Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Fate of the Galaxy => Topic started by: maje on November 02, 2007, 01:03:26 pm
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So, um.....YEAH. :nervous: I actually have no idea why I picked this, of all ships to model. If anyone's ever played X-wing vs. TIE Fighter or X-wing Alliance, you know that these ships are virtually death-traps whose shields may very well be non-existant (I'd rather fly a TIE Fighter then one of these things, at least the cannons are mounted in a decent position where you're more probable to hit your target).
Anywho. It's been a while since I've modeled anything for game engine, and even longer since I've used 3DS Max for doing it, so here goes.
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_03.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_04.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_05.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_01wireframe.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_02wireframe.jpg)
So, there you have it. Granted, it's still missing things like a PILOT, fully decked out cockpit interior, and a few other misc. details, but in general, this probably the equivalent of maybe 8 or 9 hours of modeling, plus refamiliarizing myself with how Max operates (I'm primarily a Maya user).
There are probably a whole slew of polygons I can get rid of on the fly to make this baby more mesh efficient. Likewise, if anyone can spot any errors or trouble-spots, please go right ahead. Last time I modeled anything for a game engine was for a college-level Half-life 2 mod for class, and last time I implemented anything into a game engine itself was the year before that for Unreal 2K4 (and before that, X-wing Alliance for the XWAU).
Speaking of which, if any of you guys still play XWA, or visit www.xwaupgrade.com (http://www.xwaupgrade.com), I went by the name Admiral Andy and had made some models of the Supa Fighter, MC40a Lulsla-class cruiser, Mobquet Transport, Utility TUG, and space mines (those were my first models and textures, made in Rhino and Fireworks).
Granted, that stuff is hopelessly outdated, and I can do much better now. :D
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Wow, pretty nice. The hump behind the cockpit needs some smoothing work I think though. The cockpit itself may too, can't tell with the glass though. All in all though, I think it does the ship justice. There's a few missing features though, like the missile launcher tubes, I would like to see in the mesh. May not be necessary with the new map support though. I've played well more than my share of XvT on the Zone and actually preferred a game of Z's, mostly because they're one of the only ships I can do better than 1:1 in. Are you going to be texturing it too? :)
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Shouldn't it be triangulated?
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I think it is, but the renderer probably just doesn't show them.
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No, I'll carve the missile launchers into the mesh. I might add a panel or two on the wings as well.
The only thing I'm not sure about is just how picky FS2 is with importing ships. Is it any more of a pain then XWA is? I think it should be okay. I may make the hump a seperate mesh all together so I can just add poly rows where needed and not have that effect the main fuselage. I'll have to see how it all works out. How detailed should the cockpit interior be? I'm thinking basic pilot's seat, and the general shape of the console, and maybe the flight controls similar to that of the X-wings. Also, should the Z-95 have the canopy brace? I've seen some with it, and some without and have always attributed that to artistic interpretation. Modeling it is no big deal.
After the modeling is all done, UV Unwraps ahoy, and then Texture painting. Btw, is there a specific number of LODs that fighters should have?
After this is done, I might have a go at any priority 1 ships for texturing and UV-unwraps.
Speaking of which, in order to use the UV Maps, I'm thinking of about either two or three layouts. I believe the cockpit interior should be its own seperate map (512 square), whereas main fuselage and everything else could be on a 1024 Square Map or two. Is that unreasonable or should I consider smaller map sizes?
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There's really probably going to be two cockpits, one that everyone else sees, and one for people to see when using the draw ship commandline option, so that they see it as their own cockpit. It will be a much higher detailed version of what everyone else will see flying around. The internal one should probably be a detail box, and the externally visible one should too possibly, with different settings. I think those are reasonable sizes, but remember that with the new mapping support, you'll have 4 or more textures of that size for each ship. base, shine, possibly glow, normal, height, etc...
FS2 is fairly picky about ships, at least make sure you have an airtight mesh, and once you have it exported to pof, try to run it through the most recent build of PCS2. It will tell you if there are any mesh errors, and when 2.1 comes out it will have error highlighting.
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Admiral Andy?
Holy hell man, I thoguht you were gone. You probably won't recognize me though.
Good to see you here. And it looks like you're better than ever before.
