To Blend, or not to Blend? That is the question...

Yes there is. The exact method escapes me at the moment. Let me get back to you tomorrow (Monday).
-Lokmer

 

Ok, I have been busy for the last few days and stuff anyways. Actually now it's 11 pages. =P hey! I think we got the 200 posts JUST in time for the beggining of August! lol.

I still have to go back to that tutorial to try and figure out some of the other stuff needed for path animating, but it seems alot easier than keyframing.

-Melvil

 

To change the speed of the object following the path, change the PathLen variable. This is the number of frames it takes your object to go from one end of the path to the other. Lower=faster, higher=slower.
-Lokmer

 

Thanks. That greatly helps. So far I have done a simple animation of a ship fly-by (like at the beggining of TPM), with only one problem. The textures on the sides of the "head" of the ship look strange and stretched out. Is there a way I can select an area of that mesh to re-texture, so that the top doesen't get messed up?

-Melvil

 

Yeah. Go into edit mode and select the vertices you want to retexture, then hit P. This will let you seperate the vertices into a seperate mesh. Once they are textured you can re-join them to the head (ctrl-J) and the textures should stay put. An alternate way to do this is to use the UV editor to assign textures, which gives you precise control over which faces they cover, but I don't know enough about how to use it to give you any advice on it.
-Lokmer

 

Hi guys.. Congratulations on passing the page ten mark.. I thought it may have ended until I clicked on the arrow.

*still lost trying to decipher all the Blender terminology*

 

Thanks Avene. =) Scary though, I was away for two days and it's gone off of the first page. =)

Lokmer, I haven't tried the texturing thing yet, but I have another question. I think I have asked this before, but I don't think I got an answer. When doing an animation with more than 1 ship in it (like your example you made), what would be the best way to do it? I remember domething about doing them individually, and then putting them together, but I can't think of any way to do that.

-Melvil

 

This is actually a reply to a post on the first page.

In the post it was mentioned that someone who has 3D Studio Max would never want to learn Blender, but I must disagree....

I have 3D Studio Max, and am still learning it, but I also recently downloaded Blender, after seeing examples of what it can do. I was very impressed, also, seeing The Terran Conflict impressed me about Blender as well.

Of course, I am still flabergasted by the interface, but it was the same way for me with Max, and Axogon as well. All it takes is some tutorials, practice, experimentation, and the like to learn these programs. I hope to be able to put both Max and Blender to work for me.

 

Hi everybody!

Hey there Movie Maximus - good to see you posting over here - I'm seeing quite a lot of crossposting both ways recently.

Just a couple of points - the comment I made regarding 3DSMax/Blender was mostly in jest. It was part of a running joke between myself and my old pal Batman - but many of the original posts on this thread were lost when TFN switched to these 'snowboards'...

And I'm glad you liked TTC, but it, alas, was not done using Blender. It was done using Infini-D, though I'm using Blender for TTC2 primarily b/c it's a free program which supports IKA's - essential for good character animation.

Anyway, feel free to get involved in this thread to help you in any way - that's what it's there for! Our many thanks to Lokmer as always...

PS My Blender manual is finally losing its 'hot off the press' smell...Fortunately I have the new tutorial guide to read now.

 

Holy Schnitzel! Saeed! Welcome back, buddy!
Movie Maximus, it's good to have a new voice around here! Welcome!

Melvil: I personally prefer to do the most things per scene that I can. Say you have a dogfight with three fighters taking place over a Star Destroyer, in that case I'd have the three fighters in one Blend file and the Star Destroyer in another (the way you get it all to work together is turning on the "Backbuf" option while rendering. This combines movies for you as you render (uses the "Backbuf" movie as a background and renders the new film as foreground).

A lot of it comes down to how powerful your PC is and how good your video card. The better your vidcard, the more hihg-poly mesh models you can deal with before you have to give up and graduate to the layering process. Does this make sense?

So, say you want two fighters to fight? In my animation, I did the Awing using keyframes and the Tie Bomber using a path. If you want something cooler try using paths snaking in and out of eachother, and remember that in a battle you're only gonna want to be using one camera angle for like five seconds tops, and the battle is just a series of quick external shots spliced together with cockpit shots of the combatants.
If I totally missed the point, let me know!
-Lokmer

 

Thanks for the welcome guys. I have actually posted here before, but not too much, so you probably missed my posts. Its been a little while though since the last time.

Oops, sorry about the mistake on Infini-d with your movie, Saeed.

Hey, if I'm not mistaken, Blender can import DXF meshes, right? I believe Audioguy has told me that it can, but you have to retexture it if it is converted from a max or 3DS file using a conversion program. Max can directly import DXF files, and I believe it can also export to DXF, this may provide an easy way to convert many of the Star Wars meshes to a format Blender can understand. Maybe even skip the re-texturing process.

 

More than that, there's actually a 3DS conversion plugin for Blender. But, getting Blender Star Wars models is easy, just go to http://www.centralsource.com/blender (I think that's the URL).
-Lokmer

 

Hey There Movie Maximus, I didn't know that you come here.

Hey Saeed! Nice to see you here again. =)

Thanks Lokmer, that should help. I am buying an ATI All-In-Wonder 128 32mb capture card on the 12th, so tell me if that would do a good job. Ok, now that I know I can use mroe than one fighter, could you tell me how to import more than one into a project?

And one more thing. For that kind of ship flyby that I'm trying out as a test, to get the camera to follow the ship, I have been trying to do it with keyframing, but after it gets past the half-way point of the turn, the camera "wobbles" (moves up and down and left and right really fast over 12 frames). What could that be from? Thanks

-Melvil

 

Hi guys...I did say I'd be around from time to time - fortunately for you, Melvil, whenever I think about answering one of your queries, Lokmer has already posted a (better) answer!

