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You're going to need more verts to get the definition you'll probably want. (Especially good edge-loops for controlling hard and soft edges.) That's why you see puckering and deformations with your sub-d'd objects. Subdivision needs guidance on how to operation, guidance it only gets with geometry. (UNLESS, that is, you use the manual/details subdivision tools and marke subdivision "breaks" using the sub-d algorithms that support those.) Also, traditionally, "lit wire frame" renders help a great deal and can help you get good tips/advice on various techniques. (Basically any image that shows the geometry is a "wire.")
A bit of advice - Name your objects as you go! Trust me, you want to do this, especially with as many different objects as you have. You also want to go ahead and assign them basic material zones as soon as they're mostly completed. This way, you can go into you material zones and delete/rename the default materials Hexagon gives every bit of geometry you create. (Default materials are necessary on creation, since without materials, no 3D object is visible. However, Hexagon does not have a "Preview/Default" material that it assigns to everything - It's all its own material name.)
On repeated multigrouped objects, like a "chair" - It's handy to group individual items together, to clear up menu space, like chairs. Also, depending on your chosen rendering application or use, you may not need to make duplicates of common objects. Instead, you can often just model one and then, in your application, use its copy/paste/instance/duplicate features to place the rest of those objects. True, though, it does help when you're trying to visualize a layout. However, the key thing to know in Hexagon is that copy/pasting an object BEFORE it has been mapped means that you're going to have to make a separate map for that pasted object! IIRC, Hex only supports duplicated/dynamically reproduced UVMaps with objects created using the "mirror" or "clone" function. Even then, it's a bit wonky. TLDR VERSION - Before you go copy/pasting finished geometry to represent duplications of mundane "like" things like chairs/doors/etc, UVMap them, so those objects are all mapped and share the same UVmap space. Later, if you wish to separate some of these so they occupy a different map space from their cohorts, you can do that by selecting the object, itself, and moving it's map on the UVmap. It will then occupy a different space on the UVMap from its cohorts and you wouldn't have to have touched any of the others.
PS - Nice layout and concept. Good details on control consoles, too. Everything only needs a few more verts to give some good defintion and yield clean subdivisions with no puckering.
No new pics yet, but I have been makingsome progress. I've made some cargo lifts that align with the side air locks, to get larger cargo up to the hold. I've also separated the air locks from the main shipo and made them separate parts that will be able to extend (though not nearly far enough yet, That'll require a morph to strech the "neck" of the air lock. I also need to open up a hole in each air lock for doors. I als need to fit escape pods somewhere in the interiror. My orignal floor plans have two escape pods in those pods on either side of the"wings", but, those aren't nearly enough for 22 people. So, any suggestions where to fit a couple more escape pods?
Well, I've got some new WIP pics. Among the thingsI've finished are the Airlock doors. Those were a trick How to get double sliding doors to open up fiully in a tube without passing through the outer walls. I've also added fuel lines and the primary and backup hyperdirvesto the engine room as wel as some verticle panel lines to the hallway walls.
Well, I've got some new WIP pics. Among the thingsI've finished are the Airlock doors. Those were a trick How to get double sliding doors to open up fiully in a tube without passing through the outer walls. I've also added fuel lines and the primary and backup hyperdirvesto the engine room as wel as some verticle panel lines to the hallway walls.
Now, for a quick question, Which do you think would be a better option: keep the upper deck as a single unit set at a three meter height above the lower deck or break it up into multiple modules set to 2.5 meters for each deck (directly mid level)?
I've got a few more WIP pics. Finally made the gunners' control gimbals for the laser turrets. I also created some telescoping sections for the airlocks; that they can extend much farther now.
I've got a few new WIP pics. I made som mods to the cargo geck, shortening the main deck and adding modular sections over the rear staterooms, as well ans shorter wall sections above them to create "cubicles" as well as to allow for more custoimization. I also made "ceiling" sections for the rear half of the cargo deck and some tweeks to the cockpit area. as well as ladders for the engine room and gunwell tunnel, which I had to make some other mods to as well. (not pictured, I'll post those when I make my next batch fo WIP pics) Finally, I've gone an made some Escape pods (which will be a separate prop), two of which are currently located in those two "tubes" on on either end of the "wings". Ihaven't made the mods to the ship to ad thr hatches or launch openings yet though. But two escape pods really isn't enough for a 22 person ship's complement (crew and passengers combined) but I'm not sure where I can fit more pods.
