Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => Arts & Talents => Topic started by: Stryke 9 on February 15, 2004, 04:07:06 pm

Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 15, 2004, 04:07:06 pm
Ported and retexed a ship from years back... I remember the original concept drawings, it had the potential to be pretty kickass, but something's... missing in the version I've got now. Not a clue what. You lot are pretty good at picking at things, find it for me.

Oh, yeah, and it's supposed to be a pirate/merc sorta affair, so the grunge is intentionally over the top. You shoulda seen the original texes, thing looked like a blocky piece of dirt.
(http://www.wpierce.com/wlp/hood.jpg)


And just to keep you monkeys amused while you're picking, and because I can't feel like I've put in a solid day's work until I've crammed over a million polys into one scene, here's a proper render.

(http://www.wpierce.com/wlp/gr.jpg)
Title: Gneh
Post by: Nico on February 15, 2004, 04:29:09 pm
the... "arms" seems useless ( a big useless thing just for two weapon racks ), so add something there. dunno, verniers, as Mike call them, or probes to measure, herm... space ( as some scifi meshes dude said ). Lot of flat space on the front and top of those things, cram something there. Same deal on the top of the cockpit. well, same deal on all the plys that are large and have no details. Looks like that Startour thinguy at Disneyland, btw :p
Title: Gneh
Post by: Corsair on February 15, 2004, 04:32:46 pm
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh a million polys!
I happen to like the distance between the main body and the weapons racks. It makes it more like...gotta keep these weapons away from the people, cuz otherwise bad things'll happen. Or maybe that's just me.

Monkey. :nervous:
Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 15, 2004, 04:35:15 pm
Pirates aren't terribly safety minded. :p

Nico: Ah- thanks. I bet that's it. Guess I didn't catch that 'cos, well, it's old. I usually just automatically build stuff out to the limits of what the engine'll take, and when that jumps a few million polys...
Title: Gneh
Post by: Setekh on February 15, 2004, 05:27:36 pm
I'd follow Venom's tips, and add that the two wings seem to jut out unnaturally onto the roof of the ship. Kinda like "this corner is part of the sub-object, I'm just gonna leave it there". Unless you chamfer it or add some frames or railings along there, they're there for no reason as well. But you're right about the kickass potential.
Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 15, 2004, 05:49:27 pm
Steak: All that's almost covered with stuff by now anyway. Well, I'm working up towards that area, but considering the mass of the... thing I stuck on the outside of the wings you won't even be able to see that part.;)

Oh, and I should point out to Venom that you can't see a single thing in either render in there that's not procedural. :p


Actually, that basically applies to every render I've done in the past two or three months, though with some of those there might have been one or two things that used a convenient bitmap...
Title: Gneh
Post by: Nico on February 16, 2004, 01:51:40 am
Mmh, then, now, do the markings, logos and **** :p
Most of my renders use mostly procedurals too, anyway.

Btw, I think it would look cool if you detached the "arms", and put an articulation ( you know, those pneumatic arms, stuff like that ) between them and the hull.
Title: Gneh
Post by: icespeed on February 16, 2004, 05:29:07 am
It looks like a steel brick with stuff welded on to me.
Title: Gneh
Post by: Taristin on February 16, 2004, 09:23:05 am
Looks like a rusty amun...
Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 22, 2004, 07:05:55 pm
Well, I took a long look at it, and I said to myself I said- "Now, if I was some kind of ****ed-up space pirating dude, what more would I want in a ship?" And the answer, well, it's the same as when I'm a regular dude- more guns. Many more guns. And a coolant stack in the rest of those wing parts, though you can't really see that except for the big heavy clamps sealing the thing.

(http://www.wpierce.com/wlp/hood2.jpg)
(http://www.wpierce.com/wlp/hoodtop.jpg)


I reiterate- gneh.

Well, now that the hatches are mostly there I guess I'll do the inside, at least...
Title: Gneh
Post by: Unknown Target on February 22, 2004, 08:00:05 pm
Stryke, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I think that ship (and a lot of the others) need some serious reworking. Not in the sense of a better texture, or some more greeblings, but a total design rework. It looks like they are all made out of primitives stuck togther, and they are all too "smooth" and shiny to be real.
Plus, the designs themselves dont' look too great (in as diplomatic a term as possible).
Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 22, 2004, 08:02:09 pm
Works for me. 'Course, it's easier said than done, but eh.

This one probably actually was initially made out of primitives stuck together, come to think of it.
Title: Gneh
Post by: Bobboau on February 22, 2004, 10:16:15 pm
round the edges a bit
Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 22, 2004, 11:51:36 pm
Oog, that was a messy one. Good call, though, just wish the format conversion hadn't made the missile bay holes all funky-like.

