and get something that works and looks authentic. There are some photos and an account of the Union officer tasked with repairing her for service in the USN after she was captured at Mobile Bay.

Attachment:
TENNESSEE_01.jpg
TENNESSEE_01.jpg [ 22.81 KiB | Viewed 1614 times ]


I am going to stop here though for the minute as I have to get the Tecumseh texturing done first!!! :D


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:28 am 
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tea monster wrote:
Sorry, didn't meant to seem like I was rushing you!


Lol, not a problem, I was kidding... but sometimes I do need a good kick in the pants to get rolling :big_grin: .

I know what you mean about having little to go on, but I'm sure the Tennessee will turn out to be another stunner.

Keep us posted,
Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:27 pm 
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Here's a little sneak peek of what will eventually be a full fly-around video, once I get the deck textures and a couple others straightened out. It's only 7.5 frames a sec., that's why it's a little choppy, but that will get bumped up on the finished video.

http://youtu.be/m7AJ6Aj6nJ0?hd=1

Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:41 pm 
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Outstanding.

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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 3:09 am 
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That is going to be storming when it's complete.

EDIT: been updating one of my models and I've been playing with Cycles, it's very nice. Takes some getting used to though.
Image


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 11:35 am 
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Appreciate the comments guys....

Owen,
Ooh, that's nice... so what model is that?

I think I'm going to wait til Blender 2.6 is final before I start anything (which should be soon), that way I don't have to figure out what's what with all the new branches like tomato, avocado, cycles, whatever, it's all in there. :smallsmile:

Anyway, not much to report on, the Palmetto State is still in it's early stages (haven't worked on it much), but I do have something in the works for Devin that I will share here shortly...

Image

Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 4:40 am 
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That model has got a bit of history. It started life as a game model for a mod, but they didn't like it so I 'real-lifed' it and made it into a proper replica. After honing my rendering skills in Yafaray and Cycles, I decided to give it a face-lift. I've always been fascinated by those DK 'cross section' books. So when I decided to upgrade the cannon, I thought I should give it a proper location to rest in. I'm not going to do a complete cut-away of a Man-o-War, but I'm going to do the gun station.

That Palmetto State is looking rather nice.

As to the "Something... for Devin" :cool_1:

Owen


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:42 am 
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tea monster wrote:
As to the "Something... for Devin" :cool_1:

Owen


Yeah, stay tuned, should have something later this week to show on that. :smallsmile:

Dean


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 Post subject: Re: The CAD-yard
PostPosted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:33 pm 
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Hey guys,
I could use some feedback from you model builders out there, I've started to break down my Chickasaw CAD model into pieces parts for another member to do a build from. Now I'm not a ship builder myself, my building background is more the aviation type, so this is new for me. I have a couple ideas that I've worked on today but I could use more experienced opinion's on what's a standard (or non-standard) method of framing up the hull/deck for building. The material thickness I'm using is .06in. for the frame and .03in. material to cover it with, but these can be changed if needed. Anyway, here's a couple pics of what I've played with so far, one is for a full model, the other just the top half of the ship.
Looking forward to some suggestions or crits.

Full frame up
Image

Basic half frame
Image

Dean


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