[Aardwolf]

I started this at around 5:00 and it is now 8:45 here.

So far only the top is done, the bottom of the ship needs a heck of a lot of work. Most of the stuff I did to it I based off of the textures in the original, but  for some of the features I did my own stuff. When it's done, it'll need to be UV-mapped, textured, converted, etc. I have Wings3D so I can get it into 3ds format easily enough.

[Unknown Target]

It's good, but a little too polygonal - could you turn on smooth shading or shadows or something so we can see the shape better?

[takashi]

is that a dragon? does it have the non-symetry of the original, or do the two panles match sizes? screenie from different angles would help.

[Sarafan]

Really good but what are those things at the front? Do you have other image showing from the front (for a better look)?

[Polpolion]

Looks nice so far. Might wanna smoothen it out a bit, though.

[Aardwolf]

About the smoothing: I used Wings3D's autosmooth feature for the first time to do that, and I think I set the threshold too low, so it made everything really angular.

The things on the front are holes. I plan to rework them to make them look better, probably changing the geometry and maybe spacing of them as well. They are meant to correspond to the red things on the texture, although they won't line up exactly.

I recently was shown Turambar's recent map, and unfortunately it is a little too late to make my ship compatible with it.

[Snail]

doubleplusgood - refs second gun model - retail revise plusungood -


(excellent, but please make the model reference the second bank of lasers on the side. Retail didn't have them, which was really bad.)

[Aardwolf]

I'll have to look at the hardpoints in the POF. I didn't realize there was a problem.

And for crying out loud, WHY ARE YOU TALKING IN NEWSPEAK?!?!?!?!?!?!?



Edit: I looked at the retail POF with hardpoints showing, and they are just too close together to make a gun for them all. However, there is a little indentation I've got at the front of that little tube (on the side with the missile launcher) that I think might work. I honestly never noticed the Dragon had so many guns. When I played "Playing Judas" way back when, I only remember the two ones underneath and then one sort of off-center gun.

Edit:



The red spot on the left is where I was considering putting the guns, and the one on the right is approximately where they are on the retail model.

Edit: I have attached a picture of the ship from the bottom-rear.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Raven2001]

looking good so far, my only concern is the holes in the front are a little too boxy. Why not making them all a single, continuous extrusion? also watch how to wireframe is going. I can spot some anomalies on the barrels and other places as well

[Aardwolf]

The barrels I just noticed. I still need feedback on the additional firing points, and the issue of the holes has been redone a couple of times already. I am considering giving the model to somebody (probably one or two people tops) to let someone else fiddle with it some. I was thinking maybe Axem, unless somebody has a reasonable objection, and since I can't really texture this sort of thing, maybe Turambar for the textures.

Right now it is 2597 polys, 4744 edges, and 2151 vertices.

[takashi]

you need a guy for textures and a guy for good reasoning in tables.conversion. can i be the second one? (i seriously need to do something around here other than post)

[Aardwolf]

No.

[Raven2001]

About the gunpoint, its fine as it is IMO... although youll find out im not as picky as some ppl are around here to certain changes in the models

And I mentioned the mesh in the barrels because its the most visible from those pics... give the model a workaround in that area: not only you will end up with fewer polys (most probably), and you will end up with a much "cleaner" form.

As far as the holes go, watch the original Dragon (the textures that is), and go from there, maybe adding a break or 2 in the continuity of the hole

[Ghost]

Good lord that is drop dead sexy.

[Kaboodles]

 

I just opened up Freespace and looked at the old Dragon model, and it seems to me that you got its left and right side mixed up.  The weird side-engine thing is supposed to be on the left, and the funky blade thing should be on the right.

Hmm...

[Raven2001]

Of course that is a big issue, since no one working on 3d aplications ever remembered to implement a mirror tool

[Kaboodles]

Still funny though.

[Aardwolf]

That happened when I was converting the original model into a Wings3D file. I don't know whether it was the POF->3DS or 3DS->WINGS conversion, but it should be as simple as flipping over the x axis. And yes, I realize that in my model tweaking, I sort of messed up a couple of times going back and forth between my model and the reference model. It still looks cool, though.

[Raven2001]

ah so you modeled on top of the original? bad bad thing :\

Use the original as reference only, and re-make it completely. That will make it better and with a less funky frame

EDIT: But hey, since your already half the way, dont restart it, just consider this for future HTL models you might do

[Hades]

This a great model.....Much better than Volition could ever do.....