What's up everyone? It's been a while since I posted here, mainly because I forgot about this site. I remembered it yesterday, mainly because once upon a time I uploaded some models here. They were built in Truespace, back when I used that software. Man, it seems like it's been ages. Due to corrupt backups and whatnot, I haven nothing left of my Truespace days and there were at least a couple models I wanted to revisit. But, it's a pill to remember how I did something that I never rendered orthos of. Then it hit me: 3D Gladiators. I uploaded things.
So, I raided the models section for stuff that I made and uploaded what seems like a lifetime ago.
But, I don't use Truespace, I haven't used it in years. I use Lightwave. Caligari's .cob format was never an easy one to convert. It isn't well received by other software. I downloaded a converter that wouldn't even import it. I thought I'd gotten somewhere when an online converter seemed to like the format. But, when I exported it to formats that Lightwave would import, the models imported all messed up. (this is why I hate conversions) Finally, I wound up actually finding a download of Truespace 7.61. After figuring out how to do basic stuff like load a mesh from older versions of Truespace, then I had to find a format that Truespace could export to and Lightwave could import. I finally struck paydirt, and this was the result after a bit of fixing nonplanar and flipped faces:
All things considered, I don't think it turned out bad at all. It was built in 2009 using software from 1998 then imported into software from 2018 in 2020.
Obviously, the materials had to be redone, but that was a given. I briefly considered making new textures, but the ones from my original model hold up OK, so I used them. This is a conversion after all, not a remake. The saucer maps are 1900 pixels wide, a lot smaller than the 4k maps I use these days and they're .jpg images instead of .png, but they work fine. The only map I made yesterday was the impulse engine glow map, as I don't have the one that was used originally. I also did new bussard collector guts. I used to fake a lot of that stuff with textures, but that's now how I roll these days. So, I modeled some lights and blades.
After a few hours of messing with materials, this is what I wound up with:
So, that's where it sits right now. All fixed up and ready to play with in Lightwave 2018 (or newer.) Since this one went so well and I downloaded some of my other older stuff, I plan to convert some of my other meshes too.
