Development > Artwork

Possible new craft

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Psawhn:
While reading through the Wiki, I got inspired. :D

I don't know if there has been much decided for any hybrid craft (terran-built with alien tech) but this ship here was partly a practice in organic modelling techniques.
(Click on the thumbnails for full screen.)




And Orthoganal with wires:



The engines would be antimatter, and they are centered around the center of gravity. They can rotate up 90 degrees, and down 125 degrees allowing it to hover.

The wings were designed to be really curvy. I actually sort of wanted to be reminiscent of a saucer, but it ends up looking like a manta ray or something. :P
The curviness has something to do with alien nanopolymer baking, if I recall correctly from the Wiki.

The two holes on the top are for, uh, whatever. I was thinking some kind of internal "zomg lazers pewpew" or maybe particle cannons or something.

The textures are garbage. I was messing around with vertex paint in Blender. I don't even know if it's an alien or human craft. ;)

So... is there any room for this? :)


Edit: The polycount is quite high: 14k faces. Blender has decimation tools (and I can just turn subdivision down ;) ) if it needs to be way lower for the game.

Mattn:
it looks very nice - but let's wait what our storywriters say ;-)

btw. the lower the polycount - the better for the game :-D

Hoehrer:
I can just re-iterate what mattn said here. Looks very good, but we always need to get this sort of stuff confirmed/checked up with Winter (our story-writer among other things) so it fits into the rest of the storyline of the game.

And of course polycount of 14k is kinda high (I think we could use it that way), but I see lots of places where it can be reduced quite a bit without hurting overall shape to much.

I can help you here - or in any blender related stuff  for that matter - if you like. Just contact me.

I'll see what would be a good polycount for such a craft.
If you have the model finished on your side and we get the ok from Winter i can try to make it usable in the game.

Werner

Winter:
It's a nice model (although obviously it wouldn't be able to hover with just two engines at the back, as it would tip over ;) ), I think we could use it if the polycount was reduced to something more manageable. Such a simple shape shouldn't take 14,000.

It will also need some serious texturing work to make it look good, but beyond that, I'd be happy calling it the 'Stiletto 2'.

Regards,
Winter

Psawhn:
Actually, I tried to make sure the engines were over the center of gravity. That was one of the main goals from the start.

Well, I did just eyeball it, so it probably isn't over the exact center of mass. I wish I knew a way to calculate the volume of a manifold mesh in blender.
Oh well, let's pretend there's some really heavy stuff on the end of the wings to keep it in balance. ;) Tha or I can move the engines forward a bit more, or add a thruster in the belly.

It has 14,000 polys because I have subsurf subdivision turned on. I was mainly thinking of applying subsurf and using the decimator modifier in blender to lower the polycount, to try to preserve as much of the curviness as I can. (That mesh you see in the ortho views is the optimized subsurf - original polycount but curvy to fit the subsurf.)
Of course, I'd hold on to the high-poly mesh for renders and pictures and stuff if needed. :)


Oh, are there any requirements for the weapon mounts? Or any other kind of module mount for that matter?
I was thinking internal weapons bays on either side of the fuselage. Those holes on the top would reach into the bay. Cannons, lasers, particle beams, etc. would mount inside the bay but come through the holes.
If something like a missile is mounted, the bays can open up and the missile would drop down, like in an F-117 or F-22.

I'm not too sure about TR-20s. I could enlarge the gun hole to let them shoot out, they could be put on a deployable arm, or maybe they just can't mount.


As for textures, I need a bit of guidance. :)
Is the hull built out of alien alloys, or advanced terran carbon-polymers or whatever? What colour is it? Does the forming process create colour gradients?
Does paint stick well to the surface? Radar-absorbing paint?
Is there a defined PHALANX colour scheme? Would the hull be mostly bare metal with paint accents/labels/decor, or would the entire thing be painted? (Like black radar-absorbing paint.)
Would the ship go into space? Does it need RCS thrusters? (Funny thing about that - if the engines weren't in the center of gravity, it could use gimballing and differential thrust to maneuver in space)
Does it need heat tiles for re-entry? (Probably not, considering alien alloys, but it's still better to make sure.)
Do the PHALANX mechs wash the ship down and repaint it regularly? Or should the textures be a bit battle-worn and ragged?

Edit: Oh, something else. Should the wings change shape? I can probably find a way to bake that into blender's shape keys, in case the wings need to stretch out for slow flight or pull in for quicker flight or re-entry or something.

Edit#2:
I should have checked what it looks like without subsurf anyways. :D

774 Polygons. Many of those are quads, though. I don't know if quake2 model format supports quad-polygons or if it needs to be triangles.

If I turn it to triangles only, it's 1486 triangles:

It looks pretty ugly with only triangles, though. :P

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