(http://www.wpierce.com/wlp/hood.jpg)

And actually, come to actually look at the models, I'm not so sure what you're talking about, UT, at least in the more general sense. Yeah, I can see how this one and, say, the Kirov are too segmented and are kind of clunky meshes, they basically are just formed out of basic extrusions, but most of the rest of 'em were done with proper mesh editing and look like pretty solid, complex shapes to me, without the primitiveitis this one and most of the old RDS ones I didn't port have. Can you specify a little better?
Title: Gneh
Post by: Unknown Target on February 23, 2004, 07:23:37 am
Most of your capital ships are OK, but your fighters all seem to have a box as the main body, and everything else latched on.
Title: Gneh
Post by: Ghostavo on February 23, 2004, 08:15:49 am
That thing can't be a fighter... it must be somekind of extremely heavy bomber!!

I mean... it makes the GTB Ursa look like it was made to do bombers and bombs intercept :eek2: !!
Title: Gneh
Post by: aldo_14 on February 23, 2004, 08:28:30 am
Reminds me of the Tarsus from Privateer.  A bit.
Title: Gneh
Post by: Setekh on February 23, 2004, 08:53:14 am
It's shaping up. I like this much better. :yes:
Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 23, 2004, 12:30:43 pm
UT: Basically all of my fighters, with the exception of that one pod thing I posted a ways back, were designed with RDS's capabilities in mind, and nearly all of them made there. A lot of my capships weren't. That may have something to do with it.

Ghost: Heavy fighter. As in "made to shoot at things several million tons heavier than it". But I think the size of the guns might be misleading- everything's, shall we say, less efficient in TAC, those gatling guns would be roughly equivalent to the Mehku in Freespace at best and the big long artillery gun... well, okay, the artillery gun's different. Still, I've only got nine guns plus the turret on there, an Erinyes with kaysers would still be better... yeah. If and when I ever make it to turning this into a playable model for something, it's pretty much guaranteed to be slow. And have the aforementioned heating problems well in mind.

Aldo: WHAT IS IT WITH YOU PEOPLE AND COMPARING STUFF TO THINGS I'VE NEVER SEEN! PICTURES! LINKAGE! SOMETHING!

Steak: Thanks. I'm a bit less dissapointed with it now, though I'm still not terribly happy with it. And it's starting to slow down MAX, I can tell, so I don't know that more greebling is the answer.
Title: Gneh
Post by: Ghostavo on February 23, 2004, 03:09:35 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stryke 9
Heavy fighter. As in "made to shoot at things several million tons heavier than it".


Define bomber and capital ship!! :p :shaking: :shaking:
Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 23, 2004, 03:18:35 pm
Bombers have bombs. As in plural. And are capable of actually destroying a capital ship, given a dozen or so and enough time. This has one large rocket, and a sixteen-pack of antifighter missiles, and would be going up against a set of capships that aren't the pathetic weak things that are Freespace cruisers, but are actually pound-for-pound its equal or (in the case of the rich factions) better. Think Ares, not Ursa.

Capital ships are more than just two-seaters with lots of guns. Far as I'm concerned, they're anything on a scale roughly from a midsize house to a set of city blocks. In TAC, combative capital vessels are built like a brick ****house with relativistic-slug guns and plasma flamethrowers, anda few measly plasma guns or lasers wouldn't pose a serious threat any more than your grandpappy's shotgun would be a problem for an aircraft carrier. Anything from there on up to large moon size is a cityship or barely mobile space station. Or an actual moon or other celestial body with enough manmade structures to basically qualify as a ship. And even the nonmilitary ones (i.e. basically all of them, there is such a thing as overkill) would be equipped so as to prevent the aforementioned military cruisers and so on from gutting them like a Christmas turkey, and hence would far outclass even a bomber parallel to the Ursa.


This is designed more or less to take out fighter escorts and threaten civilian freighters, which are sized like capships but with a lot less armor and no guns to speak of. It would be terribly unsuccessul in taking on a cityship.
Title: Gneh
Post by: aldo_14 on February 23, 2004, 05:13:15 pm
Best piccy I could find....it's a bit crap, cos a) it's an updated model from Privateer and b) it's the overhead view that has the major resemblance.

http://www.wcnews.com/newershots/full/tarsus.jpg
Title: Gneh
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 23, 2004, 05:34:34 pm
I dunno, I don't see it. That looks like one box, mine looks like at least four. :p