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Weren't the wings a bit shorter and thinner as well as somewhat wider at roots in XvT...?
(http://www.cswu.cz/swgames/xvstie/shot3.jpg)
Although, most of the other references (http://www.phoxim.de/z95_headhunter/z95_1.html) seem to be having similar rectangular wings as this... and the XvT models are really low res. At any rate, these seem like orthographic shots which tends to make me see things look like something else than how they are... could we get a few perspective shots as well?
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Weren't the wings a bit shorter and thinner as well as somewhat wider at roots in XvT...?
Yes, but in canon, the wings are thicker.
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Ah, I thought it might be the case... I suppose TotallyGames thought the ship looked better with smaller wings (they're almost bare winglets in the game...) or something.
Where does the canon Z-95 appear in pictures, though? Some SW tech book or a comic book? I don't remember seeing it in any of the original trilogy movies, and I haven't really read either tech books or the comics...
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IIRC, it's in the Guide to Vehicles and Vessels...
Edit: It is, but here's a better picture:
(http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/thumb/3/39/Z95headhunter_egvv.jpg/581px-Z95headhunter_egvv.jpg)
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The Z-95 was based off of some old concept sketches for the X-wing before it reached a finalized version, so you won't see it any of the movies. As for this model, I pretty much used the first edition of the EGVV to get my profile views, though it should be noted that there are certain features that simply don't line up properly. Thankfully, the internet has access to hundred of kitbashed Z-95s out there to use as reference for certain features and to get a better idea on how to approach modeling different parts.
Herra Tohtori- originally I thought that the Z-95 had sleaker wings, more resembling that of an X-wing, but as it turns out, the Headhunter A4s are pretty rectangular. In all honesty, I think that's a good thing, as it's just one of the many little things that makes it look less advanced compared to the X-wing.
MI123645- you're right I don't recognize you. Sorry! :( What was your name on the X-wing Alliance Upgrade forums? I might remember it, though last time I posted there was about 5 or so years ago. I still sometimes lurk in. Can't believe that it's still going with over 50% done.
Anyhow, I've got 10 hours of joy working tomorrow, so the most I'll have done for Sunday will be mesh-cleanups, and maybe a few more details.
I want to see if I can get this in FS2 and just see how bad open/closed edges affect rendering. As soon as I know I can get it in, I'll finish up any leftover modeling, and try to get this all textured up.
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In all honesty, I think that's a good thing, as it's just one of the many little things that makes it look less advanced compared to the X-wing.
You do know that aerodynamics doesn't matter in space, right?
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you're aware that the Z-95 is also configured to fly in a planetary atmosphere, never mind the fact that Star Wars Physics and Newtonian Physics are two different things, right? :p (I kid, I kid) :D.
Anyways, I've spent some time going over how to get ships into Freespace 2, and so far, from my test of converting the fuselage into a .pof, I seem to be on track. I've also taken a look at some of the models used for the Battlestar Galactica MOD, mainly the Mark VII Viper and noticed that the cockpit interior and canopy glass seem to all have open-edges, and thus I am wondering if those will be applicable in how our cockpit interiors and canopy glass will be modeled? It seems like a waste to create the glass and bump up the poly count by a little over two times just to make sure that the mesh is closed.
Well, among other things, I also made a little bit of progress in mesh refinement and some detail additions.
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_03wireframe.jpg)
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purty. you know, for a while (along with the Y) the Headhunter was the rebellion's primary small craft.... give it some respect. it got the job done.
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:nervous: Beggars can't be choosers. :nod:
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The Z-95 is an adequate ship. It's maneuverable, something that is important against TIEs.
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Yea... but the TIEs have an insane rate of fire. So, if you screw up once, you're dead. Because, based on what I'm reading here, the Z-95 had crap armor and shields. I mean, if an X-Wing goes down with a few bursts, then I guess a Z-95 goes down in one or two shots, right?
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Yes, but while the Z-95 gets one hit by an ace, an X-wing is hit ten times by a drunken half-blind Imperial rookie.
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There's really probably going to be two cockpits, one that everyone else sees, and one for people to see when using the draw ship commandline option, so that they see it as their own cockpit. It will be a much higher detailed version of what everyone else will see flying around. The internal one should probably be a detail box, and the externally visible one should too possibly, with different settings. I think those are reasonable sizes, but remember that with the new mapping support, you'll have 4 or more textures of that size for each ship. base, shine, possibly glow, normal, height, etc...
