New Fighter Craft Render

[JonO]

This is a 3D model that I can light, and render from any angle. I am pretty please with the way this shot came out. Small Craft combat is an important element in the came, with two ship-types essentially large carriers.
   

[GrimFinger]

I think that it looks pretty good.

[Ramblurr]

Wow very nice. Did you make the model yourself? If so, with what program? What about the backdrop?

I'd love to have some nice icons or graphics for FH, but my skill in computer art is pretty much non existent, not to mention I just don't find it very fun/exciting.

[JonO]

Wow very nice. Did you make the model yourself? If so, with what program? What about the backdrop?

I'd love to have some nice icons or graphics for FH, but my skill in computer art is pretty much non existent, not to mention I just don't find it very fun/exciting.

Nope I bought it and learned its quirks in Poser a 3D Modeling program A lot of using Poser is learning to light the model well and my earliest design training was in theatrical lighting, so I had a leg up on its not inconsiderable learning curve.

Although I have a pretty decent design sense, I am not a graphic artist. But there are plenty of those out there and non-exclusive licenses are relatively inexpensive. The graphics available at low or no cost on the web are astounding.

Pretty much any graphic can be converted into an icon using Icofx which is free. For manipulating and combining graphics, I recommend Paint.Net which is shareware and not too hard to use. It has a group of devoted developers who create plugins for it (and you can roll your own if you wish since the app has an API and is written in .NET)

I'm trying to use graphics not to replace textual story telling but the way the pulp magazines I grew up reading did - as a spur to the imagination not a replacement. The same approach was taken by a lot of the pre-3D shooter computer games where they showed you an image, not a movie.

I find working with graphics to be relaxing. I try to do 8 hours @ day of actually advancing the code and which point my brain starts to bruise, but working on models uses totally different gray-matter muscles and is fun for me.