I've been working on this spaceship model- and I can't think of what to do with it. It seems to me that something's missing, but of course I can't figure out what... I know- it's not textured yet- all the ones I've tried so far (procedural and pictures) don't look very good. Any comments/suggestions would be VERY helpful!! Gecko

Cool Model! I think you need to UV Map it! and give it a good tex map! of corse if you made this in bryce, that won't work. But if you made it in any modeling program,.... Spike

That looks like the work of a very patient Bryce user.. which you've shown yourself to be. Unfortunately, Bryce is a pain in the ass for texturing, especially w/ pictures. I agree.. it looks like it's missing something, but I can't put my finger on just what. that big area under the guns could use some breaking up I think.. perhaps add some small fighter ship hangars, make it like a carrier or something... Dunno, just some ideas, Rosh

Spike: yes it's in bryce... so one tex map won't work! arg!!! Rosh: I think you read my mind or something, cause I put a 'rack' of small fighters under the curved section of the main hull. Of course, they kinda got buried when I added the back section... And now that I think of it there are way to many turrets there- of course it'll be kinda hard to work quickly seeing as it takes about 20 minutes to load/save already... ... still perplexed for textures though... i have a bunch of REALLY cool metals, but none of them seems to fit... oh well Gecko

How bout two big cannons under your ship, one on the left the other on the right. Or anything under the ship, it feels... kinda, I don't know why but weird. Sure is a nice model though, hope you find a way to texture it. I think I saw a good tutorial on 3d cafe for that kinda stuff.

I think it needs thin, sleek wings (doesn't sweep out very far so there's a steep angle.) It looks a bit too blocky as is. It's a great model. One cheat that may work to get a texture: Position the camera so it is directly above the ship and shine a really bright light on it. Make the ground and sky black. Render and Prt Scr the image (assuming you're on a PC. Haven't a clue for Macs.) Take the image into a photo editing program and Paste it as a new image. Save it as 1024 x 1024. Make a new terrain in Bryce and load the picture as the terrain. Export the terrain as an .obj. Now UV map it. You may be able to use this map for texturing the original model, or the newly created terrain may be good enough to use with the map. (I can't take any credit for this idea. It's on someone's site for making a bug.) Hope this works!

The Bryce pic in terrain editor will lose some detail. But this is a good idea. I will try for sure. Sounds like it might work better on components of model. The ship looks as though it has an unnatural drag in the rear to me. I would start there and move to the wings idea. If your gonna have guns, I would place them more strategically. Good luck.

Thanks for all your suggestions!!! I'll work on it... and hopefully get an updated pic up here in the near future. I like the 'wings' idea- but this is supposed to be an 'old' style battleship- and a huge one! I'm not sure if wings would look right... Again, I'm trying to model (in part) keeping in mind what form would best fit the function. In space, there's no drag, so shape isn't a problem (except for artistic purposes ;). I do agree that the back looks a little odd. I should probably put the turrets on more stragically too- heavy firepower doesn't mean anything if it's all in the back Of course, if it were a truly well-designed spaceship it would have gunports on all sides, and would be very close to symmetrical (there is no 'up' in space)... but since this is an 'older' ship the builders still conform to the convential idea of a destroyer or battleship. Just one question- and I feel I should know this (but I don't ;)- what is UV mapping? Gecko

Even unfinished it's first class, and better than anything in "Dune" (which had some good stuff).

I think your model is great, and as everyone else states, a good texture will finish it off... However, it doesn't (imho) need anything added. The way you rendered th picture makes it look as if you have only one side part, and I honestly think that is what makes it looks "wierd". Other than that, I think the model looks pretty good for a bryce creation, and also, it looks good for a "slow moving, destorier" If it is a fighter however, use, some sweeped down wings might work better.

Thanks for everyone's comments!!! Well, I've made a preliminary texture (almost the same as the "RAS Maelstrom" which is in the bryce gallery somwhere), and I've changed the two back sections a little. I'll post it as soon as it's rendered!! Gecko