If you just want a simple camera pan, don't have more keyframes than necessary. One at both ends should be fine - adjusting the camera from the top view would be best probably. You may get an annoying 'flip' in the camera view if the ship comes too close to - or even passes thru - the camera. Check this first by ALT-A animating from the top view.

BTW isn't the ATI card just a capture card - not a video card for your monitor? I'm also considering that card and am surprised how slow my system is even with wireframe manipulation so this intrigues me...

BTW Lokmer - you CAN come over to the EZboards, you know...our friend Melvil does... HINT HINT!

 

LOL Saeed. =) Hey, You got your own Petetion now. Yeah, I'm lucky to have Lokmer around (and you too), or I would still be trying to figure out how to open a file.

I think that might be my problem Saeed, I have thought aobut that, but never tried it. Right now I have a keyframe saved for every 10 frames.

The ATI All-In-Wonder is also a video card(a good one too), and an extremely good capture card.

-Melvil

 

Ok, Melvil, here's how to import another ship:

Hit SHIFT+F1 and import just like opening a file. If you're importing a .blend file, import all the objects in the ship file (I'm assuming the ship is the only thing in the file - the .blends act like libraries).

For the camera wobbles, Saeed's right, use as few keyframes as possible. If that don't help, you're gonna need to learn to edit IPOs. I know how to do it, but not so well that I can explain it. I think B@rt's "Welding" tutorial deals with IPOs ( http://members.xoom.com/blender ).

Saeed, as far as EZBoards, feel free to post the link. Every time I go over there though I don't know where to start. It's so BIG over there...
-Lokmer

 

Lokmer, maybe you're going to the main page where all the communities are listed. I just went straight to to the SW forum and registered there.

http://pub3.ezboard.com/fswvideoswvideo

 

Guys, I just had a thought. Happens sometime...usually I just lie down and it goes away, but this time it stuck...

How about WE MAKE OUR OWN BLENDER BOARD...???

This would be aimed at beginners like us, and would encourage others who feel intimidated by the Blender site groups...

Also, we could then separate our various queries into managable threads on specific aspects...

What does everyone think?

PS Lokmer - fancy the role of moderator?

 

Thanks Lokmer, I'll try it.

LOL Saeed. A Blender Forum....(sounds like a cooking show) I don't know how many people would go there though. Of course I would love to have it so I can post different questions in different posts (All though I like being famous and stuff. =P "Hey, Isn't that the guy from the huge Blender Thread!?").

I have to go right now, but I'll come back later and see whats happening.

-Melvil

 

Thanks Lokmer, I'll try it.

LOL Saeed. A Blender Forum....(sounds like a cooking show) I don't know how many people would go there though. Of course I would love to have it so I can post different questions in different posts (All though I like being famous and stuff. =P "Hey, Isn't that the guy from the huge Blender Thread!?").

I have to go right now, but I'll come back later and see whats happening.

-Melvil

 

WOAH! Page 12!!!! And Sorry for the dobule post, my browsers playing games with me again.

-Melvil

 

Hello. I have been reading this thread from the begining and after twelve pages I thought it was about time that I get in on it.....

This is also my first post on this forum. I usually post on swvideo, but they must be having a problem with their server...I can't get through.

I have been using blender for a couple of months now. I finally got my manual in the mail(this helped alot). I also have the first tutorial guide and plan on getting the second some time soon. I also bought the modeling video off of blended planet(so much for free software...!!) Anyway, the problem that I am having is with texturing models. This is what I have done so far:
I bring in a 3ds model converted to vrml using 3D Win. It imports already seperated into different pieces which is great for assigning materials. After I assign all of my materials I joined the meshes so that I could animate it. WRONG!!!! All of the work I put into texturing the thing was for not....After joining the meshes my model looks like crap. It appears as though it has taken one material and appllied it to everything now. So after much reading I thought I had the answer. I followed the steps for assigning multiple materials to a single mesh. This works...but the materials do not map the same as they did when the pieces were individual.....I stil haven't figured out why. So I read some more, searched through the blender forum and I think I have the answer but I thought I would see if you guys have tried this first. I am going to try empties to assign the materials to the individual pieces. Parent the empties too the pieces and then join the mesh.....any chance of this working?

Well.....I have done it....I posted on the famous blender thread. BTW-I think a star wars blender forum would be cool....maybe we can talk japeth into letting us add one to swvideo...although the cgi forum over there might serve the same purpose.

 

Sure. I've already got some forums on my site. It'd be no big thing to put up a beginner blender forum. Are you guys all in? (there's nothing I hate worse than putting up forums and having no one post on them).

BTW, Audioguy, welcome!
For your texturing question: I've heard that the empties method works nicely. I've also heard that the UV editor works very well, but I haven't tried either of these methods. Here's what I usually do (and this is particularly good for when you need to blow a ship up). Simply parent all the seperate parts to one empty, and then move the empty around. That way the pieces of the ship all stay in one place relative to eachother, and you preserve that cool texturing data.
Let us know what happens!
-Lokmer

 

Hi AudioGuy! Great to hear from you!

heh, it's ironic that I originally started posting on the EZBoards when this place shut down for a few days!

I'm afraid I can't help you much with your query b/c I'm starting from scratch - still struggling with modelling...

May I ask, though, whether you originally JOINED the meshes or PARENTED them? There IS a difference. I modelled a simple sabre for Lokmer, and parenting did not by default change the child's texture. Also, are you using imported textures or doing them from scratch?

Empties will probably help, but may well be unnecessary unless you're doing something like character animation...

Glad you like the Blender forum idea. I originally thought of it as separate from SWVIDEO, but we'll wait and see how much interest there is first...