[Killer Whale]

This is an old, necro'd topic, scroll down for new content

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So I've finally got round to attempting to model a couple of ships. My first attempt so I'm learning as I go. My internet's been shaped down to 64kbps so I'll have to wait a while before I can get a .dds compatible image program (unless mum's got paintshop pro on her USB) and get a .dae-compatible PCS2. So before I can get all wrapped up in wrapping, I want to know whether my models will actually work and get some feedback. eg, does my debris have to all be manifold, are the ships the wrong size, the wrong orientation, too high poly, too low poly, going to be hell to texture, really quite bad, good for a first attempt, not following other models' patterns, like freud guns, don't like engines etc.
What do you think?

I've got a feeling the first one (Seagull) might be a bit high poly and inefficient, but am optimistic for the second one (Kingfisher). The first started out as an interceptor but is now a heavy interceptor, maybe even an intercept gunship, meant to have big energy levels which when balanced are pretty bad, but when the levels are shuffled around a bit is really powerful, and has a horrible (for the pilot) profile. The gun on its face is for taking out bombs, likely a subach or a new rapidfire, low damage weapon. The second is a strike fighter, a bit of a glass cannon, deals huge damage quickly (12 maxim gunpoints), but runs out of juice and hps quickly as well.

These are .blend files, not .pof files. Not tabled, not textured, not finished off in PCS.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LSPVE3I5
www.megaupload.com/?d=MEXGHOPO

ps. I seem to recall I might have been playing around with the textures in the first one which will look really weird. Disregard.

[Enioch]

Hey there,

First things first: the Seagull file seems to be corrupt. Dunno if something's wrong on my side, but please, check it out on your side too.

So I've finally got round to attempting to model a couple of ships. My first attempt so I'm learning as I go.

Please don't get me wrong when I say it shows. The Kingfisher's mesh is kinda...sloppy, for lack of a better word.

BUT.

The idea is good.    The concept is good.    The overall shape is good, if a bit...simple.    Try adding some engine pods, extruding some side structures, something to break the 'two cylinders joined together' look. It's not a bad look, as I said above: it reminds me of a pocket submarine. But it requires some variation.

Good to see that you're LODing your mesh    : many modelers, including me, don't bother to, until the mesh is textured and done, in which point we're out of motivation.

As for your workflow: if Thaeris saw your mesh, he'd scream about you not using quads instead of triangles. I'm not one to talk, of course. See, it is my belief that mesh errors can be avoided if you keep the whole mesh...a single mesh, without 'broken off' pieces (such as the cylinders in the end of the Kingfisher's wings). That means that using triangles to patch up holes and join mesh pieces is unavoidable. But I do find it easier to start working with quads and keep working with them as long as I can. Dunno how soon you triangulated the mesh, but what I got was a lot of triangles.     (although, upon seeing the mesh again, I notice that they're arrayed in quad formations. So, I guess the triangulation was pretty late.)

All in all, a good first attempt, with lots of room for improvement. Don't be discouraged. My first model consisted of three boxes and a twelve-sided cylinder, all greebled to the max with an automated greeble plugin.    I think if made some giant leaps since then, and all I can say is, your second batch of models will be good and your third very good. Just don't give up.

[Hades]

I couldn't open the seagull file either, fyi.

[Killer Whale]

oops, it's a .dae (from when I started trying to convert it), my bad.
Should be fixed now

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LSPVE3I5

[Enioch]

Got it.

Yeah, well, it gives the same impression as the Kingfisher. Decent concept, let down by simple mesh. Can't suggest anything other than 'Keep working on them; you'll get better; and when you do, you'll eat models like these for breakfast.'

[bobbtmann]

Could we see some screenshots?

[Enioch]

Yes:



That's the Kingfisher. Tried to fix the smoothing a bit. The Seagull is a likewise cylindrical fighter, with triple radial-symmetrical wings. Smoothing is a bit off there too.

[Scooby_Doo]

That would make a good gun pod 

[bobbtmann]

I like the gun cluster in the front. The barrels look cool. Perhaps you could consider how the wing canons are attached. It looks like you have three of them mounted around the body. Rather than rectangle wing-mountings, you try triangular, or slope them in some way. It would integrate better with the body.

[Killer Whale]

Gun pod?

