Space Ship Help Needed (I'm New to It)

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hey guys i’ve got a basic princible ship designed and i’m having problems with things like basic design (rough/square like surfaces) also how would i begin to create textures for the ship. There are also gaps in some of the places and was wondering how i merge the surrounding objects together so that the gap disappears. Also is there a way to inport graphic files to be used as a texture (such as jpegs and gifs) and can they be applied to a single face rather than the whole ship.

Edit Here is the latest pic of the ship. How Do I add Engine glow and also sort out the textures a bit better? Also how would I go about making a flyby avi?

Here is the blender file if anyone would like to take a look and an image.

http://randylaptop.com/Vyse/SpaceShip.blend

http://randylaptop.com/Vyse/Ship6.jpg

2

The process you’re asking about is called “UV Mapping” and its part of the very basic tutorials you’ll read about with a quick search of the forums. It would be to your benefit to click search at the top of the forums and use “UV Mapping tutorial” as a search term. Give it a shot and you’ll get lots of good info! :slight_smile:

3

Here’s the official tutorial base from the main site: there are some other things that you may find useful there as well!

http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Materials.247.0.html

4

UV Mapping? To get over the problem i moved the meshes closer together and parented the 2 nacels to the main body. Now for adding textures to the ship (whenever i try to UV Map them it just appears as a mess on the UV Screen)

5

There is a way to apply graphic files much in the same way that waterslide decals are applied to plastic models.

https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50111&start=15#479681

6

Generally you merge the two objects into one, enter edit mode, and tediously make edges and faces that bridge the gap, joining vertices between the two groups.

There is a Python script called “Loft-Bridge-Skin” that allegedly does this but I have not used it.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~cpbarton/ideasman/

7

ok thanks very much. I’ve uploaded my ship now if anyone wants to take a look and tell me what i can do :). How would i add a different colour to a face cause whenever i try to colour the whole ship changes and not just the selected face. Also how would i split the ship up (in a way that it sticks together but has seperate pieces)

8

glad to see im not the only newbie who makes space ships, lol
and a way to change the color or add a texture/material to one particular face is explained in detail in this tutorial

http://feeblemind.homeip.net/dotclear/index.php/2004/12/21/5-blender-indices-materiau---material-indice

and you can also see a full list of some very helpfull tutorails here

http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Tutorials.243.0.html

happy blending to you!

9

yeah I got it thanks very much :). Now all I gotta do is work on the windows, glow effects and add some sticky outy bits hehe. Anyone know how to do glow effects?

10

In my spaceship here:
http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/leifGallery/leifCGI17.html
the port holes are separate objects. They were given a material which was green. Then in the Shader tab, I set the “Emit” value to the max.

11

cool, thanks :D. What about engine glows? so u can see a hue reflection on the surrounding area?

12

You can either:

a) place a lamp just in front of the engine so that it illuminates it’s surroundings.

OR

b) Increase the EMIT value of your engine glow material and turn on the RADIO button