Create units with OpenFX

[creator]

That is the problem, "moving the vertices in the direction I wish. I won't
know where to move them without a blueprint or picture to guide me.
I did the front of the vehicle but the sides are in a straight line. So to move
them I need the image on the background, right? How else will i know where
to move the vertices.

 

[Smoking mirror]

That is the problem, "moving the vertices in the direction I wish. I won't
know where to move them without a blueprint or picture to guide me.
I did the front of the vehicle but the sides are in a straight line. So to move
them I need the image on the background, right? How else will i know where
to move the vertices.

Its always going to be a problem that can only be solved with practice. The best thing to do is just to get a shape made. Once the general shape is present its easy to resize and stretch certain parts. Try keeping your number of verticies to a minimum. just for practice it does't matter how detailed it is, so just make a blocky shape, that is at least the right dimentions and shape as what you want to make.

 

[creator]

99% of all 3D progs work on a rear/side/top view. They don't need front/other-side/bottom views because all the verticies are shown, making more viewpoints pointless. Turn on the OpenGL (right-click the preview window) for a 3D view.

Actually There are 6 views in open fx when you click on swap viewpoint the
side becomes the opposite side and the rear becomes front. Counting the 3d view there are six views.

Creator

 

[Dease]

Actually There are 6 views in open fx when you click on swap viewpoint the
side becomes the opposite side and the rear becomes front. Counting the 3d view there are six views.

Creator

hey, I never realised that, thanks ... although I don't think I'll have much use for it since I'm very accustomed to just the 3 views and it would confuse me when I name joints etc...oh well

 

[creator]

Anyone know how to create smoke or bubble column (like in a fish tank) in
open fx?

Creator

 

[The Great Apple]

Smoke can be done with the fireball postpro in the animator, or with a semi transparent shape.

Bubble column: I don't really know - you'll have to experiment. I'd guess that you would have to fiddle around with the refractive indices.

 

[creator]

Thanks for your quick reply. I was wondering if you or anyone knows
of a tutorial on the subject. I want it to look as real as possible.

Creator

 

[Dease]

has anyone experienced the attached error? I've been getting it since I started with ofx but now it's really starting to tick me off any ideas on how to avoid it?

 

[The Great Apple]

I think used to get it, but I don't get it any more since I updated my computer. It used to happen all the time when adding parts to a model, but never did find a fix. I think it has something to do with the renderer in the corner.

 

[Smoking mirror]

I think used to get it, but I don't get it any more since I updated my computer. It used to happen all the time when adding parts to a model, but never did find a fix. I think it has something to do with the renderer in the corner.

I think sometimes it is to do with running out of operating memory, I get things similar all the time cos I've got alomst no memory left on my disk drive. The only thing is to save often and as soon as possible (nothing worse than when you've broken the back of a project, having found a good soloution to a problem you hadand suddenly "CRASH!" it dumps you out).

 

[Spart]

Has anyone else noticed that textures act very odd alot of the time? I just put another shape on top and texture that. Also muffins how do you do "cut outs" like on the russ tanks?

 

[muffins]

What do you mean by cut-outs??

 

[Spart]

Like on the Russ tanks you have part of the side kinda well cut out. Or how do you make the non-square shape?

Also I noticed the tread is on the side...

 

[muffins]

I drew those basic shapes by hand and then extruded, moved and resized them (kinda making a funny-shaped tube). I then used the fill command to fill in one side of this 'tube'.

If you have the grid visable you can press ctrl-G (I think) to 'draw to grid' which is easier than doing it freehand.

80% of the objects I use in my models are drawn by hand and then extruded/resized/moved/filled.

 

[The Great Apple]

The whole model is transparent, only the joins and the lines conecting them are shown, so you can see all the way through.

P.S. I just learned a trick to make gun flashes not cast a shadow.
Rather than use Neomegas trick of using a small floor circle, just apply a texture map that is just a blank square in the glow key colour, set the texture to flat shading in the material attributes window (the box between the tile and decal boxes on the last page). Now set the material attribute to 100% transparent, this will have no effect on the texture map but will make it cast no shadow.

I'm having a bit of trouble with this. All my transparencies cast a shadow as if they blocked out light like a normal object. I think, perhaps, that this method doesn't work with spotlights.... which is a bit of a pain!

Also, I have a question!

Has anybody encountered the message, while saving in the designer; "File open failed". I've found that sometimes having smoothing on some objects can cause this, but at the moment there seems no explaination for why it won't save properly. Any ideas?

 

[muffins]

Has anybody encountered the message, while saving in the designer; "File open failed". I've found that sometimes having smoothing on some objects can cause this, but at the moment there seems no explaination for why it won't save properly. Any ideas?

I used to get that all the time with my old computer after a few hours of modelling for some reason, but I've never had so much as a hicup on my new computer. The only thing that I can think of is that it might be an issue with low memory

Smoking Mirror's gunflash method works fine for me, but then I don't use spotlights.

 

[The Great Apple]

Firstly let me say I worked out the solution to this problem shortly after posting (always the way...), so I require no help.

I was busy texuring along, doing fixed maps on a shape which roughly resebles a cuboid. I'd decided that flattening it out, then bending it back into shape was beyond me, so I decided to do a map for each face.

At first it worked, and all was going fine, but as I continued the textures started doing weird things, blurring vertically, and other odd things which just look silly. Now it seems that turning the map into a fixed to map is the source of this problem, as planar maps work just fine, and I'm pretty sure that specifically, it objects to a vertex having 2 (or 3) maps fixed to it.

Does anybody have any clever solutions/workarounds, or am I going to have to bend it all up into one plane, and use one fixed to texture?

EDIT: I'm going to try extruding each face out a tiny itty bit, and applying the texture to that. I *think* that should work.

EDIT 2: Ok, it worked, consider this cry for help redundant

 

[Dease]

I've been experimenting with making a static wall unit for the past few days with OFX, the model is done but now I've run into a serious problem with OFX
I'm pretty sure this has to with what neomega was referring to about OFX's lack of orthographic projection.
Basically, my problem is that the walls will never connect seamlessly since the wall segment gets smaller as it is farther from the camera. I've attached an enlarged pic of what I'm talking about, using a perfect cube (perfect in the designer that is )
So I'm wondering, is there any sort of work-around to this problem? I'm not too keen on the idea of scaling the whole thing in the designer though

 

[muffins]

There's a way to make it less obvious if it helps. Move your cameras way out and set their zoom way up.

 

[Dease]

There's a way to make it less obvious if it helps. Move your cameras way out and set their zoom way up.

Thanks for the tip muffins!, That method works perfectly, though now i have a 18500mm lens