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chrono

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Posts posted by chrono

  1. I don't think it's necessarily a market issue. I think ADV has simply been trying to do to much and has met with a lot of failure.

    Oh it's most definatly a market issue! Nearly every single manga distrubtor is reporting loses from light to heavy.

    Tokoyo Pop, a manga giant, has re-sheaculed(bleh!spl) their line-up for a lower release rate.

    CPM Manga has also done the same, going so far as to stop over 50% of their releases totally.

    DarkHorse, though having merged Studio Proteous, has only 2-3 manga lines(including their anthology) running now with is down from their roughly 10.

    Viz, a succesful company that's always kept pace with DarkHorse, has merged with a larger company even though they had revamped their manga line-up to be cheaper to produce(long before DH did). But now since Viz has merged their manga-line may see some type of scrambling with non-profit titles getting the ax.

    Del Ray, is gonna be fairly immune to market flux because it doesn't depend on a single fan based market to thrive.

    Now this is not counting the 4-5 smaller publishers that have stopped publishing, together they hold something like 60 titles that may never see a english release date. Also this doesn't count all the titles from the above publishers so the total manga count that may never see more then a single english volume is about 150 titles.

    Face it folks it's not about your hate of ADV. The ENTIRE market has crested and is beginining it's decline.

  2. Actually what has really happened is that manga was a FAD and several company's when under just like the company's did when the Internet bubble popped.

    ADV just adds to a nicely growing list of publishers that have had to make serious cuts, close down, or merge with others because of the Tokoyo Pop manga glute.

    Unfortunatly during the last 2 years MANY manga were liscenced this means that ALL of those company's that have closed shop, merged, or are encountering money problems will not be releasing some, and in some cases ALL, of their manga for several years if ever.

    Recently the HUGH series of 3x3 Eyes was cancelled by Darkhorse and right now their manga line is in a right mess. DC is under SUPER HEAVY fanboy assault for their childish, and highly ill advised, treatment of Tenjo Tenge. They assault is so heavy in fact that it was recently subject to an article in a company trade magazine.

    It's beginning to look like the manga industry has cycled again and by this years end we maybe seeing some major company's fall-off the map.

    Viz is already gone. DC's still in it's shakey first year. Del Ray is a publishing giant that's got all the right series currently, but most importantly knows that if people want something NOW you gotta deliver it!

    Really sad thing though that their really isn't that much 'must have' anime on this years horizon either. <_<

  3. An impressive number of cars. But not an impressive selection.

    Once again this game is 90% ricer, not a bad thing most of the time, but really lets face it when you leave out so many fundenmental car styles(ummm like where's most of the american models and german models at? again?) the term simulation goes out the window. I'll never buy into the liscencing agruement, because the people who don't want their vehicles in the game simply don't what their vehicles to be compared and clearly shown in poor light.

    Personally I'm still trying to get over the ample stupidity that is the inital FF to FR jump. Virtual no FR car that has less then 250hp can even compete, unless it's VERY heavily tuned that is and then your spending tons of time down in the FF curcuits.

    First Car:

    '90 Honda Civic CX SiR, moderate tuning FF (one of my favorite Beasts of the East)

    '83 Levin, Ultimate Turbine Lv5 FR (sue me I happen to enjoy Intial D)

    Best thing about GT4 is the wind sounds! Absolutly true!

  4. The Woz, just turn on your Collsion Detection. This will prevent ANY mesh penetration from happening within the scene. However any time you use a plane with a hole made by a boolean you'll have problems. HOH!

    Oh and since your a TS'er go and try out Silo. I bought it and it simply fly's when it comes to modelling. It's worth the purchase because you get free version updates until the versions go to the next number(1.9-2.0) and just about everything is customizable!!!

  5. You wouldn't believe how happy that statement makes me feel Phyrox!! :D

    That was on of the largest worry's I had when I started building this ship. I'm very glad that it came through! :)

    To answer your question:

    Scale can be brought out by simply working downwards, by using few large details and as you get smaller with your details you increase their amount. The key is to limit yourself since it's very easy to get crazy with the small details and to make those smaller details fade into the whole with distance. That means smaller and swallower panels(from 3D and Real Life models) or thinner and more same toned paint as the models base color.

    However my style of detailing is borne thru MANY comic book influences.

  6. *dances in a happy circle*

    It's DONE!

