Legacy Class Rebuild 2.0

[Jack Skieczius]

Originally Posted by japme

Amazing. I tracked the Legacy from the middle of 1.0. It makes me wish that I had started with Lightwave, instead of Carrara. Even when you subdivided the mesh, all of the polys are square and flowing, unlike Carrara which triangulates to achieve smoothing.

Again a beautiful ship, and can't wait to see the interiors.

Just curious though, how much CPU and Memory does it take to render it? I want to compare some different aspects of the two programs as I am looking at upgrading to the next level of 3D application.

hey.

i am running on a core 2 duo 2.6 gigs. 2 gigs ram and a 8800GT vid card.
when working on her, the vid card is nice cause i can move the mesh with everything showing around at high frame rate. tho working on her requires me to put most of the mesh into another layer and or hide it.

when rendering her tho. it depends. the renders i have made only take a short time to render, maybe like 5 minutes at most, i am using fprime which is an add on renderer for lightwave and basically renders as a preview, i can edit the textures and lights with the renderer open and it updates, etc. i cant do this with lightwave's native rendering engine. tho i can do more with native lightwave, fprime is fast for preview images.
the images i have posted up in this thread all have at least one light with and radioisity turned on with 2 bounces. adding reflections and radiosity to the renders make them render longer, etc. also the warp grills, along with the bussards and impulse engines all use a sigma(subsurface) shader to get the effect i have on there now, that also cuts into render time, but is fully dependent on how large of a portion of the screen those surfaces take up in the render.

if you are gonna get a new computer to work on, i would suggest the more computing cores the better, and the better graphics card is a plus but not needed as it has nothing to do with the final render.

as for the program, get something like Lightwave or 3ds Max. Maya is good to and so is XSI and Cinema4d.
my personal favs for anyone are 3ds max and Lightwave.
a lot of us better artists use lightwave i have noticed on here. people like tobian and IRML, just to name a few, use lightwave.

andway i hope that helps. any more questions i can be reached on msn messenger or AIM most of the day.

[Lonewriter]

I've been thinking of getting fprime, I've heard you speak so highly of it, how much is it?

[japme]

Jack.
Thanx for the fast reply.

My guess is that my machine would do about the same.
Pentium D Dual-Core 3.0 Gig
2+ Gig Ram (Real)----4+ counting virtual RAM, I think
8400 Video

I downloaded the demo of lightwave a week or so ago and have pawed at it a few times, but so far all I can do is draw a polyline. Oh well, I'll go find some tutorials

I've also looked at C4D, like the interface, but haven't really looked at it to deeply as I have been working on my own ship, the Scabbard, which WIP'd and up for download here on SFM.

[Jack Skieczius]

Originally Posted by japme

Jack.
Thanx for the fast reply.

My guess is that my machine would do about the same.
Pentium D Dual-Core 3.0 Gig
2+ Gig Ram (Real)----4+ counting virtual RAM, I think
8400 Video

I downloaded the demo of lightwave a week or so ago and have pawed at it a few times, but so far all I can do is draw a polyline. Oh well, I'll go find some tutorials

I've also looked at C4D, like the interface, but haven't really looked at it to deeply as I have been working on my own ship, the Scabbard, which WIP'd and up for download here on SFM.

ah, yeah, lightwave has that look to it. i remember the first time i opened it. i was like WTF, oh god help me please. but then i just said, "ok i am gonna learn this, no if and or buts about it." so that's what i did. i found some book,s and found plenty tutorials all over the web and i found something to concentrate on, i created battlemechs all summer. that was nearly 5 years ago now and i am still at it, with some breaks in between.
i cant say i am the best, as we all continue to learn as we go. i like to think however that i have come close to the top when it comes to modeling objects.(i think when you hit as high as tobian you have just gone insane :P )

i love artists with skills, like many here, they inspire me to do better. for all of you newer artists out there, find someone who inspires you and just hold onto that. we all inspire one another, its a never ending cycle, no mater if you think your good or not.

so, if your really gona move onto another program, stick with it. don give up, make that commitment to keep going no mater how dull that first tutorial on how to create a box and then boolean it out is, just keep with it.
in truth, i have seen artists start out and within 6 months are better at what they do then i. i love seeing that, that's true commitment there.


anyway. now i feel old. i am not tho. :P

[tobian]

You can read all about Fprime on it's own site - FPrime Overview including prices etc

It's a very nippy renderer, and in the dark days of LW it was the fastest way to do anything with radiosity. All that said LW 9.x has had HUGE rendering speedups with each revsion to the point that it can often render faster than Fprime. This does NOT remove the utility of Fprime though, as it's also a fast, interactive preview renderer, which, unless your scene involves heavy reflection/refraction blur or complex radiosity - will make your jaw drop! My renders typically fall into that category, hence I now usually use Lightwave to do my rendering. Fprime doesn't support all of LW's features, which depending on your need, could be crippling, or it likely... won't - especially if you can do multipass rendering tricks.