For cockpits to work nicely, we need some new SCP features. There's a discussion on the topic going on in FS modding: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,50349.0.html but if the SWC plans on using cockpits like that, could you add it to the list of supporting mods in the feature request page? The more major supporting mods a feature has, the more likely it is to be implemented. :)
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close to that threads most recent post, theres.. erm...... :D
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You know, for a while (along with the Y) the Headhunter was the rebellion's primary small craft.... give it some respect. it got the job done.
Only for as long as Incom was part of the Empire (in 1 BBY). Afterwards, it was replaced by the advanced X-Wing.
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While it is certainly possible that the Z-95 remained in high use among rebel factions not affiliated with the Alliance to Restore the Republic, it was pretty much a general starfighter that enjoyed so much widespread use that it isn't really a signature Alliance ship whereas nearly all the pre-rebellion Y-wings wound up in Alliance hands. I remember in the X-wing Strategy Guide from 1992, that it was mentioned before the X-wings were mass-produced, the Y-wing was the principal fighter used by the Rebel Alliance. You might have to take this with a grain of salt though since the X-wing games often contradict other EU and even movie events.
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remember mara jade in 5ABY? thrawn trilogy? even in the Kevin J Anderson books at the academy. she still had a headhunter, at like 10 ABY. that should be testament enough for how good the headhunter is, in underworld faction terms, atleast/
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Old as it may be, the headhunter is still a capable fighter, with shields, good maneuverability, lasers AND missiles, enough to give check to any other fighter. The thing is that in the XvT series it was badly assumed to be cannon fodder.... :confused: As time passed by, it was oviously surpassed by newer models, but the Y-wing was already old when the X-wing became the main alliance fighter and still they kept it in use. Anything that could fly would be usefull, and the Z-95 surely was more than that.
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I imagine that the Z-95, like any military craft, can be upgraded, or unofficially modified... ;)
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Yeah... I don't think Mara's Headhunter was a regular one either. And I have to agree that whatever stats the ships have in X-Wing series of games, I don't think they can be referred to as anything else than one set of (somewhat) balanced ships... and since the Star Wars Conversion team has (IIRC) said that they're not going to make a port of XvT for FS2_Open engine, they're likely going to be changing the ship balance a bit either, so we don't really know what to expect from the team... except that in the end result the Z-95 will likely be part of a balanced ship set. Might be different role from the XvT Z-95 with some different stats, or not.
My personal opinion about Z-95 is that it should be competent dogfighter with a bit better maneuverability than the X-Wing, have about the same maintenance energy level speed as X-Wing (BUT lower top speed with all energy allocated to engines) and it should have somewhat weaker shielding but only a little weaker hull plating than X-Wing (having same hull strength with a TIE/Interceptor was ridiculous, especially as the hull structure is about the same as X-Wing so there's no plausible explanation to that except for making the ship cannon fodder, of which there's no canon proof AFAIK).
I think Z-95 should be able to deal with a pair of TIE/ln's without dying on normal(or hard, depedngin how you want to balance the game) difficulty, but it should have problems while getting gangbanged by any more... this despite the fact that it's weapon placement and maneuverability are both worse than TIE/ln's, but higher hull and having shields should make it survive a 2-on-1 attack on regular basis with any skill in the cockpit. X-Wing, on the other hand, should be able to survive being jumped by a flight of four TIE/ln's with it's superior speed. I think I remember some claims that after it's introduction, the X-Wing became so feared amongst TIE pilots that it quickly became almost standard procedure not to engage X-Wings without at least 4-1 superiority in numbers, so that'd make sense to me as far as balance issues go.
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Where did you read that
a) The Z-95 is not as maneuverable as an X-wing? (Whoever wrote this has no clue about SW)
b) Imperial pilots were discouraged to engaged an X-wing unless the balance is 4-on-1 in their favor?
And, by the way. In FS, maneuverability is very important. More important than in XWA. So a Z-95 will be better in our mod than in the X-wing series.
