Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 01:59:02 am

Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 01:59:02 am
Hello, I've forgotten about Freespace and haven't touched it in over a year.  Yesterday, I found this website and a wave of nostalgia washed over me.  I got hooked once again.  Today I decided to do some modding.  This picture shows a crude model of a possible ship used to colonize new planets.  Give me some inputs.

(http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/MD/col.jpg)


For one, the head of the ship is really ugly.

I forgot that Angelfire sucks.  Copy and paste this:

http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/MD/col.jpg

Sorry for the second post, but i post the first one in the wrong place.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: WMCoolmon on July 06, 2002, 02:09:40 am
1) How many polys?
2) Looks more like a tanker, IMHO
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 02:13:58 am
It doesn't have many... yet.  About 400.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Fineus on July 06, 2002, 02:22:06 am
Looks like it has potential - here's what I'd do...

Squash the tanker "pod" so that it's got a lower height value... it'll make it look more streamlined (and interesting). Move it up closer to the rest of the ship as well as it looks a little odd as far away as it is.

The rear section is neat, keep it more or less as it is  I think. Perhaps extrude some of the faces on it to make it more detailed.

For the front, make it more traingular and angular with the point of the traingle facing forwards.

Alternately it looks a hell of a lot like this:

(http://www.xwaupgrade.com/screenshots/mob/mob4.jpg)

And thats not a bad thing - could give you some ideas :)

Good luck!
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 06, 2002, 02:24:29 am
intersecting polys? bad thing. add more detail to make it interesting :) like side sections joined to the back, replace the lump thing at the front with something more....errr terran. :) add antennaes somewhere, like the front blob.
could make a nice gas miner :)
hay, you posted as i was writing :)
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 02:31:06 am
I'll take all that into consideration.  What do you think of the potential of a colony ship?  Several of these could join up into a small fleet and add some cruisers for protection.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Fineus on July 06, 2002, 02:41:02 am
As scale goes I think making it large would be a bad idea - lots of small ones would be far more impressive in any mission and probably better as well (killing one doesn't kill them all). But when you think about it colony ships are pretty darn similar to freighters anyway - just a different cargo ;)

(That said, it depends on the nature of the colony ship - I'm assuming the colonists are in stasis or something and not wandering around the ship wanting food, air, water etc... therefore my design doesn't include for such things).
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 09:57:00 am
I've thought about just using a freighter and design some kind of a cargo container- one that carrries oragnic material.  I didn't like it because I didn't think it was personal enough.  To me freighter are for metal and other inorganic stuff.  In my version, the colonists aren't in stasis.  Their journey isn't going to lasts years and years.  Maybe just one year or less.  

I agree with you that it should be small, and that's why I put just one colonizing module on each ship.  Originally, I had four.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Unknown Target on July 06, 2002, 12:05:23 pm
Looks like a dildo :D :p
Title: Improved Model
Post by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 12:22:40 pm
Well, you're mature.  Anyway this is this improved model.  I slimmed down the module and replaced the lump at the front.  The back was given a little more detail.

copy and paste this

http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/MD/c.jpg


Is there anyway to upload pictures to the forum instead of using something like Angelfire?
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Unknown Target on July 06, 2002, 01:00:45 pm
It does! Like that big, round thing on the bottom? That looks like...well, maybe I shouldn't :D
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Fineus on July 06, 2002, 01:19:51 pm
UT, Shuddup :) Save your insane rantings for your kickass story things!
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 02:05:12 pm
Well, I hope this thread doesn't go off topic.  UT has opened a proverbial can of worms.  Maybe I should change that module.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Unknown Target on July 06, 2002, 02:49:13 pm
OK, Thunder, I'll try....


Must...resist...uge.:D
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 06, 2002, 08:04:29 pm
looks a lot better, though it still needs side parts, and does it have intersecting polys? the crossbar thing looks like it goes right through the pod. :)
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 09:39:58 pm
I used Object Union- that boolean operation.  I actually had two separate bars one attached to eah end of the module.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Black Wolf on July 06, 2002, 09:43:25 pm
I like the second version a lot better,  but I think it still looks more like a tanker or gas miner than a colony ship.

BTW, compared with certain other ships we've seen in the past, you have nothing to worry about in the phallicisity (is that even a real word???) are. I don't think it even looks all that much like a dildo anyway.

