Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: Aardwolf on September 25, 2009, 10:09:25 pm
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I'm working on the Knossos! Despite the fact that the Knossos is not seen up-close very often, and despite the fact that there are numerous cb-ani illustrations depicting the retail model, I figured it would be an interesting experiment.
So far, I haven't really done much other than making some parts of the big piece smoother, but I've got some vague ideas of how I might proceed beyond that.
I'm probably going to make a model based on the little round wheel-like things in the 3rd texture, and copy/paste/scale/distort that in various places, when I get to doing those parts.
The glowy electric-looking things I'm thinking will be indented, and may have cable-like strands running along them. On the front of the big piece, I'm thinking about making the two glowy sections that come from the sides meet up with the one on the bottom in some maybe-interesting way.
Some of the greebles in the textures look not-too-alien, so I may do those as exposed/indented areas as well. The sort of shell-like layered patterns I haven't really figured out yet, whether they should be modeled in or left as texture-only.
I haven't really got anything screenshot-worthy, but once I've got something I'll upload pics.
Edit: some reference images, since I haven't got much better to show at this point...
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/original_texture_1.png) (http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/original_texture_2.png) (http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/original_texture_3.png)
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What happened to the Azrael? Did you finish that?
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Yay, another Ancient to be upgraded :D
I think the shells will be just fine with normal maps, no need to model them in.
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The electric bit would look better with an animated glowmap than cables. IMO.
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Actually, I think the textures look great. I kinda want to see it on the whole thing before making my opinion, though.
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Actually, I think the textures look great. I kinda want to see it on the whole thing before making my opinion, though.
These are the retail textures :P
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:eek2:
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I need reference to base an opinion, it's like showing me a birds knee and asking me if i think she's hot :doubt:
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I don't think I've ever looked at the Knossos closely enough to notice any of those texture details. :p
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Last time I saw a Knossos that close up my fighter turned into a shortlived fireball a few seconds later.
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In the mission where the second Knossos is discovered (I think it was "Straight, No Chaser") I often find myself getting uncomfortably close to the Knossos.
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Honestly I think the more often seen details would be glows rather than indentations. I don't think too much detail on the engravings etc. is necessary.
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First screenshot!
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/bigpiece_1.png)
As you can see, I haven't deviated much from the shape. I've been focusing on smoothing out some parts. One change I did make, however, is a bit hard to illustrate with a single screenshot; the thin, flat part in the middle I've made into a sort of I-beam shape, because the retail model's 6-polygon shape was a bit uninspiring.
Edit: Second screenshot!
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/bigpiece_2.png)
This is a "front" view of the same piece. You can see the little electric-like bits running along both sides and converging underneath... I'm thinking that could probably look pretty cool...
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Comparison shots would be cool. Though, I'm hoping when this is further along we won't need them to tell the difference. ;)
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Textureless render please?
Can't really tell what happened right there so it's hard to comment either way.
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'Lo and be-holde, mine un-textured comparison Shottes:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/comparison_1.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/comparison_2.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/comparison_3.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Knossos%20Upgrade/comparison_4.png)
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Looks like lots of polys, but little to no added detail to me.
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Well yeah, so far all I've been doing is trying to avoid needlessly sticking to the original's edges/verts by smoothing the faces that I reckon ought to be smoothed, in advance.
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Looks like lots of polys, but little to no added detail to me.
Yeah. A lot like the Sobek.
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... To be absolutely honest, despite the fact that the Knossos is probably one of the major plot objects in FS2, I've always payed little to no attention to it.
But you can never have enough high-poly stuff, so bring it on!
On a side note, I actually thought this had something to do with the code or something for the Knossos ......
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Yeah. Knossos++ is the new IDE environment that warps the code on to your HDD when you want to compile it, but otherwise it's elsewhere when you're not.
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:lol:
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wow, you found the nurbs button...
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:wtf:
/me is not using NURBS
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NURBS?
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Non uniformed Rotation B-Splines?
Or am i completely wrong :nod:
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They smooth stuff basically.
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NURBS are a different way of rendering, instead of using polygons.
They're basically 3D Splines.
They make it very hard to have straight edges, but everything is nicely curved.
(Except they're always converted to polygons by current render hardware)
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Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines, and that's irrelevant anyway. I've been doing the curves by eye, although I reckon I will need to go back and check without texturing before I proceed to work on the greebles.
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point being it looks like you did nothing but hit the 'make everything s smooth' button, there is no additional detail, in fact it's hard to tell the difference between the new model and the old one.
