Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: TrashMan on July 26, 2005, 06:22:07 pm
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I'm making a Athena Advanced model..and well.. I cna't decide on the cockpit looks
IMAGE REMOVED
As for the second one (the top one) I plan to round hte cockpit ending a bit..it is kinda flat for now
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I like the one on the left myself (with the cannopy ridge).
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The right one looks more like the old version. I like the left one though. I think it's better for an 'advanced' version.
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I like the one on the left, but the one on the right would allow the pilot a better fov, so maybe that ones actually better
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The one on the left looks cool, but I'd definately lower the nose so that the cockpit slants down a bit. Right now the pilot has almost no forward FOV, imo.
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It looks mutated.
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Whatever you do, for Christ's sake, give it better textures.
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The bottom one.
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Hmm...i realyl can'0t decide dammit.
The left one looks cool but kinda makes it look bigger..and hte Athena is supposed to be small. the Right one would give the pilot a better FOV, but it still has something missing..
Oh - this isn't ther real texture... I'm gonna do a render of the current modelk and use that as a base for the texture (hevily editing it in photoshop)
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Bottom
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Here's the one I'm thinking of using.
(http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8215/athenadh9ul.th.jpg) (http://img138.imageshack.us/my.php?image=athenadh9ul.jpg)
Gave it a bit more length, angled it so it's not so flat and rounded the ending a bit.
Oh..another question..do you think it's worth it to spend too many polies on the gattling guns on this one?
(http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/1506/phoenix6yv.th.jpg) (http://img138.imageshack.us/my.php?image=phoenix6yv.jpg)
Tehy are the same, only the lower one has those cool rings around the guns. The polycount is upper (1494), lower (2346) So that's allmsot 1000 polys for something rather trivil. I think I'll drop the rings.
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I'd keep the rings, though; they give it a more gun-like look to me. I guess it'd depend on whether it's a firearm or an energy weapon, though.. oh well. Nice model by the way. Somewhat reminds me of the Pyro.
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you could just make the rings lower poly. I don't see how they're adding 1000 polies in the first place.
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yeah, they're way to high poly now if they're adding 1000.
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2 10 sided rings on each gun. 4 guns. do the math.
I COULD cut it to ONE ring per gun and make it 8 sided...
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Originally posted by TrashMan
2 10 sided rings on each gun. 4 guns. do the math.
The math gives me 320 triangles.
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yeah, but they are unioned on the star shaped barrel with 5 5-sided cylinders..
I could glue then instead - that would cut the polycount cubstantially.
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I still don't understand why people keep modeling full-detail gatling guns. For the amount of polies that you pump in there you get very little gain over proper textures, and all of those polygons can go into something more worthy of detail.
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/me agrees with KT.
Unless you're planning on using your generated maps as nothing more than templates and redrawing the entire thing from scratch (In which case it'd be better to uv it properly in lith or summat), you need to look seriously at those texs. FS fighter hulls just don't look like that.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Oh..another question..do you think it's worth it to spend too many polies on the gattling guns on this one?
(http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/1506/phoenix6yv.th.jpg) (http://img138.imageshack.us/my.php?image=phoenix6yv.jpg)
Tehy are the same, only the lower one has those cool rings around the guns. The polycount is upper (1494), lower (2346) So that's allmsot 1000 polys for something rather trivil. I think I'll drop the rings.
Far too many; not only is that detail disproportionate to what would be seen ingame, you also have big flat areas (especially the cockpit and nose) where you could much better use that polycount.
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Seriously, what is the business with very long GATLING guns anyways? They don't seem too Freespacesque, would cause horrible recoil and even noticiable drag (see A-10), generally look out of place and are a waste of polies. Yeah, and they suck up ammunition like nothing else. Four of those gatling guns of that caliber (let's assume they're something around 30mm/barrel) would suck up through all the ammuntion a ship of that size could carry even without shields in a few seconds, and would seriously affect the manouverability.
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Originally posted by Janos
They don't seem too Freespacesque, would cause horrible recoil and even noticiable drag
I'm sure if you think about that long enough you'll spot the mistake.
I'm not a huge fan of gattling guns but if you're going to point out realistic reasons why they wouldn't be practical at least pick realistic realistic reasons :p
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Meh.. I decided to drop the rings.. Tehy look good enough as it is.
As for more details on the cockpit and nose - I really don't know what to add, since this is how I imagined the fighter would look.
1500 polys... that seems enough for a fighter.
However both the Phoenix and the Athena Advanced will have to wait a bit.. I'm working on finishing my cmapign and a few other things.. (like the Demon...did you know that thing normally has only 700 or so polys for the hull?)
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IMO; (few things, apologise for the crappy drawing)
1 You can add a few small 'splits' in the side profile. This isn't a brillant drawing of it, natch. Basically a region which is slightly indented and breaks it up. It is very close-in detail (Depending on how you do it) but IMO it's more efficient for the distance than gatlings, and looks better from in-cockpit
2 I'd consider rounding this out a bit. The frontal profile is basically a cube, which IMO makes the whole thing seem less detailed.
3 This is just a flat box with stuff stuck on it. I'm not sure what it's for, but you can surely add something to it; round it off, add surface vents or access hatches (for maintenance), etc. Or the all-important rearm dock. With HTL, there's no real sense in not physically modelling the rearm dock IMO (except for Volition remodels, where you can argue it's not on the original).
4 Flatten the ends. Just extrude a tiny bit and flatten that if you want it to look blunt. Same goes for the tails. Also, you could 'stagger' them a bit by subdividing, etc; tweak around from the boring old triangle shape.
5 Add some rounding to the gun holders. As it stands they're just plain old boxes; add some details, perhaps to make it obvious how the maint guys would insert and remove the primaries as selected at startup.
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Yes....yes...very nice.
I'll think I'll do 2, 3, 4 & 5.. As for one, I think I have a better idea.
EDIT:
Just a not, if anyone is interested I put some new stuff for download under >>More Stuff<<
1. the Orion MK2 v2 (more detail, better guns)
2. Blade v.2 - (better texture job on the engines, better guns, all textures)
3. Perseus Advanced (I basicly re-textured the perseus from the inferno, added insignias, changed it's weapon configuration)
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Hmm, I was considering HTL'ing the Athena...
To me, that nose looks wrong, with that vertical bit before the canopy (can only see second pic).
The nose really needs rounding off.
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Does it?
Well i dunno. I was using the stock model as reference and i got the impression that it was supposed to be blocky.
But then again, nobody is stoping you from doing your own Athena model.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Does it?
Well i dunno. I was using the stock model as reference and i got the impression that it was supposed to be blocky.
But then again, nobody is stoping you from doing your own Athena model.
True, everything is in the eye of the beholder...
I figure the design is sort of meant to be a 'shark nose', bit like the Sabre (1st(?) USAF jet fighter). With HTL, one could really round it off while mantaining the sharp leading edge (which I like alot)
Maybe I'll do one, depnds on if I get the urge (and the time...)