    Well at least model building-wise that is. I've decided after lots of viewing and weighing of various factors that I'll not build in the hull weapons. I decided this mainly after seeing the final non-weaponed face count. Which is just a touch over 1.35 million and still thier is faceting on the model! <_< If I dealt with the faceting and added the weapons then the final count would be over 3.28 million. A totally unacceptable number given my computers capicity. I won't be texturing it anytime soon and may revisit the mesh later and build it in NURBS instead of polys.

    Soooo enjoy the following final images. And please don't complain about the links, all of these images are over 190kb and are 2400*1800 in size so there is no way I'll be posting them in image tags here.

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...TopFINISHED.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...PerFINISHED.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...PerFINISHED.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...earFINISHED.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...ideFINISHED.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...ontFINISHED.jpg

    .

    ..

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    ......

    ...

    *begins pondering just which Zen to build next* :ph34r:

  7. Well I've been in a lovely little place called vertex editing hell. I've fixed all of the known errors and have have started work on weapon placement(soooooo don't ask for a weapons exposed shot until the end) and trench greebling. Also I've kicked that stupid phong shader to the street and it's back to white/gray for awhile. Besides it was killing the render times. :/

    Ok now with the imagery I've gotten the trench missile silo's (built to be animatable) and their greebles done and am working on the under nose and areas around the white area. This image was a test render to see if the new greebles blended with the reat of the details. Oh and how they do!!!

    Now on to the rest of the work.

    ZenPicketupdate22605a.jpg

  8. Thanks Hiriyu!

    It's a labor of love, so I'm doing the best I can with what I have. :)

    After reviewing my research imagery, and hearing you say that it's pretty rare, I've figured that the trench I designed will work out well with some adjustments and additions without becomes largely different from offical material.

  9. ....man we're lazy bums...

    Yeah kinda. ;)

    I got pulled away by the editing of my main project and RL in general. But I'm going to be working on it this week so I 'should' have it finished, as in sent to The Major, before Monday. I won't be busy with it's older brother for awhile, well except for roughing out designs. B))

  10. *rubs chin ponderingly*

    Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllly.............

    *has a few friends with Rhino* B))

    The ideal scale would be somewhere in the 25-35 centimeter range. I'll let you do the math.

    Ok before I sign off for the next few days, I'm gonna need trench detail information/screen captures before I even attempt any work on the trench! All I have is one example of such detail and it shows none of the weapons!

  11. Status

    Level 2 Detail is 90% complete

    Most of the ships hull is finished detail-wise except for the larger bits, the trench sensors, and some greebles for the large black areas on the upper hull. Those will be tricky and take time to do right. I'll probably not do anymore large renders until it's finished, modeling-wise, because all of that new detail has pushed the poly count to 936,000 faces and is making large renders time consuming! <_<

    Now I'm gonna work on correcting several errors that have popped up on the hull's mesh and finalizing the Level 2 details. Level 3 details come next.

    ZenPicketupdate21605.jpg

  12. Letting sit fallow is a good/bad idea.

    Good because it let's people have a breather from Trek in general.

    Bad because if they do bring it back in the next 3 years it'll be in direct competition with the upcoming Star Wars show.

    The Ugly, because the net SF sites will be swamped with ST vs SW fanboys and the cosplayers at the Cons will go nuts!

  13. >EXO<, thanks! ';)'

    Well after a MASSIVE program clusterF^CK and 8 hours of redoing everything that I had lost I've finished laying in the minor panel lines. I also found a VERY quick way of applying the next 5 greeble passes(Thank you Geometery Paint!), so I should have the Level 2 details finished by Wednesday and maybe earlier if things go well!

    Anyways here's a Level 2 detail scale VS distance test. The large image is about 50 meters away from the hull and the small image is roughly 350.

    ZenPicketupdate21305.jpg

  14. Old News:

    Level 1: Major panel lines

    Status: cleaning up errors and finalizing

    That's right Level 1. Altogether their are 4 total levels of addtional detail.

    Level 1 Major panel lines

    Level 2 Minor panel lines

    Level 3 Weapons intergration

    Level 4 Trench details

    New News:

    Current Status

    Level 1: Complete

    Level 2: 70% finished with pass 1(out of 6)

    I got tired of building panel details(and the repeated crashs) and did some material testing. Ignore the errors on the right side of the ship, they are mirroring light artifacts caused by the engines materials. The hull material I'm not exactly happy with but it's fairly close to what I want.

    Also I finally bought a new 3D program so I can finally fix some of the annoying errors on this ship. It also means that all of the other ships(or nearly anything else for that matter) will be built in that program.

    ZenPicketupdate21205a.jpg

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