As promised, I've got a few more WIP pics, including the gunwell modifications. I ended up having to turn the entire gunewll tunnel around 180 degrees. I've also made some adjustments to the decks. I've lowered the upper deck a half meter, centiring it. It'll allow for more options that way. so now each deck is 2.5 meters high, with the rear half of the upper deck (from the turret gunwells back) being 2.75 meters high since it has a higher ceiling. I've also done a test of the incomplete escape pods in DAZ Studio to see how many people will fit in one. I managed to squeeze in 12 people; add in an overhead compartment, and you'll fit their gear as well.
Quick question. I'm thinking of making the lower deck floor a separeate piece, like the upper deck,lowering the existing floor to follow the contours of the hull more to add space for pipes and conduits under the floor, What are your thoughts on this, good idea or not?
I've gotten some more work done, mainly working on the guns. The original gunner stations really didn't work, so I partially redid them. I also tweeked the shape of the dorsal and ventrall guns and the gunwells proper to, hopefully, make a "little" more room inside the gunwells for the gunners. I've also adjusted the size of the seats in the cockpit as well as the center consol. They were a little too big after I ran a test of the ship in DAZ to see how big it really was. (My God, it's HUGE). You'd think, Intellectually, you know 54.3 meters is going to be big, but until you actually see it...
Anywhat.
Well, I got more work done. I've built the escape pod airlocks as well as inner doors for themain airlocks. I've also gone in and completed all of the walls and doors for the staterooms and crew quarters as well as upper cargo compartments, minus some front walls, though I have a "spare" wall I can use to close up any I compartment I want. I scrapped the old ones.Now they're much more modular. For the final export, I might simply export out a single version of each stateroom and compartment wall/door section and set the rooms up in DAZ Studio as part of the final figure/prop/ Scene subset file. Thoughts?
Please remember, max width for in line images is 800 pixels on the dispaly size, in order to facilitate the image displying correctly on all the various devices that people may use to browse the forums.
right clicking on the images should then bring it up to full size.
If you do it yourself and then use the 2nd tab to insert the image URL again and tell it to dispaly in new window, then you will get an automatic full size image with just a normal mouse click
OK, maybe someone can help me figure this out. I just started UV mapping and after getting the hull done and validated, when I tried moving the parts around on the map and resizing them, they wouldn't move at all, though I could use the relax UV tool. I can't move any verteces lines, nothing. They're locked in place on the map. This has never happened before and I don't know what's causing it. Help.
A few things can cause of this:
1) There was a point, somewhere, that you needed to press "Validate" and you didn't. So, press it and see if that helps.
2) Hexagon sometimes borks out and loses object focus. Deselect the object, then select it again.
3) Is there any dynamic geometry still active? (ie: Did you subdivide the mesh and have not yet collapsed the sub-d?) You will have limited functionality in the UV mapper when you're working with an actively sub-divided mesh that is still "dynamic." So, either cancel the sub-d or finalize it before moving on. Note: You CAN use subdivision routines on the mesh, later, even after UV'ing it without destroying the UVMap. However, the quality of the UVMap will not be as great the further removed you get from the original polycount. It all depends on your model, though.
I think I found the problem. At least partially. Part of it I think is just my lack of RAM. The other was It was inadvertantly set to snap to grid lines.
hexagon itself does not consider real world dimension or scale, points are relative. you can select different units from options, but all units are relative, especially when exported to .obj. as your hex model gets larger, create a 'point target' object such as a cube, that you can move to where you want to look, then use the frame selection to zoom in on the 'point target', and work on that area of your model. (before i figured this out, i abandoned a B-52 project because i was modeling in inches, and could not focus on mesh details just a few feet from the center of the model...)
It was probably the "Snap To" setting and not RAM. Moving around UVMap parts is not RAM intensive, certainly not as intensive as using the Relax tool on them. It's likely you just didn't move the verts/lines far enough for the Snap To to take effect and the Relax Tool shouldn't be effected by Snap To, anyway.
