This is my first concept for the Romulan Outpost I. It is inspired by that seen in BOTF but for now is naked.

Not bad, but when ur done modeling it, you need to sort out the smoothing groups as in selet polys and make a smoothing group for sections where it needs it.

Also i can see that some verticies need to be welded together, you see them tiny black specks runnin on the left side of the bottom left pic, this shows that its not joined properly and the (dots/verticies) need to be welded together.

Overall looks nice. But basic. But it is your first model and for a first model its very nice.

May I suggest making hte bulges on hte top and bottom smaller, to give the station a more smooth look.

Connectig the top and bottom with a structure of a sorts might be a good idea too :d

Thanks guys. That helps and I will make it so. It is still naked for two reasons. I was still learning to us the weld and smooth to clean it up before skin. You know about how you need to properly select the overlapping vertex sets before trying to use these tools. It is taking me more time on this my first attempt. It is that whole Proto - Vulcan evolution thing. After that I need to wrap my head around the skin process. I will do that once it has a smaller camel hump and move no. My day job on the Borg mother ship keeps getting in the way.

You can send it over to me at any time and I'll spiffy it up for you if you want

Keep precticing with 3D Max - practice makes perfect..LOL.. you should have seen some of my first models

Thanks for the offer but I would like to learn by doing. There is a question I have though. To post the picture in my Photobucket online file I just took a screen-print from MilkShape into Windows Paint utility, cut out the view I wanted and made a composite of three views in Paint to save to Photobucket. Is there a better way to save a 2d of the 3d window in MilkShape?

Rhetorical Question:
What is the difference between red shift and Doppler shift? It is the difference between a train racing away down the track and a train sitting on a track that is uniformly growing longer. In each situation the train appears to move away from you. Red shift is why the stars appear to move away from us. They are not speeding through space. Space everywhere is inflating. The universe, space, is growing larger while matter, the stars, do not. Light is red shifted more the longer it travels through a space that is expanding. The more distant a star the more it's light get red shifted in travel.

Here is some tutorials i found that may help Ken.

http://botfii.armadafleetcommand.com/in ... 1831#31831

Many thanks oh lumpy headed one. I did not dig deep enough to see your links. That is timely and will help. If it seams as though I am still struggling - that would be true. To quote Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from the film Conan the Barbarian, "What does not kill us will make us strong." The struggle will help me learn (unlike Bush so far in Iraq.) I will move my request for assistance to a new thread and keep this for updates to the Outpost.

Cool, Kenneth. Like i've said, there's no rush. Don't submit it until you feel that it is as good as you can make it. You'll only regret it later on when everyone sees it!

...There's no harm in making screenies for us though...

OK. No IOI please. I am looking for constructive advice though. This is my prototype skin job for the Romulan Outpost I. (my first skin job.) Outpost II would build on this with more complexity. Are the WarBird decals over the top or way cool? Is the green good against the black of space or should it be more olive drab? Is the skin to simple (I hope not because that is hell to line up on a shape like this)?

Well the emblem is way too big mate and you dont really need them unless you use it on a small section in the middle somewhere.

For your texture to develope you really should use some hull paneling. I might be able to help

http://eawnexus.gamingsource.net/forums ... wtopic=171

http://armada2.filefront.com/file/Textu ... lles;33431

http://www.members.lycos.nl/jonim8or/shiptex_tut.html

Use GIMP its free i think or cheap and using the aboves for reference and the filters in this tutorial you should be able to creativly texture ur starbase. Use the romulan base from other games for reference as to how they might look and work from there.

Thanks and that is great. Texture is the next item on my list and the links look tiptop. Up to here it has been the struggle to learn the tools more than actually building the ship. GIMP is free but it makes me feel like a gimp just trying to get it to work.

Kenneth, you're doing better.

I have one advice for you - if you don't feel your texturing skills are good enough yet, then don't even try it on the game models - practice modeling meshes.
If you want ot improve your texturing skills practice on some other models first. My 2 cents .

Baby steps. I should be ready to start on the Romulan toilet any day now.

Does it look more like an Outpost with a core and big balls?

Lol..

Ok erm first thing i can see that is bit weird is the gap size between top and bottom section, the sides are too long from bottom to top so erm squash it down so its about warbird gap size or just under.

These "balls" are too far from the main hub of the station so instead of that put them on much smaller extensions so there closer to the main hull. Also make some spikes and use em as antenna somewhere, either on very top or very bottom.

Give that ago and redo a pic.


Edit

Actually just remove the balls and keep them spires. I think they will be good like that without the balls i mean.

Sure and yes on all points. I can start a new thread for the rest of this.

Here you go, Kenneth, I split the thread for you and removed all the comments about spam etc.

Thank you. This is great. Sorry I did not get back to you sooner. I am on the road and on my laptop at a professional conference in Phoenix. - More work on the outposts soon.

Outpost II

Yikes! That thing looks lethal!

Some suggestions.

1. Remove the poles or rearrange them and scale them down.

2. Add in a central squashed spherical hub in center. (habitat area)



3. Keep design simple and effective think realistically what design needs and uses and build it, dont build anything flashy as this detail can be added in textures later.

Those were very good suggestions. By reducing the size of the antenna in the top cluster it creates a forced perspective impression of greater size. The lines have been cleaned up and there is a central core connecting the top and bottom main section of the outposts. I wanted it to look like both Outpost One and Outpost Two are built on the same basic frame but with Numero Dos a definite upgrade over Uno, (Uno - Dos - that is Star Tech Talk.)

Outpost I Romulan



Outpost II Romulan

Now all I have to do is figure out how to skin the basterds!

Very carefully, with a well-sharpened blade...

I would suggest you flatten both outposts a bit, make hte buldge at the top smaller and add a bunch of antennas at the bottom...or something..

Good suggestions Trash. I will do that and try to skin before posting them again.

Texturing tutorial

http://www.tutorialguide.net/skinning_a ... orial.html
http://sfc.strategyplanet.gamespy.com/s ... hape.shtml

Some smoothing tutorial (kinda)

http://www.planetfortress.com/tf2models ... d_sc2c.htm

Tutorials (6) for introduction to milkshape.

http://www.machinima.com/article.php?va ... &leadin=10

Misc tutorials.

http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft ... rials.html
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Are we limited to 256 x 256 in bmp file type for our textures? Or what?