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| Introduction Forum This forum is for new members to post an introduction and tell us about yourself. (Posting is not required.) |
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01-03-2007, 01:43 AM
| #1 (permalink) |
| SFM Nugget Realname: Marc Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: New Jersey, USA..the toxic waste state :D Age: 46
Posts: 5
| New Jersey and You.....run! run very far! Run very fast.... Hi All... I am Marc and I am a mild mannored unix admin in central New Jersey on the coast not far from "Skyscraper National Park". I have a dell 3k with bunches of memory and a killer video card which I bought when I bought Lightwave 9.5 and I hav not had much time to play with that at all. I got my start playing with a free copy of rhino 3d and still do stuff with that cause it is quick n Easy...and I ain't so good yet. I started cause I am into Traveller, a paper and pen role playing pace game that tries to stay "hard science". So I want to not only do space scenes and pics for my players but.... I got into a full thrust miniatures version of Tracveller space combat and would love to do a PbEM game where moves are sent and then the changed scenes are rendered showing ship positions relative to their friends and opponents...not to mention debirs, asteroids, etc.. Then take fire mission orders... do the rolls...do a render of the move and fire... Then add damage to the models and take it from step one again til the battle is done... Imagine seeing a battle step by step....perhaps even animating it(that is why I decided to chuck Rhino and get Lightwave) So when I have time I am gonna start playing again. I have done a planet orbited by one moon while it is orbiting a sun....all untextured or unskinned I have a web site where my rhino wip's live. The site is: Starshipyard Entrance You will find there 1) a paper thin walls "study" of the lwer deck of a Traders and Gunboats(Traveller Book 9) Free Trader lower deck 2) A second try at doing a full internal/external model of a S Class Scout. Sadly I did the hull first and then tried the decks. By the time I realized my scales were off, there were soooo many moving parts at sooo many angles that selecting and scaling would only make it look like a scout after it has been hit by an asteroid.... 3) a still in progress model of The Bray Keavon trader from "The Tales of the Bray Keavon" on trhe T20 storyline site. I have written a bit of fiction for Battletech, which I helped write some rules for back a while. I have NOT done 3D Battlemech modeling though, and likely will not til I know a lot more about doing this. I will do my teeth cuttig and so forth on ships. So say hi, especially if you are local and want a partner in crime who you will have to teach a bit.... Marc |
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01-03-2007, 01:10 PM
| #2 (permalink) |
| Senior Member   Join Date: May 2006 Location: Guildford UK Age: 36
Posts: 468
| Welcome to fellow Traveller (there are a few of us here already) I like the Scout, but some of the other links on the page seem to be broken. Anytime now I will get on with my modular cutter, but I keep gettign bogged down in details (I'm currently trying to work out a decent 'standard' airlock design) I've thought about creating a 3D version of a Traveller combat game (are you using Power Projection?), but never thought of using LW to render the output before... it sounds interesting, PM me if you need anyone to playtest. Anyway - welcome to SFM and I look forward to seeing more of your work. DAve |
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01-04-2007, 01:13 AM
| #3 (permalink) | |
| SFM Nugget Realname: Marc Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: New Jersey, USA..the toxic waste state :D Age: 46
Posts: 5
| Hmmm, When I visit the site, every link works  Can you be mor specific about which links you had problems with?I saw your cutter post when I went through a search of Traveller in the foums. What I have seen is a very nice start! Definatly keep working on it. As for the combat game, it would not be that per se... In the end, it would be your basic PbEM with friends instead of something I could make availible to the public as I see it. I thought about something like the old head to head combat books they have for "Ace of Aces" and Nova's combat books where each page had a graphic "result" and a set of options with destination pages acros the bottom but that would be a LOT of work. So the rules are from Power Projection but I have added in a third dimension simply by allowing the turn vectoring to work on a rising/falling angle as well as a right or left angle.range is litterally pythagoreian since I can measure a stright line from the Target's Z Axis point to the attacker on the attacker's X-Y plane and use the square root of