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remember the rogues at coruscant? the kicked butt against those ties. and i keep reading it has a pair of TRI LASERs :confused:
read wedge's gambit, towards the end, it says quit clearly. but i get the impression that lasers on the z-95 aren't as strong as the laser CANNONS on the X...... *shrug*
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Where did you read that
a) The Z-95 is not as maneuverable as an X-wing? (Whoever wrote this has no clue about SW)
Was that to me? I never said nor thought so... I know very well that the Z-95 is and should be more manueverable than X-Wing.
b) Imperial pilots were discouraged to engaged an X-wing unless the balance is 4-on-1 in their favor?
I don't actually remember, and I couldn't find it through Google... and the ratio might've been 3:1, I'm not sure. I could be wrong though, it might be the general imperial doctrine to have at least 3:1 superiority on attacks (which, on the other hand, is pretty common military doctrine almost everywhere - it's preferable to have at least 3:1 superiority to the defender, especially agaisnt positions that have been fortified to any extent at all).
It might have been on either X-Wing or TIE Fighter's manuals where I read it, but I'm not sure and I don't have them readily at hand.
Also, it might've been some kind of a "Spitfire-complex" amongst the TIE pilots rather than official doctrine.
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Remember the rogues at coruscant? They kicked butt against those ties. and I keep reading it has a pair of TRI LASERs :confused:
I read wedge's gambit, and towards the end, it says quit clearly. But I get the impression that lasers on the z-95 aren't as strong as the laser CANNONS on the X...... *shrug*
Yes and no. Most Z95s had either triple lasers to make up for their lack of four mounted lasers or dual KX5s. They are in fact more powerful than an X-wings single Tiam and Bak KX9s. However, due to the advanced targeting computer (not to mention the fact that there were four instead of two) the T65s had more firepower. And, according to Wookieepedia, the T65s have greater acceleration than the Z95s, but in atmosphere the Z95 is faster than the T65 by 100 km/h.
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH..... ok
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they're triple blasters
an array of 3 blasters on each wingtip.
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they're triple blasters
an array of 3 blasters on each wingtip.
I hope you are not implying that there are three separate blasters under each wingtip... :doubt:
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That's exactly what's being implied
Considered one of the most capable fighters of its day, it boasted a distinctive bubble canopy and a set of triple blasters mounted at the ends of each of its two variable geometry wings;
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Do they all fire at the same time or do they fire at cycles?
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I would assume that, like most other fighters in star wars, it's selectable
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I would assume that, like most other fighters in star wars, it's selectable
Except that something like that would be hard-wired into the blaster. I would assume that the blaster shoots through three of the focusing lenses at the same time and it would be extremely difficult to modify the blaster to shoot three individual cyclical blasts per shot...
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I actually meant to ask is all or just one of the three lasers were fired on one trigger press.
Having all of them firing at once doesn't really make sense to me, it would be easier for maintenance as well as probably more efficient in other regards to use one big laser instead of three smaller ones; thus I think there was a reason why they wanted to use three small versus one big per wingtip. Plausible reasons to me seem to be:
-higher rate of fire as opposed to single laser (involces cyclic fire)
-need to cool down the lasers (related to rate of fire) - each laser has 200% longer (or three times as long) cooldown period as opposed to one single cannon firing at same ROF, when one triggerpress fires one of the lasers, second fires another, and third fires the last one in the array. AFAIK this is also one of the reasons why the S-Foils in X-Wings move apart, to give the lasers more room to radiate heat into space or something (although they are known to use their lasers with S-Foils closed as well...)
I can't think of any reason why to use three small lasers firing simultaneously attached to one hardpoint; it doesn't affect the weapon pattern, requires more maintenance, is more complex and most likely also less effective than one single weapon per hardpoint.
Actually, I could kinda accept doing it if they simply wanted to increase firepower and simply didn't have any more powerful lasers available (kinda like the Hawker Hurricane with 12 .303 caliber machine guns - does a lot of holes but not much else, versus later .50 cal MG's and even heavier autocannons), but I have no idea if this was the case or not when Z-95's were fitted with these tri-lasers.
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Okay, Modeling Update Time. I've got the Z-95 pretty much squared away barring the LODs and Damage Model. One thing I might add, depending on how many polies the Rebel Pilot is, I may very well end up with a model slightly over 8000 tris (current count is featured on one of the jpegs below).
