[Lynx]

Today it's up to me to unveil our newest addition to our growing collection of fighters, my eternal favourite Hellcat V!

The F-86C Hellcat V recently entered service in the Space Force as a replacement for the F-44G Rapier II. Designed as a multi-role medium interceptor, Hellcats are good solid choice for any type of mission. Need a combat air patrol? Send in some Hellcats. Incoming enemy fighters and need a scramble? Send in some Hellcats. A bunch of transports need an escort? Send in some Hellcats. Need air support for the Marines on a planetary battlefield? Send in some Hellcats.

An all-purpose fighter with well-balanced characteristics, the Hellcat V does not skimp in any one area and its modular design allows it to pack easily interchangeable systems. Thus, Hellcats are capable of undergoing modification to house with tractor beams, high-powered reconnaissance camera systems, mounts to carry ejection pods, among other types of hardware. Cheap to build and easy to maintain, more Hellcats were produced than any other fighter in ConFleet. The jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none design has been touted both as the fighter’s greatest strength and its looming weakness.

The Hellcat V does have one advantage over other fighters in the Confederation fleet and has become the only fighter in widespread service that can enter a planet’s atmosphere. Its sturdy airframe and wing design, which can support atmospheric lift without the fear of structural failure, allow the Hellcat V to play a crucial role in ground attack missions and planetary assault operations involving Terran Confederation Marines who need and appreciate air support. For these missions, Hellcats are outfitted with precision guided anti-matter bombs, free-fall plasma bombs, anti-armor micro-missile pods, rockets, and other air-to-ground attack weapons. In addition, the ship’s designers enjoy pointing out that the Hellcat V contains internal missile hardpoints, another first for a ship in its class.

Model is by gevatter Lars, model fixes and texturing by me, Lynx.

[Silent Warrior]

*Sniff* Teh pretty!1!!

[Tolwyn]

masterful :thepimp:

[Rictor]

Looks great. I especially like the front view, it just looks so detailed, almost as if it was a high-poly model (the grates are outstanding.)

Though one little thing that bothers me if the cockpit. I think Venom (aka Nico) developed a way to make use of the SCP uberness and get the cockpit to be semi-transparent and reflective, and not only that, but modeled a little pilot dude to put in there. I think aldo used it in one of his recent models, as well as Venom on his new Perseus and the new Esheziel. I don't really think its a priority or anything, just an extra little touch that would look cool.

Great work on ze Hellcat.

[Alan Bolte]

Looks great.
I think the frontmost part of the fin pointing down from the wing isn't connected to the front face of the wing. Is that intentional?

[Lynx]

Originally posted by Alan Bolte
Looks great.
I think the frontmost part of the fin pointing down from the wing isn't connected to the front face of the wing. Is that intentional?

Thanks, and you just discovered a texture error - the fins are connected to the wings, but there are a few black pixels that make it kook like it isn't.

[Bobboau]

looks good overall, but there it something about the front/cockpit I don't quite like (though I do like how you very tightly rounded off the edges, it'd be great if you could add this to a few of the other models)

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Rictor
I think aldo used it in one of his recent models

That was a custom pilot model BTW, it's a bit more detailed than Nicos & more importantly doesn't use any material from FS2 for the maps.

(and it's also available if anyone wants it from me website )

[gevatter Lars]

To me a transparent cockpit with a pilot is just a wast of time gamingwise....cause you won't see it in the action of a fight.
Still its an oustanding work to model such things.

[Lynx]

That's true...3d interiors for cockpits but aren't very useful, unless for a 3d cockpit. I played various flight sims with suck cockpits and Rogue Squadron had that too, and I don't remember a single moment where I clearly could see what's in the other ships canopy.

And Bobbau, what don't you like about the models front? Is it just "artistic differences", or is there a glitch or something?

[Bobboau]

it's just the way it's sort of a block lke that, it doesn't seem... right... nothing technicly wrong with it, maybe if the cockpit was a bit more angular and blended into the rest of it, it would look better (as opposed to that super rounded bouble dome that just sticks right out of a flat plane at a 90 degree angle)
or maybe if the flat sides were broken up into a few smaller flat planes

(sorry for crudeity)

[gevatter Lars]

Nice idea Bob...but then it wouldn't be a Hellcat.
The design is nice at it is...clear lines...no useless details...thats what I liked about Wing Commander designs ^_^

[Lynx]

No that's not possible, that would be a fundamental design change from the canon design so I wouldn't want to do that. It's not that we don't want or don't know how to add detail or something but that change would be too drastic and it would be look too different from the original design. I've got enough screenshots of the high poly models used for the CGI in WC to know that there's no room for something like this. Those models have, judging from the looks at least some ten thousand polies the least, but mostly have smoothed angles and all the techstuff high detailed(and they have a retractable landing gear like a todays fighter plane, that'd be cool to have for parked fighters ), but the design stays the same.