Chosing a new program is a tricky thing. I would reccomend Lightwave only because right now it is the best price, though I think you can get a limited XSI version for free (which a lot of people use to do rigging for LW hehehe) LW is a good all rounder, with a fantastic native rendering engine (which improves with every version!) but, depending on what you want to do, it's limited. It's rigging for character animation is not great, and the modeling toolset is ageing, and quirky... it's just us LWers are used to it. I'll certainly help out anyone who's struggling if I know the answer.

Problem is with all CG applications - 3d is THE most difficult and complex thing you can learn on a computer. Period, unless you count in programming, and some 3D involves some of that (most of the functionality of Maya is BECAUSE you can programme it!) From this perspective any power tool (Max Maya, XSI, LW, Cinema, Houdini etc) are horribly complex. Simpler programs often look easy, till you realise it's simply because they can do less. All of them have high and low points, they all have quirks and oddities, and some you will simply not get on with, and some will fall naturally in to place. Each one has a different learning curve depending on what you are trying to do. Some are more limited than others, but the bottom line is it's all a question of how much work, effort, and dedication you are prepared to put into them! You can make great art with all of them

'those guys - the guys who started last week, and suddenly look like ILM, they fall into 5 categories: they lied ; they have a background in 3d, they just recently started in THIS application ; they are amazing artists who can pool skills from their field, to compensate for their general lack of 3d knowledge; they are naturally gifted, or have very deep pockets, and can afford to pay high quality for tuition TBH SO much of 3D isn't really about how good you are at modeling, or using the application, it's about what other skills they can draw from before they started. Having a grounding in classical art, or good skills with photo/texturing software makes a HUGE difference on the quality of the art they produce. If you have no artistic skills, don't expect the computer or software, at any price, will give them to you!

[japme]

Jack and Tobian.
Thanx for your answers. Tobian, I think you "might" have missed one type, the lucky one. Some people, myself included, are not great meshes,lighter,rigger... but now and then someone gets lucky, or semi lucky, and while the results may not be at the tobian, IRML, or Seanr level they can be pretty impressive. But your right, it does mainly come down to skill, imagination, and your ability to use your tools.

Do either of you know of any Trek-related tutorials for Lightwave? Isn't there a series on how to make 1701-A. I'm gonna find some basic tuts as well, but I like to try my hands at stuff where there is a set form, but there is room for interpretation. And I just love working in the Trek Universe.

[tobian]

'lucky' is the same thing as naturally gifted.. they just found their inner muse

Seriously, while you could go down that route, my best recommendation is to simply learn the tools FIRST. There is no magical 'make startrek ships' tool in LW, same as any other app, you just need to learn how to do models first, then worry about how to make good models. Step by step turorials only tell you how to make ONE thing! What you need is a solid grounding in the application and 3D conventions in general, and sadly those come over time, there's just too much to learn for one tutorial!

[Lonewriter]

tobian is right. I have had LW for awhile now and I am just now learning to make a simple planet. I wouldn't dream of trying to make a Trek ship yet.

[deg3D]

Indeed, learn the foundations and principles of the tools, and then learn how to apply those tools, then create new and improved ways of applying them. It's all about sticking to it and practicing, just like learning to play a musical instrument, or any other type of art.

Developing a good industrial design sense is good too. Also, studying the fundamentals of art itself, composition, color, light, shadow, contrast, esthetics, (what makes art actually "art"), etc., these are all the things one would do well to study and come to understand.

The rest is vision and inspiration, and then perspiration (work and practice).

Oh and the final ingredient: Strive to remain objective of the actual quality of one's own work. We all see the same EXACT films up on the screen, so always look at those and strive to recreate that level of quality.

Just because one can hit the render button and have the computer make a bunch of shadows and light does not make one an accomplished 3D artist.

And lastly, believe you can do it (even if you are not at that point yet). You can never achieve something if you don't first beleive you can ultimately do that thing.

deg