Nah. I'm pretty sure RAM has at least something to do with it, given how complex the model is. Even with the Snap to feature off, tweeking the interrior lines on a map section, takes forever as does moving a whole piece. Mapping this hull is like pulling teeth, and I had forgotten to add any pins as well, and it's too late to do so now. so getting certain parts to take on a uniform dimesion is nearly impossible. I'm deffinitely way over my head UV mapping this.
Turn off your dynamic geometry unless you absolutely need it, as it takes up a bit of memory when its on. (ie Either collapse the dynamic geometry (Apply it) or turn it to zero unless needed. It actually takes up a bit more memory/processing than the higher-density collapsed geometry would.)
Mapping may or may not be that difficult, it all depends on how it's constructed. Remember - Hexagon's projection and even unwrapping UV mapping reacts best to symmetrical objects. So, for instance, let's say the main body of your ship is actually meant to be symmetrical. In that case, you'd split it down the middle with an edge, highlight the faces of what appears to be the most "incorrect" side, if you can judge that, then delet them. Select the other half, Mirror it, then select both and Weld them together using Weld or Average Weld. Check all the verts to be sure they got welded together where they were supposed to. (If your model is really high poly in some areas along the center-line, just do a regular Weld and then weld all the verts, individually, along the centerline by hand.)
Most normal objects we deal with are symmetrical, at least in some way. Planning your construction around symmetrical parts can help speed up mapping. In that way, you could simply have an object with several groups of non-contigous geometry, some groups that are symmetrical would be easy to Projection Map or Unwrap, others may need a bit more work with the fiddly/uncooperative bits.
PS- Just to reiterate: I know the "shiny" light/material makes everything look like metal, so it might seem intuitive to use for demo shots. But, it really does next-to-nothing to help others understand how your model is constructed. That may mean that you'll get advice that may not be correct, simply because too many topology bits have to be "assumed" instead of "seen." :) Shots that show the topology, how the mesh is constructed, verts/edges/faces, that sort of thing, are the most valuable to show whenever you need help/advice/good input.
The ship model is symetrical, and the geometry is fully collapsed. It's just a really complex relatively high polygon (for my system at least) shape with the inner and outer hulls connected by necessity at the entrance ramp, airlocks and escape pod chutes
TLDR at the bottom!
One thing you can do is to split off bits that you've finished the geometry work on. For instance, let's say you've got one big file for everything. What have you finished that isn't needed for your continued work/reference? Managing your project is part of the whole "3D thing" since, as you can see, 3D projects can get really complex. So, what's not needed? OR - What needs to still be in the scene, but doesn't need to be at the resolution it is, now? (Wait for UV'ing them, if possible, until you can load up all the finished objects for a particular shared texture map. I imagine this model will have many different texture maps, so you'll have to organize UV work efficiently. I know... it's a pain, ain't it. ;) )
To clean things up, figure out what is "finished" and "what isn't needed at final resolution in order to continue my work." Save the full file, with everything in it, and give it a pertinent name and put it in a directory that makes sense. (Making a good versioning system is part of the job, too, like managing "working" and "finished" directories and spaceship-v1a.hex, spaceship-v1b.hex, spaceship-v2a.hex, etc.. ) Then, without exiting, go ahead and save the current workspace again, but with a new file name. (Just in case you mess up the next bit.) Now, go through and figure out what you absolutely must have in this scene to continue your work. Next, figure out what you only need lower-res versions of, like "marker" objects to remind you where things are and the like. Since you've probably got a lot of objects, I'd also recommend deleting any duplicates of objects. For instance, you don't need ten of the same chair model. You can just repopulate your final version with them once you're finished. (Note: Using the computer's internal system for organizing files by date/extension/etc is great, but it's not always foolproof when it comes down to working with lots of edited files or even files you just opened to look at, but didn't really make significant changes to, yet still resaved them.)
Anything you've got that could be used as a low-res version, use the Decimate command and see how it works out. If it doesn't work well, then copy/paste relevant faces that give you the references you need and delete the fuller object once you've got them. Once you've pared down your working scene file, save it. Remember - You already saved a full scene file before cleaning this one up, so all those objects not in this scene will still be available once you start compiling your work together. (As always - Save Early, Save Often, Save Multiples of the File - Don't delete something you don't have saved!)
