Question: Ships leaving the Void

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous
April 24, 2008 - 6:54pm
Assuming a ship does not want to decelerate and stop in a system how close can they drop out of the Void near a planet? Is there a minimum safe distance?
(I'm writing an article about faster than light torpedoes. The idea is they are launched from one system to another, drop out of the Void and hit a target before the target can react.)

Side note; remember the worm hole that was created when Capt. Kirk went to warp speed before clearing the solar system?
Comments:

Imperial Lord's picture
Imperial Lord
May 7, 2008 - 12:44pm

AZ Gamer - your last post intrigues me.

What is the best way to learn CGI as you describe?

I have always thought that I have had decent writing talent, but I have NEVER had any kind of visual artistic talent at all.  What would be the first steps to take?


And yes, the station blowing up does look dang cool!


Will's picture
Will
May 7, 2008 - 2:34pm
The same way you get to Carnegie Hall, ImpLord....

Seriously.

I say this because I'm still practicing myself, drawing the ships in Animator and finishing the images up using Paint...not the greatest software, but I forgot to back up my GIMP when I switched computers, and downloading over dial-up....weeelll, let's just say that's not an option.

BTW, I can't even draw a stick figure.  

"You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so."


—Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation

AZ_GAMER's picture
AZ_GAMER
May 7, 2008 - 2:54pm
Imperial Lord, I personally recommend getting started with Daz Studio and Bryce 5.5 they are both FREE at Daz3d.com. The interface is friendly and you can usually get started modeling fast. There is a lot of free content available and supported by this product. It is very powerful as an entry level software with lots of features. The company makes it's money by selling add on's and products to use in the software. Every week they post a new freebie product. Once you get the hang of that and if you want to spend some credits you could look at something a little more fancier like Maya, 3DS, Hexagon, or Carrera. The pro's often use lightwave and its $$$ but worth it if you your doing industrial level work. The first time I got a hold of DAZ I said to myself, ok it's free, it'll just take up some space on my hard drive and maybe I can squeze some 3d human shaped figures out of it. Then I opened it for the first time, loaded a male figure, posed it and said YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING! IT"S FREE! THIS IS AWESOME! In the past year I have probably spent about 300.00 on add ons and have maxed out my antiquated 40 gig drive several times with tons of content, some free and some I purchased.

There also is 3d magic and blender which are also free. I use 3d magic to convert 3ds files to obj format so I can use them in Daz studio but other than that I 'm not really sure how all of its functions work. Like Will said GIMP is awesome as a finishing tool! However, I am not very tech savy and I haven't found a source for gimp on the web where the program is complete assembled. I tried putting the source packets together once and my computer laughed at me, it was quite a humiliating experince and gave up on that attempt.

Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
May 7, 2008 - 5:19pm

I'm using Google SketchUp 6. I have not used other products to compare.
Gimp is awersome to pimp out stuff.

Ever see a dralasite with a gimp? Did you know it's entirely possible. :-)
Some membranes don't heal so well.




Imperial Lord's picture
Imperial Lord
May 8, 2008 - 7:15am
Should I take a class or just try to self-teach?

AZ_GAMER's picture
AZ_GAMER
May 8, 2008 - 1:11pm
Using Daz studio is easy enough to self-teach and there are tutotials available on its site. You can even animate your creations in Daz studio but it saves them as an AVI format which will play on most media players but is not a very universal format. As far a taking classes, I'm very much in favor of any kind of training of education but it definitely isn't necessary to use DAZ. Once you get the hang of the interface for DAZ, Bryce is not very difficult to learn. They are both made by the same company but Bryce uses a little bit different interface and is used for larger lanscape type images. Often I will design a background in Bryce and then import the image into Daz studio to render the 3d character models in front of the background. Bryce is a little trickier but has some awesome customization tools that can get very involved. I was self-taught on how to use Daz Studio and so I know that it can be done without classes (plus the trial and error though sometimes frustrating is really fun, occassionally you make an accidental innovation or stroke of genius trying to do something else)

Will's picture
Will
May 8, 2008 - 2:50pm
Bob Ross wrote:
There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.
Usually, self-teaching's best...and a never-ending process....

"You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so."


—Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation

elpotof's picture
elpotof
May 11, 2008 - 11:04pm
daz3d is an excellent choice; i personally use poser, but if you're starting out now, use daz - it's free. Bryce is free now? damn, i bought this a few years ago, but never really got into it - methinks another look (in the future). Another good program to get you into 3d is wings3d (This is what got me into the 3d scene)- it's free and there are plenty of tutorials to get you going. The manual is handy for explaining the basics, but it does have it's limitations.
 
Like AZ_Gamer said, get stuck into the software (with relevant manual) and with patience, it'll pay off. There are plenty of manuals and tutorials waiting to sook up your money; unless you're wanting to learn a specific skill, I wouldn't bother. It'll take all your time getting used to the basics and that can be challenging enough!