Blender 3d Ship Design

Could you please explain how you got that into MilkShape ? I tried for awhile with no luck.

I'm not sure how MilkShape handles textures. My original .blend file had 20 or so materials, each with textures applied. To get this to work in MilkShape, I had to crush all of my separate materials into one lump material.

I'm guessing you can only use 1 texture map in MIlkShape? The one I sent is to bump the normals out and give the effect of hull seams.

Ok, not at home right now, but I was able to work on the mesh with multi materials...

Here is the ms3d version with all materials... I'm having problems exporting the textures, so I guess this ship want have the camo or hull panel texture.

Blenders exporter is still a little buggy right now... hopefully when things get ironed out, it will be eaiser to export to ms3d.

I'm including the uv map, but for some reason the texture isn't exporting, maybe you can figure out how to add it.

My next idea for a ship is to replace the silly starting ship.

The Hammerhead would be an ultra light fighter, extremely fast and nimble, but weak weapons and shields.

I see that name is already taken... hmm...maybe the Dagger ?

Ok, it took awhile to figure out the Blender exporter...

so far I learned you need to copy each material individually to the ms3d plugin, and name each material as well !

Textures need to be uv mapped and saved as a separate image file.

I believe this is the final result... I cannot figure out how to effect the normals in Milk Shape. I've included the HULL PLATING map, maybe someone can figure out how to apply it. Wost case scenario, just add it to the mesh AFTER the camouflage map to imitate hull plating seams.

Below is an example of a texture mapped to the NORMALS to give the illusion of seams

That looks awesome !!! Is that a paint job, or a texture that effects the NORMALS ?

I'm thinking of making a mega-battleship... but not sure about size restrictions in the game.

Is it ok to make the ship big enough for other ships to fly through ?

It's still a very rough draft right now.

New battleship is coming along nicely... just struggling with uv mapping and bump maps.

Adding materials to the city's on the forward wings is going to take forever ! Coloring the power-plant on the aft wing right now.

Quick question for the admin... do meshes have to be a continuous mesh ? Is is ok to have a ship that has objects floating near it ?

For example, is it ok to have a ship that has spheres floating near the wing tips, or do I have to physically attach the spheres to the wing to make one solid mesh ?