Can I post the link? Can I Can I Can I ???? Please Please Please !!!
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 06, 2002, 10:07:44 pm
What do you think would make it look more like a colony ship?
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Anaz on July 06, 2002, 10:09:11 pm
Domeish type things. If the people walk around they need domeish type things, I have no idea why, but thats just a colony ship thing...
Title: More Improvements
Post by: Megadude on July 07, 2002, 01:05:04 am
I added fins and domes and all I need are some inputs.

Click on the link.

http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/MD/Colony.html
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Black Wolf on July 07, 2002, 01:42:41 am
Looking better and better - Polycount?
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 07, 2002, 07:00:17 am
ooooh, ahhhh
like the dome things. and boolean joins never worked for me. crashed cob2pof every time :)
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: vyper on July 07, 2002, 07:06:50 am
Quote
Originally posted by Unkown Target
It does! Like that big, round thing on the bottom? That looks like...well, maybe I shouldn't :D


Maybe we should have a poll on the issue... :D
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 07, 2002, 08:52:49 am
Right now it has 753 faces.  I plan to triangulate two of the subobjects which increases the poly count to 926.  I guess some more details are in order.  Suggestions?
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: StratComm on July 07, 2002, 03:40:48 pm
OK, here are a few suggestions:

[list=1]
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 07, 2002, 06:04:51 pm
keep the poly count for individual sub-objects under 850. otherwise you get shards of death-where polys shoot off the screen in fred and fs crashes.
if you are going to make things inside the glass domes you will need to make them separate objects too. as for making a see through texture, i have no idea, i think it might by adjusting the alpha value or something. i read that in the scp>cloaking thread.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Anaz on July 07, 2002, 11:24:26 pm
see-through texs are pretty easy IIRC, just make the parts you want see-through to be green.

oh, and see, the domeish type thingys work :D
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 08, 2002, 03:53:08 am
lime green? that's what the main beam on the pylos was. i was wondering why it didn't appear in game. or mabey it did....
anyway, i redid that thing with more turrets and better textures. i also put lods and debris in. now i just need to re-pof it. :)
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Black Wolf on July 08, 2002, 04:49:42 am
Only problem with making them straight green is that will make them transparent instead of translucent. What may work better would be a checkerborad green-black-green-black meaning that half the pixels would be visible and opaue, and half transparent. That may create a translucent effect, but I've never actually tried it, so I can't be sure.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 08, 2002, 06:34:38 am
ahh forget the reskin, woomiester just pointed me at the pics of the final one in the infyrno forum. i only had the demo version, while my reskin looked only just slightly better than the demo version, the final one is better than that. ahh well, back to my freighters.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 08, 2002, 01:30:57 pm
I radically changed the ship.   I took out that tank/capsule/module and emphasized on the domes.  The head was reworked, and the fins are placed in the rear.

 click here (www.angelfire.com/scifi/MD/colB.html)

What do you think?
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: vyper on July 08, 2002, 02:42:21 pm
Nice :nod: :yes:
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Unknown Target on July 08, 2002, 03:30:45 pm
Congrats, now it actually looks like a space ship :D
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Megadude on July 08, 2002, 03:34:52 pm
how about I move back the domes and dropp it a  bit.  What would that be UT?:D
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 08, 2002, 09:34:20 pm
okay, now it looks pretty cool :yes:
the rear is still just a bit boxy but otherwise: very cool :D
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Sesquipedalian on July 08, 2002, 09:55:41 pm
Making a texture with colouration that is pure green (RGB values 0 255 0) will cause the texture to show the background through where the texture should be (i.e. put pure green somewhere on your ship and it will look like it has a hole in it).  

If you want a texture that allows you to see other polygons through it, give the polygon in question some sort of stand-in texture in your modelling program, and then when converting it to pof, replace the name of that stand-in texture with "invisible" in the pof editor.  Invisible is a special case texture in FS2.
Title: Colony Ship
Post by: Black Wolf on July 08, 2002, 10:01:23 pm
Looks like a cross between a Hecate and a Hippocartes. :yes: :) :yes2:

There's an idea - maybe you could skin this twice, once as a colony ship and once as a new medical ship? It really does look like the Hippocrates.