that squared plus the square of the Z difference in attacker and target positions to give me the exact range. Simple  What I need is to learn Lightwave, but sadly my current job is crusing my availible time to play with it :| Eventually I would not only like to use rendered shots in the game but be able to animate those shots into video shorts of the actual battles! Imagine being able to check the web page and see a one on one fighter duel, or an engagement between squadrons... Of course, I have to build the meshes first, then learn to at least basically texture them and light the scenes... Then I can worry about animation. If you can point me to any really step by step tutorials that I can get through in under 30 min each... That is how I found this site... Googling for tutorials. I'd also kill to meet other Lightwave users in NJ who would like to create a "User's group" where we can share support and ideas. Marc Quote:
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01-04-2007, 01:21 PM
| #4 (permalink) | ||||
| Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: Guildford UK Age: 36
Posts: 468
| Quote:
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I.e. you write your moves then the 3D system plays them out - just as you would if you moved figures. Quote:
The problem with rendering out Traveller combat is the long combat turns and long ranges. An hour long movie would show 6 missiles being launched between 2 distant specs of light  - but I know what you mean.  Quote:
LightWave Tutorials on the Web or Flay.Com - LightWave 3D News and Resource site The Newtek forums also have a forum specificly for user groups, I'm not sure if there is a NJ group - but go and take a look. DAve | ||||
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01-04-2007, 10:33 PM
| #5 (permalink) |
| Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: Guildford UK Age: 36
Posts: 468
| Oh and I forgot to mention... There is a Yahoo egroup you may be interested in - Traveller Deckplans. As the name suggestd it is primarily devoted to deckplans, but there is a little 3D creeping in (and a few SFM Travellers hang out there as well). DAve |
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01-05-2007, 01:36 AM
| #6 (permalink) | |||||
| SFM Nugget Realname: Marc Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: New Jersey, USA..the toxic waste state :D Age: 46
Posts: 5
| Quote:
yA HAD ME WORRIED THERE FOR A SECOND :d Quote:
Doing this in this form allows "mid-turn" actions like: as our fleet passed target Gamma, have the DE's combine fire offensively while The Heavy Cruiser splits its fire between x batteries offensive and Y batteries on defensive missions like anti-fighter/missile... So a turn that "normally" was move, then shoot becomes "begin moving-resolve opportunity fire issues-finish moving-allow those who have yet to fire shoot". Target Gamma from above may realize the enemy squadron is closing and use his mid-turn correction to order a change in attitude and then "full ahead" so as to pass the closing nemy faster than expected while firing on a selected target's engineering section... So one turn would have multiple perspective shots per ship/ship group involved. That would, of course, make it easier to string together into animation later I am assuming... Quote:
I just will not waste anyone's time until I am able to get soem free time. My current boss is a "My Way or the Highway" type who never admits he is wrong until it is forced down his throat. I am 4 others are leaving from 2 sites which will leave him at 50% or less staff at both. Sad thing is, I only found out others were leaving once I got tired of trying to fix things. Sometimes the Leutenants really need to listen to th NCO's...in this case, the guy is headed for a HR-Fragging. Quote:
For the players, it will not matter but for the people who see the replays after, a "faster time scale" which shrinks periods of pure manuver should mak the battle movies more fun to watch by non-players. And they would be a byproduct of the games anyway so just extras for visitors. Quote:
Marc | |||||
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01-06-2007, 03:39 PM
| #7 (permalink) | |
| Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: Guildford UK Age: 36
Posts: 468
| Quote:
TBH I have CC (not the latest version) and I have never been that impressed with it. Personally Visio is my deckplans app of choice (although the plan is to use Lightwave at some point ;o) ) DAve | |
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01-06-2007, 04:31 PM
| #8 (permalink) | |
| SFM Nugget Realname: Marc Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: New Jersey, USA..the toxic waste state :D Age: 46
Posts: 5
| Quote:
But doing the deck plans directly onto the work space....Hmmmmm Me Like-ie!!! Marc | |
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