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I suggest we wait for greebles before we make a final judgement. :P
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I suggest we wait for greebles before we make a final judgement. :P
Yeah, I haven't gotten to it yet.
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I think people need to keep in mind that this is a work in progress. Aardwolf has stated several times that he's starting with the smoothing, then adding details, make your judgment when you see the final product.
Anyway, it the smoothing looks really nice, and I can't wait to see how it'll turn out.
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yeah, he should start with adding detail, not smoothing, because all he'll get that way is an undiferentited blob
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Bull****.
See Galemp for an explanation.
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Both techniques are valid. However, you shouldn't be posting pics when the progress of the model is like that... It just doesn't give any kind of idea of what you are doing.
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yeah, he should start with adding detail, not smoothing, because all he'll get that way is an undiferentited blob
I recall an incident with the Dragon where the artist greebled the fighter without smoothing out the base model. Now he pretty much can't go back and fix it.
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Kolgena hit this one on the head. When HTLing a pre-existing model, I learned the hard way with Dragon that it's better to start with the largest geometry first--ie smoothing and detailing the main hull. After that you can move on to the greebles.
Think of it like growing a plant--you need land before you can get anywhere.
Make the land, then grow the greebles.
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That's not the issue here I believe. That "smoothing" you are talking about is not actual smootheness but geometry cleanness, and silhuette work.
Here that just isn't happening. The silhuette hasn't improved (fin and neck for instance), the geometry isn't workable (bad edge loops, lots of tris). The "fins" aren't connected in a believable way, and again, the silhuette hasn't improved.
That's the issue I see.
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To be fair, he hasn't had a chance to do much with the model... like, at all. Wait for the greebles, since those are what are going to change the silhouette.
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I know this is not related to the topic but I just wanna know.. might come handy sometime in the future.
So if you got to make a new model or upgrade one.. how would you go about it, in terms of what would you do first and aside from the basic geometry which should go first IMO.
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To be fair, he hasn't had a chance to do much with the model... like, at all. Wait for the greebles, since those are what are going to change the silhouette.
Then, like I mentioned before, he shouldn't be showing anything at all probably, unless he was expecting any sort of comment\crit, which I am giving, and believe I'm being pretty sincere and honest. I also think that I'm not being offensive in any way.
Also, you are wrong. The greebles don't change the silhuette at all. The most they can do is "break" or "noise" the silhuette lines. Silhuettes live out of big shapes. That's a design fact.
I know this is not related to the topic but I just wanna know.. might come handy sometime in the future.
So if you got to make a new model or upgrade one.. how would you go about it, in terms of what would you do first and aside from the basic geometry which should go first IMO.
I honestly don't have a set workflow, but then again, I do models for about 10 years now, and know the tools I use pretty well.
But basically:
- If I'm starting from scratch (new ship design), I block out the shape\silhuette, making sure it is very basic and clean, but paying attention to what are different parts of the ship, how they connect, etc). Just deformed primitives. After that I rebuild those shapes with the edgeflows I think I'll need. The important thing here is that they flow in the directions I want for future greebling (BIG greebles, no micro-detail). Once those are done, I move to greebling, which is more of a wrap up of the forms.
The important thing is establishing the big shapes right in the start, because the design lives of the big shapes... The millenium falcon for instance, is a cool design because of its general shape. The rest is just a wrap. Same goes for the star destroyer.
- If I'm upgrading the model, I first look at the original and try to identify the shapes (knossos: head; fined tail; lower fins; neck). I think how they could be connected if it was actually built. On these cases you don't have to worry much about design, except when it comes to identifying the flow of the design, and how those shapes could be more interesting (again, silhuette). For instance, in the knossos again, the connection between the lower fins and the head could be more fluid. The neck could have an hourglass shape, or be build of various tubes, etc.
Then its the same process as in if I was making my own design.
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Depends what you define by greebling then. I tend to apply the term to more than just surface doodling, although that might not be the proper usage of the term. But yes, screenshots of a barely started project were perhaps unnecessary.
Whatever. I eagerly await screenies of a more complete product :D (Just make sure the two sub-units don't run into each other in the spinning)
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Kolgena hit this one on the head. When HTLing a pre-existing model, I learned the hard way with Dragon that it's better to start with the largest geometry first--ie smoothing and detailing the main hull. After that you can move on to the greebles.
Think of it like growing a plant--you need land before you can get anywhere.
Make the land, then grow the greebles.
Same here. Same ship, even.
I'm considering maybe starting to work on this some more ATM.