For Those Who Make Vehicles...
Xenomorphine
Posts: 2,421
While I'd like to give a big thank you to everyone who make vehicles, historical, fantasy or futuristic, there's something I keep noticing about some otherwise beautifully rendered creations... Namely, the absence of navigation lights!
This probably comes from living for a few years on a boat, but it would really help with authenticity if any new water-based vehicles and planes included red and green lights on the relevant sides. In reality, these are used to avoid collisions by figuring out who has right of way. Obviously, the overall quality of a model is paramount, but it would be nice to see this vastly important safety feature included more often. :)
Also, while I've seen a Cobra gunship, Bradley APC and Abrams tank in the store, that seems to be about the extent of it for real-life military vehicles. Is anyone planning on reproducing non-US hardware in the near-future? Or even some more (as much as I love the Cobra, a fully-rigged Apache and A-10 would be just as great to see, not to mention their Russian equivalents). Or some futuristic stuff possibly inspired by them.
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There is a ridiculous number of WWII and Spanish Civil War aircraft available for free on ShareCG - Pedro Caparros makes most of the best ones - and a few more for sale at Schell's Armour Works. Schell's has "some futuristic stuff possibly inspired by" military aircraft as well.
Vendors have to be careful with copy-write / licencing issues when making real life aircraft - particularly US Aircraft like the ones you mention, there is a slight possibility Daz could get a nasty email from the manufacturer insisting they remove the product... And thats only if it got past Daz in the first place. If I was going to have stab at an Apache Id probably drop a line to the legal goons at McDonnell-Douglas first just to see what they have to say on the matter.
There are licenced vehicles on Turbosquid and other sites, so I don't know if any Daz vendors have tried getting something properly licensed such as a car or aircraft, or what the cost would be (if any) 'Id imagine its more trouble that its worth though, Daz vendors are probably just 'nobodies' in the eyes of big companies like that so I'm guessing most wouldn't see it as all that favourable to themselves and they'd probably be more worried about how their product could be misrepresented (e.g having it driven by a sword wielding nude Vicki elf might not be the kind of PR they want I suppose) :P.
Turbosquid's inventory, while jaw-droppingly stunning, is typically way out of my price range, but those other links are gratefully received, thank you.
In regards to licensing, yeah, that was my assumption, too, but there are the models I mentioned here in the store. If it's a genuine issue, I'm wondering how the creators of those got around that problem.
It might be an idea for someone to produce a Daz-friendly (the only equivalents seem to be for Bryce) modular design kit for aircraft/spaceship/tank models, though. Individual sections based on/inspired by real vehicles, but which can be mixed and matched like lego pieces. From what I've heard, the dropship in 'Aliens' was apparently made by putting the cockpit section of an Apache to various other things - no reason we couldn't apply a similar principle with Daz Studio's virtual technology.
Stuff like this is why I'm so frustrated that the user-friendly interface of Hexagon is apparently massively unstable under Windows 8... If they ever update that thing, I'm going to be all over it with engineering creativity. :)
have you looked at OnTarget3d ?
Nice stuff on there! Fire Angel's stuff looks great for near-future renders... Hope the 'Poser-compatible' F-18 and MiG-29 will be import-able into Daz. They look nicely detailed.