-- Christian Cox, Spaceship Designer

Creating spaceships can be dificult, especially in a spline based package.

But once you develop certain technqiues it becomes easier. In this I will discuss

Spaceship making techniques that I use.

Always bevel anything mechanical, it just looks better, but don't go crazy with

beveling use it to a depth that looks right. If it doesn't look right, then it probably

isn't right. What you want to for beveling in Animation:Master is to do it before

the entire model is done, let's say we have a block; When you model the block

you will want three CPs on the edges (allowing roundness) then when you extrude

the box, it will be beveled. Also, a good thing to do is, on the side of the box, select

and extrude out some then scale it down. This will make your ships better, and more

photorealistic, just don't over do it.

A term commonly used in spaceship modeling (both CGI and Traditional) is the

word 'Nurnie'. What is a Nurnie, no it's not one of the Teletubbies, it's a small

block of detail. Miniscule and insignifiant (but not that insignifigant...) Nurnies

will help define your ship. It adds that much more realism, and when you get

to be a master at nurnies, then your ships will be very good and stand out.

Also only put nurnies where they look right, if they don't, then take em off

or move them.

Getting the right degree of hardness on edges in AM is hard. most people's

ships in AM look too hard, too flat. But there are some tips to make them

better. If you have seen my ships, you will notice that mine have nice hard

edges but have a touch of softness. How is this done? Well, what I do is

select certain parts of the model that I want to look like this, and then

hit the 'Curve Spline' button and goto the Properties panel and set

the Magnitude to around 45 - 78, then that gives it a hard/soft look.

Play around with the mag options and you'll get the hang of it.

For deck lights you will need to use lens flares, so here's how to get

some nice ones:

Select a kind of Glow (Such as Camcorder)

Take off the Beams (Beams set to None)

Then Take off Reflections (Reflections None)

That used leave you with a nice glowing light,

with out those annoying beams and reflections =)

Some people might wonder what's the best solution for Thrusters,

well there are so many types, there's the kind we see on today's

Spaceships, and then there's the imaginary Core's that glow, radiate

and spin, and also there's the kind that are just large holes in the back

of the ship. I prefer the large holes in the back, cover with a small 'Lamp

Shade' like cover. To make these holes, you can either model them in,

or use a boolean operation. To make the covers, just lathe a lamp shade

and add some Nurnies on them. For glow just use lens flares, with or

without Beams, but no reflections. But for the cores, just take a sphere

and add some rotating segments (If you saw contact, and noticed the

Vegan's Transport unit that was recieved on Earth through a radio

transmission you will notice the spinning units on the machine, this

is what you will want to make around the core to generate a 'warp

field' or whatever you want it to be)

So far I haven't got great results out of materials on ships, but if you

want, I would reccomend the Turbulence Materials, these can be

used to add grim, disgusting dirt on your ships, but for the panels,

it looks like it's using the boxes in Photopaint or Photoshop.

Many like to build Organics, and ships as well, so they might as well

model Organic Ships too. the best solution to these are Lathing, and

Lofting (The AM Loft tool can be found for free, for a link to it

goto Jim's page: http://www.hash.com/users/jsherwood/ and then click

'Tutorials' and then Utilities and you'll find it) I am by no means an

Organic Ship modeler, so this is coming from a half experienced Organics

modeler (Sorry Hard Core Organic Ship modeler!) So you might want

to try and develop these skills using spaceship techniques and organic

modeling techniques. But I plan to do an Alien ship soon.

For you violence-hunry people who want to add guns to they're ships,

well here's some tips:

Always make the weapons look real.

Make them heavy, and big.

Never just put a pipe on the end of your ship.

And add some turrents for 360 degree firing.

For shots, just use lens flares <with Beams>

Hope this helped, stay turned for the next set and have

fun modeling!

-- Christian Cox

His webpage: http://www.hash.com/users/cox

His e-mail: ender3d@juno.com

Christian Started computer graphics at the age of

Eleven, at the age of Twelve he got intrested in 3D

and purchased a copy of Martin Hash's 3D Animation,

He lives in Tennessee, plays games and animates and model

all day. He is currently 13, and in a few weeks will be 14.