[bobbtmann]

Okay, so I've started the normal map. I've created a texture in photoshop ( the modulations are fairly subtle, so they might not come across in the image). The overall temperature is warm, but I might add some cooler colours into it. Depends what it looks like. Don't worry about the panels, they'll be more than they are right now.

As for this miracle window, I don't think I'll be touching it. It gives the ship a personality that's lost when it's shrunken. I'm not saying that the Carrack is a great design, but the scale of the window seems to suite it visually. Make the window smaller like in Darksaber's, and the entire ship just becomes mediocre and unmemorable. However, if someone wants to change the window later I won't try to stop them.

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[brandx0]

Smooth groups need some taking care of for sure, and being as it seems there's little to no smoothing involved, I'd imagine that the sensor dish and bubbles on the side still have way too many sides.

[chief1983]

I agree.  It is, however, still a very pretty boat.  Ship.

[bobbtmann]

Smooth groups need some taking care of for sure, and being as it seems there's little to no smoothing involved, I'd imagine that the sensor dish and bubbles on the side still have way too many sides.

Don't worry, brandx0. I'll remove some of the polygones on the bubble and the dish soon enough.

[brandx0]

I would suggest doing so before you get into texturing, otherwise it could screw up your UVs quite easily

[bobbtmann]

So I've simplified the reactor bubble things, but I can't say that I'm happy with the effect. The profile gets all angular, and I don't really reduce the poly count by an awful lot. This cruiser as it is right now only has about 4500 faces, and that's before I reduce the bubbles. I've posted the before and after image of the bubble so you can see the difference.


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[Vasudan Admiral]

Leave them high detail.
4500 is around the polycounts of fighters, which that leaves you with up to around 5-8000 more polys to play with for a ship of this size before it begins to be a bit unnessecary. And even then, going well above that kind of polycount (as long as it's well used) is no problem in most cases, and will become less of a problem over time.

Looks great, keep it up!

[brandx0]

I never meant the comment about the bulbs being too high poly as to mean that the entire ship should be low poly.  I meant it more that if you reduced the number of sides on the bulbs you could add in detail elsewhere.

[bobbtmann]

Well, it's a bit light on polygones but it's a heavyweight when it comes to texture. 4096x4096.

[chief1983]

Wow, that's a big map.  Is there that much detail on that thing?

[bobbtmann]

Yeah, it does seem to be a pretty big map. I don't think my computer can even use it, since I have to reduce the resolution by half in order to see it in game. Otherwise it gets these weird striations and stuff.

[chief1983]

I would probably use 1/4 that, tops.  Could probably make do with 1/8 of that (1024x2048).

[Flipside]

Absolute maximum size for maps should really be 2048 x 2048. Whilst many of the newest cards will handle 4096, transferring the data for a texture between the graphics card memory and the CPU is one of the most time-consuming parts of 3D rendering from a system POV. The larger the texture, the longer it takes to transfer.

In truth, the system is far more forgiving of poly-count than texture resolution.

[bobbtmann]

Alright then, the map sized will be reduced and polygone count will be increased. I'll be increasing the polygone count mostly by tacking little things onto the hull to break up large areas. I have noticed, however, that where two objects connect it gets very jagged and when two parellel planes are fairly close to each other there's this shimmering effect when my fighter moves out. Is this a problem with the model, or with my computer? I've noticed the shimmering effect on the high resolution Deimos when I am at a distance, as well.

Please note: Though the purple paint job looks cool, it's actually imperial blue. Oh well.

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[brandx0]

Imperial Blue =/= Purple...

If you wanted to include any colours in the paint scheme (which personally I wouldn't) I'd suggest star destroyer grey and perhaps some TIE fighter blue.  That's about it, as they're the only colours the Empire seems to use in the movies.  Ultimately I'd just go with plain grey.

[TopAce]

I agree. Gray is more menacing and natural.

It sort of makes no sense to paint a warship blue.

[Herra Tohtori]

Colour doesn't always imply paint. It could be just different surface material or even a different batch of whatever those ships consist of. Though I agree, no one in their right mind would take the effort to paint a capital ship sized vessel... *cough*errantventure*cough*

At any rate, matte gray implies paint way more than simple brushed or even polished metallic finish (though brushed makes more sense as it removes most of the glints that you hardly want).

[Turambar]

http://www.iaw.on.ca/~btaylor1/Carrack.html

[bobbtmann]

Well, this ship is considerably smaller than the errant venture. As using chemical reactions to blue the surface, one would assume that these ships are using an alloy or some material that isn't highly reactif. I'm pretty sure the Carrack can operate in atmosphere, so it would rust if it weren't.

Who knows, maybe the empire started painting Carrack cruisers as a PR thing, to show everyone their fun and adventurous side.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Carrack_Cruiser_FFno106.jpg

[MarkN]

Taking about colouring the surface, in my field (gas turbines) we use some of the least reactive metals known (Nickel-chrome or Nickel-Aluminium), but these componenets are sometimes grey (raw metal), sometimes white (thermal barrier coating), and simetimes gold (Titianium nitride impact coating). The same thing could be done gor starship hull plates.
On the other hand, the apparently arbitrary 'stipe' along the hull looks more like an identification marking than a function coating.