Possibly it'd be prefferred if I tried improving the existing models instead of making a new one but I was a bit far in when I thought of that.
Okay, so made another one. Tried to break up sections of hull, make it look less geometric. The previous ones were made of triangles pretty much the whole way through, if you saw triangles arranged in quads it was just because that's the shape it started out as and I hadn't modified it. I was using triangles as the fswiki said it had to be made out of triangles so I thought it would be best to start out with them. This one was made out of quads for an aweful lot longer (yay, I can ctrl-r). I made the hull all one mesh as was recommended, but the cockpit has got all sorts of horrible intersecting and broken off bits.
So here's the GTF Wagtail (sensing a pattern here?), a space superiority fighter which should confuse the hell out of AIs when flying head on. Better?
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5CZPEU68

Attatched is a picture of the GTF Wagtail
Second attachment is, from left to right, GTF Seagull (that's a lot bigger than I thought when I was making it, it looks more like a heavy assault bomber than an intercept gunship)(In which case it should be GTGs Seagull), GTF Kingfisher, GTF Wagtail.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

Edit:

[Enioch]

MUUUCH better, despite the fact that it's obviously a Copy-Paste job. I like the shape and the biplane 'struts'. Out of the three ships, this is the one I could really see myself flying.

Haven''t downloaded the Mesh, so I cannot comment on the geometry near the cockpit.

I've found that the best way to learn how to model is to download a 'decent', not too high-poly, mesh (perhaps export one of the early HTL models) and try to model it from scratch. Do it a couple of time, approaching the problem from different angles and using different techniques, and your workflow and abilities will improve dramatically.

Just my 2 cents.

[Killer Whale]

Awwww no constructive criticism! Thanks for the feedback by the way, very much appreciated; love to learn  (which means don't stop just because I said thanks)

[ktistai228]

go to the wiki and take a look at other models from other people. Maybe that will help a little!

[Enioch]

Awwww no constructive criticism!

Oh dear, you're right.  Sorry.

About the Wagtail:

The concept is good and delightfully original, although it does give off a certain 'Ulysses' vibe. I think it's the first 'bi-plane' fighter we've seen. In fact, with your permission, I'd like to steal the idea and use it on a non-canon Renegade Legion fighter.

The realization ... not so good, but, still, waaaay better than your previous models. What I believe is holding you back, is the fact that you don't plan out the details of the mesh, before starting work on it. You kinda 'go with the flow', tweaking the vertices to get a good overall shape, which, unfortunately, suffers from poor geometry. Let me give an example.

Check the point where the struts join the lower 'wing'. There is a weird pyramid-like structure there that a) messes up the wing contours, b) draws the eye to a triangle-like formation on a quad-like fighter (you've got four rectangular 'wings' there, but no triangular shapes) and c) plain looks bad. Why is that there? You could have placed a panel there, or a recessed niche with pipes and wires, or a support for the strut. Instead, there are four highly visible triangles there.

If you had planned out the mesh, even in your head, you'd have realized you would need a certain geometry around that area, perhaps a certain formation of quads, or some grooves to accentuate the final shape, or maybe some extruded cylindrical formations for antennae. Then, of course, you'd have to incorporate that geometry to your mesh, and so on and so forth.

I'm not being intentionally vague, and I hope you understand what I'm saying here. The fact is that you need experience, plain and simple. That experience will allow you to figure out what can and can't be done with Blender (or whatever app you're using), teach you shortcuts and, last but not least, teach you to conceptualize shapes and objects from the modeler's perspective.

So keep on working and happy extruding.

[Zacam]

Embarrassingly enough, what's done here is beyond what even my skill will accommodate.

I can handle modeling programs, and I can read UVmaps. I can smooth, fix _some_ geometry issues or mapping issues and I can _think_ things through for altering _existing_ stuff.

Give me a blank canvas, and that's exactly what my mind does, is draw a blank. So you've already gotten potentially the most massive hurdle out of the way already, at least from where I am sitting. The rest, comes with however much time, patience and practice as you put into it.

[Killer Whale]

Awwww no constructive criticism!

Oh dear, you're right.  Sorry.

Thanks

The concept is good and delightfully original, although it does give off a certain 'Ulysses' vibe. I think it's the first 'bi-plane' fighter we've seen. In fact, with your permission, I'd like to steal the idea and use it on a non-canon Renegade Legion fighter.

Yeah I was looking up to the Ulysses, had the modelview model up in the background as it was my "professional" example to work towards. Go ahead with the Bi-plane idea, I was just 3D drawing ideas.

