Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Fate of the Galaxy => Topic started by: maje on September 11, 2008, 09:47:29 pm
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I decided to post what I've got on this guy so far. The redo is going well enough, with a poly count only around 5200 tris so far. Expect that to jump when the forward cargo bay and engine assembly gets modeled, and then all those little cargo modules.
Which, by the way, does anyone have any ideas for the cargo modules? I was thinking of making them seperate models until I realized how many of them are bound to the hull which would have an insane amount of docking points to worry about. I suppose I could try custom "arrangements" of cargo modules grouped to the hull if need be. I really do want to make the transports seem different from one another if at all possible.
Also, I've heard of a GR-45 Transport that's basically a smaller version of the GR-75, and that this was seen in the ANH special edition in the Mos Eisley sequence. Are there any actual physical differences (ie number of engines, protrusions, etc.) other than being tan?
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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All I could find was this (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/GR-45_Medium_Transport).
And, this is a dang nice looking GR-75. It does look a little excessive on the smoothing though, but maybe anything less would look bad the way all those details are cut into the hull like that. I think it'll be the best GR-75 ever put in a game.
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I think perhaps the polycount might be a bit high considering the scope of the model. It is, after all, only a transport. It seems that once you put the cargo modules in it'll rival the ISD for polycount, perhaps even exceed it.
As for the cargo modules, I think one configuration is enough. Once again, it's not as if the actual placement of each module will affect us much I don't think.
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It depends on whether you want the cargo modules to function as actual deep-space cargo units, I think. You'd only need a separate POF if the Gallofree was docking with the cargo in-mission.
If you only want two states 'full' and 'empty' then you can just do the cargo as a submodel (or many submodels) and set them to be destroyed if the thing is empty. If you do lots, you can set them as untargettable, or even as destructable so they can be blown up in combat.
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You can compensate your polycount by using of LODs in a clever way. Even if you reach a such a high polycount, there won't be more than two or three of these things on screen, and not all of them will be on LOD0. I'm more preoccupied by such polycounts on fighters.
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Well, I thought that the average fighter polycount was around 5000-7000 tris, and thus larger ships were afforded higher polycounts which you can than manage LODs and Detail boxes. That and the GR-75 is about 3/5ths (90 meters) length of a Corellian Corvette, so it's a bigger ship than say a Lambda-class shuttle.
Was there any specific polycount range in mind for transports? I mean, the old Nebulon-B Frigate is 12129 tris and that's a 300 meter ship.
I'll see about what I can do to reduce poly counts later after the GR-75 is done.
I do like Galemp's idea on how to handle the cargo pods.
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Looking over the post again, my mental math was completely down (I was very tired, hehehe)
Anyways, yeah the polycount is fine in retrospect, I dunno what I was thinking last night hehe. I've been a bit out of sorts lately.
And I like Galemp's idea as well.
Carry on.
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You may want to do some sort of combo. Some via dock points and the rest as submodels. That way you could still do cargo loading/unloading missions for some while the others are fixed. Who would want to fly around while the whole thing is loaded anyway?
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Update time. Here are some examples of cargo pods to be bound to the hull.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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All very nice..
Keep up the good work :yes:
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more......
This time, updating the engine assembly.
6653 tris btw.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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Lookin pretty awesome man. I like the render settings too.
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I can see a couple problems with the smooth groups, but I always save those for last anyways, maybe you do the same. Otherwise looking fine.
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Looking real nice. I agree with Fubar though that having at least a couple of the containers attached via dockpoints would be a good thing. Your FREDders will thank you, as it opens up many more ways to use the ship.
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All I could find was this (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/GR-45_Medium_Transport).
And, this is a dang nice looking GR-75. It does look a little excessive on the smoothing though, but maybe anything less would look bad the way all those details are cut into the hull like that. I think it'll be the best GR-75 ever put in a game.
Hi, non-modeler here with a question/suggestion.
Won't the effect of the (extreme?) smoothing be lost anyway when the hull is textured and normal mapped anyway, negating the point of it being so smooth in the first place?
That's it. Feel free to call me a moron or something, I just wanted to put that out there.
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Nope, smoothing is supported in the FS2 engine. Try taking a look at some models with textures turned off, in PCS, Modelview or the ship lab.
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I must commend Maje for this, it's one ship I wouldn't have touched with a bargepole ;)
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Sorry there haven't been any updates to this, I've been on vacation for Anime Weekend Atlanta.
On a side note, I took a look through the Star Wars Complete Locations cross-sections book at a Barnes & Noble, and came across a slew of new ships that were never seen in great detail. The biggest additions come from the Mos Eisley section which shows the GR-45 (and there is a major difference in the rear detailing such as only one primary extrusion in the center where the command pod sits; all others are removed), some of other misc. transports and a NEIMODIAN shuttle craft. Now I have no idea if the Neimodian shuttle was in the 1997 ANH 20th ann. edition or what. It may have just been a nod to the prequels.
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Is Mos Eisly the best place to find details on ships? It's mostly a smugglers port and they like to do modifications after all. They may have modified the ship to make it go faster or hold more cargo.
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good point.
and just ignore prequel stuff if you can. it's a load of crap.
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Well, we've stated this before: While we're not big fans of the prequels on this team, we're not going to use some sort of handwavium and pretend they didn't happen. They did, deal with it. Therefore, if there's something in the prequels that we think fits in well, we'll consider using it. If something in the prequels expands our understanding of the universe, we'll use it.
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and if something in the prequels utterly destroys our sense of magic and wonder that fills this universe?
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I don't think that the schematics of a ship is going to do that.