Ideally, you'd want to save each major object in its own file, but still within the Hexagon format, so you don't run into export/import issues, later. But, that's not always practical. In any event, keep track of "what is where" and that's easier to do if you have a directory structure set up for your project that reflects this as well as a good, standardized, format for naming your save files/versions. For instance, ...directory/projects/spaceship1/external-hull/ss1-ext-hull_v1c.hex would be an unfinshed external hull. But, if the file was "ss1-ext-hull_v3-final.hex" you know it's the finished one you're looking for. The internal bulkheads/floors/ceilings and major fittings would be ".../projects/spaceship1/interior/bulkheads/ss1-int-bheads_v5b.hex." Why not "projects/interior/ss1-int-bheads_v5b.hex?" There's likely to be all sorts of "interior" objects and too many crowding a directory could cause confusion. (This is just an example of managing a big project. But, everyone has their own method.)
TLDR Version - Big projects need good project and version management, otherwise things can get really confusing and difficult to deal with. Learning how to undertake large 3D projects is actually part of the skillset of 3D modeling and has to be learned, just like pushing verts. :)
Oh, I know that. For the record, all of the modelling is done. Now I'm doing only UV mapping. I always prefer to work in steps:
Model
UV map
Set Material zones
Step one is done, all modeling is complete and now I'm on step two. If you're interested, I can send you a copy of the original file so you can see why I'm having an issue UV mapping the hull. It's a mess.
It needs UV mapping, mainly for the interior, since it's going to require at least some mapped texturing, including putting the name of the ship on the side, if I so choose.
Yeah, but given that what I'm building is intended, forst and foremost, to be a stock ship which I (or anyone else) can then modify as needed, having the name molded onto the side is not really an option. Besides, that's not really something we see in the Star Wars universe.
Yep. As I stated in my first post, this is a Corellian Engineering Corporation YZ-900 Medium Freighter, originaly pubished in Star Wars Gamer #2. CEC, for those of you who don't know, is the same company that produces the YT-1300, the same model of ship that the Milenium Falcon is.
You just may wish to set Material Zones first. There are a few reasons for that. One of them is that Hexagon has less issues with creating/maintaing proper Material Zones when you do them first. Otherwise, it's going to create them for you and... it can get really irritated when dealing with lots of material zones being created/deleted/recreated. I almost always have to clean mine up using UVMapper.
Material zones are also a very good way to start UV'ing anything. Why? Because - You can select and move UV's around "by Material Zone." You can also select specific map projections by Material Zone on the same object. ie: One object, with several different material zones, can have separate map projections on those individual material zones.
Honestly - Do it. Do the Mat Zones first. You'll be very thankful you did. :)
How big is the file you would wish to send? Maybe you could attach it, here? You could email it to me, but I'd rather have it sent through here (Can you PM files here? Never checked.) or an anon file server like http://www.tinyupload.com/ Why? Because - That way I don't get ultra-spammed by having my email addy get included in the contact/sent lists of other email accounts. :D
If you could just include the section you're dealing with, that'd be great. Or, make sure to name the troublesome bit something I'll recognize.
There's a reason why I'm doing the UV map first, particularly for the inner and outer hull: Having rhe UV map first gives me better access to the inner hull for selecting the faces for the Mat zones. Granted, getting access to it for UV mapping isn't easy, but, since I can select a single section of a line (or specific group of line segments) and hit Command L or Command K to select the rest, it is a bit easier than trying to select all of the faces I'd need from the inside. As for the file size, I'll have to check when I get home (I'm on the public library computers). The troublesom bit is the Hull. It's the first thing on the list, and the first thing I've been trying to UV map on this build.
I DID IT!!!!
AS some of you may know I don't have Poser, and, therefore can't really make use of Music2U4U's vehicle rigging tutorial or do Parametric rigging. Howiver, I decided to try an experiment using Trix Weight Mapped rigging on my ship's upper and lowr gun turrets, and it worked!!!!!!! I actually have working cannons. 
This has been a great thread with an amazing model. Morkonan's advice is very helpful to me.
I'm glad you saw it through to the end.