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_06.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_04wireframe.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_07.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_05wireframe.jpg)
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In all honesty, I think that's a good thing, as it's just one of the many little things that makes it look less advanced compared to the X-wing.
You do know that aerodynamics doesn't matter in space, right?
That´s why the Borg fly in a cubus. ;)
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You don't need to bother counting the polies in the cockpit as they'll be detail boxed, and thus won't really affect performance until up close. A general rule is that your polycount is the total number of polies minus the number of polies which will be in detail boxes.
Secondly, I think at this point we've almost thrown poly counts to the wind. Do what you need to do, we'll tweak LOD settings later.
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Actually, if we're lucky, player cockpits will be a separate POF, and then you just have to worry about the cockpits everyone else sees. Those could possibly just go in the normal LODs, although having a somewhat nicer one that pops up closer than LOD0 might be nice.
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So, here's a little WIP update of the textures. There are a few things that bother me and the flight group design is still in the experimental stage. Also need to find the correct balance with color variation and panel line depth. And then of course dirtying everything up. :nod:
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_15.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_16.jpg)
Oh yeah, belated Happy Thanksgiving! :D
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Holy goat that's good
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Why green? Why not red?
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I chose green instead of red to give some variation. Red and Yellow (Gold), aren't the only colors used in the Star Wars universe. Besides, this Z-95 doens't belong to the Rebel Alliance, but to a smaller unaffiliated rebel cell whose colors are represented by a dark Forest Green, (the flight-leader's Headhunter is all black with lighter green markings to help with contrast).
Don't worry though, I'll give the Z-95 it's traditional red Alliance markings.
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Well I think it looks great! Love the colour scheme, except I'd think of adding a bit more saturation on the green, I'd suggest more of an olivy colour just to make it stand out a bit more from the panel lines. As Content moderator, you get my red stamp of approval
(http://www.frontiernet.net/~beatrez/Norris%20Approved.jpg)
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Spectacular Maje. Looks like that color scheme is that of CorSec.
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Here we go. Experimented more with flight group colors and dirtied up a few things. :)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_18.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_19.jpg)
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_20.jpg)
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Damn, this is awesome :eek2:
Outstanding work :yes:
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One thing about the texturing, it looks like it has detail, but it's just not clearly defined. It's sort of hazy or something. I would hope for something a little sharper, maybe this will happen with the normal maps and it goes through a render with them in use, I don't know. I just think the panels should be a little sharper.
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Here we go. Experimented more with flight group colors and dirtied up a few things. :)
Oh, so dirty... ;7
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Agreed, looks as if the dirtying has blurred the panel lines quite a bit
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Yes, proper contrast has never been my forte. I'll see what I can do with the burn and dodge tools. I'm hoping to have the color map completed today and then get to work on the specular and normal maps.
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You should really leave the Panel lines on a separate layer, and once they're done, not touch them again with any other tools. Dirt, sand, etc, don't change the grooves of the ship itself. Add your weathering effects to a new layer on top, but leave the panel lines alone. This'll also help you when it comes time for those normal maps
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here's a render with spec and normal maps
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_22.jpg)
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Is my monitor going dodgy, or does that look all... blurred? Like... cross between motion blur and I-need-glasses blur? Are you sure all your maps are lined up pixel perfect? I can imagine getting an effect like this if the normal map was displaced one pixel over from the main texture.
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it looks blurry to me as well.
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It looks to me like it has sort of a hand drawn sketch effect applied to it during or post-render. Or there's just some wierd compression artifacting.
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WOW is all I can say a bit blurry but otherwise really good, try inverting the color scheme for one of the figthers (making the white green and the other way around) that way you could have a wing leader, a bit of a target though but still.
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It's ok in my opinion. It's not blurrier any more than most other FS models, at least to my eyes.
To be honest, I am happy to have it that way, it's still ahead in development than most of our models.
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No nothing's wrong, it's just that the last screen shot posted is a prime example of what happens when you render color, specular, bump, and normal maps together.
Or more accurately, when you invert the normal map and render with a bump.
Honestly, it's an easy fix which I've already implemented. Next map I'll work on is glow and that will be posted tomorrow.
