Ya texturing can be a load to learn but that ship looks pretty good and the texture might be simple enough to learn on.

While the model can be very simple the texture can add loads of detail so the 1st thing to decide is how detailed will the texture be. Most sins models use 1024x1024. That carrier I did up a few posts uses 512X1024 and my smaller ships use 512x512. Bigger the sheets, the more load on the games memory. I also work with a simple TGA sheet until I am done then I create the DDS's -cl, -nm and -da. I would recommend 512x512 to start.

Create a TGA image that is all black 512X512

Save to your XSI projects Pictures directory

Select the model and apply a top down UV [Property --> Texture Projection --> Planar XZ]

Open the UV editor [Alt + 7] and go to Clips --> Import Clip and select the black tga you created

The UVs will show the top and bottom polys OK in the UV editor but the sides will need to be flattened out. Experiment with some of the flattening tools and move the UVs around to best fit on the black image. 

Once you have the UVs flattened out, in the UV editor, go to Edit --> Stamp UV Mesh
This will give you a new black image with the outline of the UV's that you can start to paint.

Upload your OBJ with UVs so we can check your work. Or import your work to XSIs free mod tool so we can see and edit your scene file. Not many have XSIs 2012

myfist0, you can increase the intensity of the lights on your ship by opening the Material Manager (Ctrl-7), opening your material and cracking up the intensity value in the Incandescence section. You can type in a number greater than 1, this will overdrive it to your heart's content.

If you want really nice space renders, erasing your default scene light, setting up Environment lighting, Final Gathering (will make your model Incadescence self illuminate the ship as well), and some directional lighting (for sunlight, sharp shadows) will do wonders.

For top notch results you need to composit. Softimage can have separate render passes, and you can set up each one just right, then compose them into the final rendering using compositing software like Nuke or Softimage's built-in compositor (which I prefer since it's actually rather nice and I don't have to use a third party application).

By the way, for those of you interested in modelling organic ships, check out Sculptris from Pixologic. Just tried it and shaved about three hours off modeling. Won't do you much good with mechanical stuff, but mechanical is easy-peasy compared to organic.

I only wish I discovered it three months ago, would have been done with the mod already.

Thanks MS. I have actually turned the ship lights down in the final shot.

I am not actually using that method. I have the materials still set up the way the game wants but I added a ScalerImage node to the da

I can brighten the lights with the Alfa Strength but I turned it down. Probably have to change this once the da has more than just lights but it worked for me for now.   Hopefully it calls just the Alfa channel of the -da or I can add a tga of the lightmap.

The default light I keep but turn down from 0.75 to 0.0001 just for testing the lighting. As of now the Renders I want for icons and the window icon so I am not sure if I want all the shadows. I have been messing with it and still not sure. I do eventually want all the ships in 1 scene with a sun for directional lighting all inside a textured skybox. Maybe start animating. I would like a shot with the camera in the fighter cockpit, launching from the hangar bay and doing a flyby of the fleet.

Have no idea where to even begin compositing 

In Softimage, you open the compositor by View -> Layouts -> Compositing. It's really easy to use, since it's also node based like the material editor or ICE

Simple Xy battlecarrier.

Nice!

Finished up work on the heavy variant of the Gorekhan.

First, nice ass models. I do not want to mess with that heavy. Second, is that named for the Chancellor from Star Trek VI?

Just one of the only ship Xy concepts that has endured over 10 years of constant revisions to my universe. It is actually pronounced Gore-can for this name.

Still bad ass IskatuMesk...

That's actually the pronunciation for the chancellor, but I accept that there must be some slight difference. It would be cool as an homage all the same cause Klingons would kick over their mother to get a chance as a ship like that.

And now, the third evolution of the Gorekhan takes place in this supership-class monstrosity.

First, I would love other angles.

Two, how many polys. My lord, it's a monster.

Third, I think I just shat myself.

LOL

also awesome ship

21k quad right now, so pretty close to the limit.

simply awesomeness is what best describes that model.

I stand by my words

You know, as awesome as your models are, IskatuMesk, I have a little inward whimper every time I think of UV mapping them...

Myself, just finished testing out a new workflow: sculpting instead of modeling, auto retopology, some minor cleanup and  then this:

Look at the edgeflow on that puppy, the even quad distribution (8000 quads btw). And all I had to fix was like 15 of them, the rest was done automatically. I feel like a medieval stonemason who just discovered power tools! Can't wait to texture it.

Btw. this one will replace the earlier version I finished last week but wasn't at all happy with:

Now which one looks more like a badass elite drone you don't wanna mess with?

Oh yeah - the new version took like a hour from start to finish, and that's because I was learning how the tools work, in reality I could probably do something like that in 20-30 minutes. The old one took me close to three hours just to model due to all strip modeling I had to do on it.

The organics are vastly improved. It looks like something cut from a human body. With the right skin, that thing will be absolutely delicious. I imagine something as pretty as some models from Genesis Rising but without the crap gameplay.

Ooh yeah, Genesis rising has some sweet models. But yeah, I'm totally blown away with the possibilities. I can finally spend the majority of time actually shaping and texturing the ships, instead of duplicating polygons and tweaking vertices.

I can't update all the ships I did so far because I want to release the mod soon, but maybe I'll do a cosmetics patch later on and bring up all the ships to the same level. Gonna be a blast making the rest of the assets though!

It's a good thing I don't ever have to worry about that.

If I had the choice I would just tile all of it regardless, only mapping very specific points for things like weapons and such. But I don't have the choice so I just tile and forget about it.

The Emperor is basically complete. I had to greatly limit the weapons on this because I was very concerned about their attacks clipping through the quantum driver (the ring). I hate clipping, and without weapon arcs...

Really like that one Ishkatumek.

The four lateral cannons on each side should be sufficient for Sins.  Even if you do multi-targetting, you've got enough to have unique firepoints for several targets at once.  It looks like it's best suited for forward firing anyways, just from the shape, and you've got plenty of forward firing cannons incorporated.

Incidentally, your final render/shot of it looks much, much better than some of the earlier build shots.  It was always impressive, but this "finished" shot of it has convinced me that I quite like it.  Nice job.

-dolynick