What I believe is holding you back, is the fact that you don't plan out the details of the mesh, before starting work on it. You kinda 'go with the flow', tweaking the vertices to get a good overall shape, which, unfortunately, suffers from poor geometry.

Yeah, you've definitely got me. My concept sketches aren't 10 cm² and I build the rest as I go along. So plan ahead, 'kay.

Let me give an example.

Check the point where the struts join the lower 'wing'. There is a weird pyramid-like structure there that a) messes up the wing contours, b) draws the eye to a triangle-like formation on a quad-like fighter (you've got four rectangular 'wings' there, but no triangular shapes) and c) plain looks bad. Why is that there? You could have placed a panel there, or a recessed niche with pipes and wires, or a support for the strut. Instead, there are four highly visible triangles there.

Hmmm, didn't think about that. Oh and, how do I do 3D bezier curves, I forgot. (I wanted to use them near the engines, but instead there's a bunch of cylinders and rectangular prisms)

I'm not being intentionally vague, and I hope you understand what I'm saying here. The fact is that you need experience, plain and simple. That experience will allow you to figure out what can and can't be done with Blender (or whatever app you're using), teach you shortcuts and, last but not least, teach you to conceptualize shapes and objects from the modeler's perspective.

Experience, *sighs*, a lot of work ahead then. That planning ahead bit seems the hardest, I'll see what I can do

So keep on working and happy extruding.

Will do

[Enioch]

Yeah, you've definitely got me. My concept sketches aren't 10 cm² and I build the rest as I go along. So plan ahead, 'kay.

It's not just a matter of a good concept sketch. That is very important, true. However, what I meant was that you need to plan ahead about how the mesh lines are going to 'flow' around the model, where you are going to subdivide and where you will merge vertices together, where you're going to use pure quads and where you're going to have to resort to tri-modeling. All that depends on the concept, of course, but there are many ways to work on a concept. Your goal should be to create the 'cleanest' possible mesh; not necessarily the one with the less polygons. but the one with the best geometry structure.

Oh and, how do I do 3D bezier curves, I forgot.

Not possible with polygon editing, I'm afraid. You could use NURBS, but those need to be converted to polygons later on, for conversion to POF, and such conversions are tricky. For smooth shapes you probably need to subdivide and smooth your quads accordingly.

[Killer Whale]

It's the summer holiday's again, turns out year 11 was a lot of work. So over the past (passed?) week or so I've done some modelling: Kingfisher Re-make, Falcon, Spoonbill and Gull Re-make (order of construction) (The tags on the end, eg. 2.13, refer to my saves, for Kingfisher 2 I made 13 saves over the course of the model, each saved as different files)
What have I done over the last year? Well... I learnt to use the edgesplit modifier (and ctrl-e mark sharp)... drew some pictures... and that's about it. So it's not like I've spent all year refining my skills to make these models. I feel confident enough to say I've stepped up in skill, but only a step; to any aspiring modellers out there: it wasn't a big step.

One model at a time, Kingfisher: I don't know what to do next. It's only (unoptimised) 1739 polies (3408 triangulated) and it's really smooth. I need advice on how to greeble it.


So can anyone give me some pointers? I tried just randomly extruding faces out, but the result left a lot to be desired.


I want it to look like a ship, preferably a freespace one. At the moment, I can't say it does (well, unless it was as smooth(e?) as the Herc II)

[BlasterNT]

Wow, just looking at this thread, it appears you've made quite a bit of progress.  From what I can see of the screenshots of the Kingfisher, I think that the geometry is actually good to go.  I've found that in FreeSpace, it's really the textures and normal that sell the ship--take a look at the Atalanta(sp?)/Kvaiser in blue planet.  IIRC, your model already approaches the level of detail of that one, and the Kvaiser looks amazing ingame because of its textures.

Of course, I'm relatively new to the fs2 modeling scene myself, so take everything I say with a grain of salt  ;-). 
But, great work, keep it up!


Edit:  as for what to actually do when detailing a model, generally, I think of what systems a fighter needs, and where to put them.  things like glowpoints, rearm dock hatches, doors, squad logos, and for FreeSpace universe, grates and intakes, etc.   It helps a lot if you have reference images of what things look like on real life fighters--think support struts, little bevels for cockpits.  And I tend to bevel out places which would logically be the most heavily armored--the nose, cockpit, and engines.  And heck, as long as you have the polies to spare, comm antennae  and such.  Hope I've been helpful..