Now if I could just get this Internet Explorer 7 bull**** to work properly...... :mad2:
--To all MOD members-- if you're interested, I'll send the Z-95 your way so you can spin it around and have a look. Be warned though, this was made in Max 9 and I'm not sure how backwards compatibility works, if any exists, granted I can just save the model as an OBJ which should work just as well.
--To brandx0 and Turambar-- I think we should do a render of a Z-95 and Y-wing group flying together, sort of like an 'early days' of the rebellion and maybe shot of Z-95 with the X-wing (from pre-Clone Wars relic to shooting star of the Alliance).
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What's wrong with your IE7? I have IE7, but I use FF 2.0.0.10 (with the IETab plugin just in case) mostly. What's your problem, maybe someone can help.
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I dunno if I want to present a Y-Wing final-ish render yet, considering the texture is just basic colours without the proper dirtying effect and final panel lines, along with no normal or spec maps yet
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-- jr2--For whatever dumb reason, IE7 crashes the moment you load it. In fact, the only way I've been able to successfully use it is to use IE with no-addons. Thankfully, I DO have Firefox as well, but this is just stupid considering the last time I used IE7 was able to get it to work (this was before I had to reformat everything).
--brandx0--It's okay, there's no rush.
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Re-Install IE 7 from the MS Downloads center.
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I did that, but let me see about uninstalling, THEN install the DL, rather than being an impatient ass and installing over the one I did.
Anyways, a treat.... well, more like 'fixed the normal map blurriness' pic.
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_28.jpg)
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I did that, but let me see about uninstalling, THEN install the DL, rather than being an impatient ass and installing over the one I did.
Anyways, a treat.... well, more like 'fixed the normal map blurriness' pic.
Awesome! :D
(http://www.maje3d.com/WIPs/z95_28.jpg)
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I know it's been a while, but I finally got internet, so now the ship database and screenshots for this have been set up on the website. Keep up the good work!
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Hot Z-95, but could you smooth out the engine cylinders? :nervous:
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Hot Z-95, but could you smooth out the engine cylinders? :nervous:
Dude, they ain't anymore faceted than Turambar's X-wing engines, and those are 14-sided cylinders, the same as what I've got here. Besides, the Headhunter is already higher in polycount than any of the other fighters that I'm aware of. Granted, I could probably shave off all the hidden polies that don't get seen, but I need to be able to test that in-game as a pof to see what rendering errors I run into. THAT isn't something I'll be able to mess around with unless PCS finally has a Max 9 plug-in. And I really don't want to mess around with this anymore until I'm able to get a better feel for the actual game engine, otherwise we'll be stuck with nice-looking, yet worthless models that can't be used.
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You'll probably need to do a 3 stage export in the meantime, via obj and 3dEx or something like that, but I would wait until Kaz and Bob can get that BSP compilation bug fixed in PCS2, and it can finally accurately report whether or not a model has conversion errors.
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How many polies is this guy? I'm curious as to whether it beats my Y-Wing for high-uber polycount
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8073 tris.
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Hmm, you know I'm not usually one to complain about polycounts, but that does seem a bit high considering the detail of the mesh. Understandably it has a fair number of curved surfaces, but my Y-Wing has less and it's packed with greebles and surface details
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/me bets its the cockpit canopy... the X-Wing's canopy is flat. How many polys on the Z-95 canopy?
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cockpit canopy with brace is 188 tris.
brandx0, in your Y-wing, do you have every single mesh as being closed? Because if I could get away with having open edges on the stuff you don't see and have it run fine in-game, I would have considerably less in polycount.
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I'm not entirely sure whether you can have open edges or not. I, just for my own peace of mind, prefer to have closed meshes, and thus all of my models are solid with no open edges
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As long as you use them carefully, open edges are fine. It's where you have entire ships built out of jumbles of objects that you can cause problems usually during conversion. I use open edges to make a lot of the smaller detail and build bigger details into the mesh itself, and that process seems to work quite well. :)
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I've thought about handing off two versions of the Z, to see about conversion errors; one in it's current form, and the other optimized which would have open edges in areas where you wouldn't see the polies (like where the wing attaches tot he fuselage or the backside of greebles that won't be visible).
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The Z-95 model looks great.