In short, I like the design as it is.

But thatnks for the constructive crtitcs.

[aldo_14]

I agree with bobs aesthetic opinion, but I think the current way you're doing stuff feels more Wing Commander-y & is thus the appropriate way*.  which is odd, as I've only ever player Privateer........

*of course, you can also have shedloads of the things onscreen with less performance drain than higher poly models.... not that I'd ever suggest such a thing, of course.

[Bobboau]

well you have to remember the high poly models were made to look like the in game modlels, you have to ask yourself would they have done this at the time if they didn't have a 20 poly per fighter limit? I overexadurated the detail there a bit, but I think you can add stuff like that without changeing the cannonal feel, but I don't have the connection you do with this game, so you are a better judge of what is important and what isn't, but I'll point you to this, notice that there is a LOT of added detail in there that does not have any reference in the cannon model, yet it still retains the feel of the origonal. I took the paturns and designes that the origonal used and recursed them a few more times to get something that looked like the origonal but better.
however this is a lot easier to do given the way FS capships are made, and fighters are a lot harder to elaborate on without makeing them look diferent. maybe if you extended some of the metal plates on the texture (so they dona't all follow the geometry perfictly) and then modeled a few of them in, this would have the effect I am talking about without the detromental effects to cannon.

the way I try to think about i is what would it look like if they made a full movie out of it, you guys have a slight advantage in this regard though

[Lynx]

We've all seen what WC fighters look like if they make a movie out of the game, so...no thanks.

Actually, the WC3 and four fighters were not that lowpoly. They were in a poly range between 150-400 polies, so just slightly less than the FS1 poly range for fighters.

As for extruding metal plates...we use that for our capships(frankly, these were really low poly since they had  turrets antennaes and stuff, so they had to keep the polies of the main body low), but for most of the fighters it doesn't really fit IMO. Think of nowadays fighter planes - they all have smooth surfaces - imagine a F16 with those extruding armor sections tucked on - it would look strange.

And many of the WC ships are inspired by diverse fighter plane designs(especially in WC2), though not so much modelwise in WC3&4, but texturewise where the paint shemes are inspired by the US navy planes(the WC team even visited an aircraft carrier back in '94 or so to study it upclose)

Plus the edginess of the WC3 designs is the design way, not just because the older computers couldn't manange so much polies. you could do smooth ships back then(see the original Arrow for example), and they could have faked those minor details with textures, since with the low screen resolutions used( 320x 200 and 640x480) it would have looked good and real, but the design team choose not to. And who are we to question ORIGIN Inc(may it rest in peace)

To me it doesn't really matter how detailed a ship is as long as it looks 'real' in a way, which I hope made with my textures. There are a lot of examples of high detailed ships all over the game worlds that look less 'real'(me gets an uneasy feeling when using real in connection with FS )

[Bobboau]

well it's your baby

it's not edgyness that I don't like, it's the simplisity of the geometry.

[gevatter Lars]

I think fighters have to be simple in design....special when it is a fighting craft in a war like we see in WC.
They have to be mass produced and must be easy to repair.
A complex geometry like you sugesstes would it make hard.

Also their is quite a differance between cap ships and fighters.
Capships details like you made them with the Orion could make some sense...but mostly I call it "UDs" useless details.
I like the aproche WC did in ship designs...not for the eye but for usefull.
The confed boxcarriers (Ranger for example) are simple made ships. They don't have these details we could give them...but hey thats a quite realistic looking ship. A simple frame.

But thats just my opinion....everyone has what he likes and I think Lynx and I have done our jobs very well in recreating what is. I would only give the front part a different smoothing so the front blends better into the back part instead of the hard edge...but ingame when fighting you wouldn't see that...I even don't see that when just flighing side by side....so who cares ^_^

[Lynx]

So I guess...we can settle it as 'creative differences'.

[gevatter Lars]

I agree