lightning, exporting models

Okay two things here.
One I was wondering if someone had a good lightning model, the one in the gallery has a really weird perspective that isn't centered on it which makes it difficult to arrange it as I want.
Which leads into my second question. I want to know how to "create" a new model. For example for the time being I'm using a cone to get a semi decent version of what I want (attachment world below) but I don't know how to export the whole thing together (ie make the lighting parts literally sub parts of the cone like how clicking the plus next to a character would reveal subparts like a arm or a leg and clicking those subparts give you their subparts like upper arm and lower arm).
I'm trying to make a lightning ninja star for a for fun world right now, possibly to be used for a class assignment if the chance comes up.

Doubt that any of this really qualifies as "good" - but a few hints.

1. Check out Dick Baldwin's tutorial on lighting on his web page. It's good on the basics.

2. There are also a couple of good general lighting tutorials in the Blender tutorials. The information there applies to general 3D lighting, not just Blender.

3. If you are going to try for unusual light effects, delete the light that is placed automatically and place your own. I would also recommend not using a general directional light - as you note, it seems fairly unpredictable.

4. I ususally also make the sky dark and turn the world lighting way down - but this is an artistic choice.

5. Play with the "emissive" and "specular" parameteres (in seldom used properties) for the object being lit.

There is really no good way I know of to save a lighting setup other than to save the entire world. You can save the individual lights and a method to move them to their starting positions (see another of my posts in the forum) - but that's pretty cumbersome.

I played a bit with your world and have attached the result. Nothing great - but look at the light and parameter setups to see what I did do with the options.

Originally Posted by DrJim

Doubt that any of this really qualifies as "good" - but a few hints.

1. Check out Dick Baldwin's tutorial on lighting on his web page. It's good on the basics.

2. There are also a couple of good general lighting tutorials in the Blender tutorials. The information there applies to general 3D lighting, not just Blender.

3. If you are going to try for unusual light effects, delete the light that is placed automatically and place your own. I would also recommend not using a general directional light - as you note, it seems fairly unpredictable.

4. I ususally also make the sky dark and turn the world lighting way down - but this is an artistic choice.

5. Play with the "emissive" and "specular" parameteres (in seldom used properties) for the object being lit.

There is really no good way I know of to save a lighting setup other than to save the entire world. You can save the individual lights and a method to move them to their starting positions (see another of my posts in the forum) - but that's pretty cumbersome.

I played a bit with your world and have attached the result. Nothing great - but look at the light and parameter setups to see what I did do with the options.

Not lighting, lightning you know zap?

Originally Posted by DrJim

Doubt that any of this really qualifies as "good" - but a few hints.

1. Check out Dick Baldwin's tutorial on lighting on his web page. It's good on the basics.

2. There are also a couple of good general lighting tutorials in the Blender tutorials. The information there applies to general 3D lighting, not just Blender.

3. If you are going to try for unusual light effects, delete the light that is placed automatically and place your own. I would also recommend not using a general directional light - as you note, it seems fairly unpredictable.

4. I ususally also make the sky dark and turn the world lighting way down - but this is an artistic choice.

5. Play with the "emissive" and "specular" parameteres (in seldom used properties) for the object being lit.

There is really no good way I know of to save a lighting setup other than to save the entire world. You can save the individual lights and a method to move them to their starting positions (see another of my posts in the forum) - but that's pretty cumbersome.

I played a bit with your world and have attached the result. Nothing great - but look at the light and parameter setups to see what I did do with the options.

Not lighting, lightning you know zap?

Originally Posted by AJMstr

Not lighting, lightning you know zap?

Oopsv... ZAP! When you get old, sometimes your brain doesn't work right. But it still beats the other alternative.

Take a look at the thread http://www.alice.org/community/showt...ht=import+.ase and particularly at the last few postings on the first page. These will outline what you have to do to import objects into Alice in a hierarchial manner. Note that the only thing that works (other than importing a hierarchial model directly - see later) is to import .ase files as textures - strangely they actually come in as sub-objects (which you then can apply several actual textures to).

There are a few simple .ase objects included in my posting in the referenced thread - plus for simple objects, it's not very difficult to create your own. For what you want, you could probably get by with simple planes (like Alice' billboards) and just add textures the for the bolts and a "zap" or two.

If you feel like using Anim8or, each textured surface (at least for simple objects)comes in as a separate subobject - so if you want 3D but only want one level of hierarchy, that's not a bad way to work. (I recommend saving in .3ds format out of Anim8or and then using Biturn to get to .ase format. As I noted in the other posting, you can use 4DBlue to generate the .ase file as well - but it's a little more difficult. There have also been postings for other tools, including a nice recent one by ottar9919 on gmax.)

And don't neglect the "lighting" tricks I mentioned - even though you didn't ask about them. They can give you very nice effects with your bolts.