[Nyctaeus]

New Claymores looks sexy!

Rampage did a great job with them. They will be textured soon.

@Nyctaeus:
What is the first ship? new EA cruiser?
Also the ship before the last one looks like old Bastion model - it this will be GTA or become new Auriga?

First is Aesacus replacement. Second is new Auriga

P.S. I alsolutely hate new Eclipse - this thing looks like deformed Eclipse - too many hull details/pipes/stuff! Too many details can be a bad thing too - keep it in moderation, flat surface is not a bad thing!

No. It will hate you. With lots of flak cannons.

The Eclipse follows general style of Earther warships - ugly, blocky, raw, industrial designs with lots of stuff around. It's influenced by one thing - retail Orion, that has a lot of greebles and small stuff in capital01-01 texture. Earth warships are and will be like that. If you prefer ships with more flat sections, I hope Martian warships like Auriga may be more of your liking.

Please, rethink what you said. I acknowledge constructive criticism and obviously not everyone like everything, but now you sound like you pretend to know how to do my job better. And you are not in position to say such things considering amount of modelling experiance you have.

[Nightmare]

Well it could've been said in a nicer tone atleast. My opinion on the recent edits is a bit mixed too- on one hand, these are absolutly stunning models, certainly among the best what HLP has to offer, on the other hand all the changes in EAs ship design and textures push it away from what I am (and possibly some other people) are used to at INF. Maybe it's special for me because INFR1 was the first FS mod I've ever played, and I had it installed for over half a year back then so it's sad for me to see the classic textures getting replaced entirely.

It's not like the new textures wouldn't have their own charms, in fact the contrast between the old HTLed INFR1 ships and the new somewhat Homeworld-based designs that reflected EAs backstory with semi-autonomous Jovians having their own design specifics was one of the things I liked most about Nostos. Still seeing a design like the Aesacus getting swapped out with a previously INF-unrelated design leaves me with mixed feelings even though the model has more polies than half of the INFR1 fleet.

[Nyctaeus]

It's a price we pay for progress and quality, dude.

For years I was mostly doing tile-baked ships mostly because I wanted to preserve original look of some ships. I still use this method sometimes [Bastion for example] but also it's severly limiting my artistic freedom, and furthermore everything tile-based stands against basic rules of composition of solids and planes. Original EA textures, although classic and remembered by many, are extremely noisy and busy. HTL Lindos is my attempt to keep it as classic as possible and in my opinion, it failed. Similar discussions took place numerous times in FSU forums, and surprisingly I was where you stand now.

I eventually realized that I should not get too attached to look of ship that is direct reason of texturing methods used in original models because those models are extremely old same as texturing and the way it was done. If artists had current technology, soft and computers, you would never see and Orion or Deimos the way they appeared in original games. Original EA ships are the same story.

IMHO Aesacus was one of the worst designs in original INFR1 because it's as generic as possible. New model is direct descendant of Fenris line, and fits much better to the GTA only successor much more. In fact, current direction of new EA fleet leads straight to it's very roots and new fleet has much more FS1 influences. HTL Nemesis for example is going to stay the same in terms of general shape, but I'm gonna incorporate lots of details influenced by Fenris.

[mr.WHO]

Please, rethink what you said. I acknowledge constructive criticism and obviously not everyone like everything, but now you sound like you pretend to know how to do my job better. And you are not in position to say such things considering amount of modelling experiance you have.

I don't have problem with the general EA design direction, all other new EA ships and models looks fine.

Only the Eclipse is absolute overkill with things on the hull - there is too many things on the hull and nearly zero flat surface. It look good on Destroyer (e.g. the new Tereus model, Lindos model), but way too much for a cruiser - it's hard to even tell apart the turrets and beam emiters from other hull elements:



Sorry for criticism, but Eclipse looks like deformed monster comparing to original design. It's a first time I actually find low-poly model much better than the high-poly one.

This style (clean and flat surface) would fit Eclipse much better:


Edit: P.S. I noticed that the Earth is upside down on that Corvette logo

[Rhymes]

You've made how you feel about the redesign of the Eclipse clear. Sorry it doesn't work for you, but this is the direction we've decided to take with the Earth-build capital ships for the foreseeable future. If you feel that strongly about it, you are entirely free to create your own variant of the Eclipse that better reflects what you would like to see.

[Nightmare]

Edit: P.S. I noticed that the Earth is upside down on that Corvette logo

I think this was already fixed.

[Nyctaeus]

Please, rethink what you said. I acknowledge constructive criticism and obviously not everyone like everything, but now you sound like you pretend to know how to do my job better. And you are not in position to say such things considering amount of modelling experiance you have.

Sorry for criticism, but Eclipse looks like deformed monster comparing to original design. It's a first time I actually find low-poly model much better than the high-poly one.

This style (clean and flat surface) would fit Eclipse much better

The difference you talk about comes from age of certain models. Eclipse is brand new, while Skotas was released several years ago. Our team remapped and reskinned it. If you like lowpoly models, you are free to use current, mid-poly Eclipse because new model is fully compatible with old tables and missions.

I acknowledged that you like flat surfaces, but as we stated, our direction for EA models is different and "make your models lower poly" is not a criticism. This is unproductive complaining. If more flat surfaces are needed I would certainly know about it.

In fact, we should upgrade Skotas to higher polycount but with PBR maps it's good enough.

Edit: P.S. I noticed that the Earth is upside down on that Corvette logo

I think this was already fixed.

Ye.

[Jellyfish]

Maybe there are flat Eclipses, but the current conflict had those captains decide they needed extra protection. Cue a bucketload of ERA.
I like both, by the way.

[mr.WHO]

I think the problem lies not in my fascination with flat surfaces, but rather amount of details to ship size ratio.

Basically when you look at Eclipe you got sensory overload and you don't see ship and it's elements, but a slab of various shapes and colors:

Honestly - if you would have seen EA ship for the first time it would be like - where are beams/turrets? the red thingy? cyan thingy? yellow thingy? big grey cilinder in center?
Turrets on top barrelly distinct from hull elements. The hull details are severly distracting in Eclipse case.

Let me show you other ships that follow the very same design, but are bigger:

Nearly exact same design principle, but somehow much less chaotic (still a bit too much to my taste, but way better than Eclipse).


Tereus actually looks very good and there is even some flat surface that nicely ballance the hull details (Same is with Lindos).

All 3 ships seems to have comparable level of details, but Eclipse is the smallest of them, which makes it too detailed per square meter of surface.

[Nyctaeus]

As I said, It's not a matter of flat sections, but polycount. And in this case, the lighting:

I took the first screenshots of Eclipse at very bright light settings to test how some PBR features behave on FSO engine. There is almost no shadows and darkened spots on this screen. Shadow play very important role at reading shapes. Here is a screenshots with normal, darker, more-realistic light settings. Sorry but even blind would spot the turrets and other things here.

I get your point, but I disagree. I'm sorry that my work is not satisfying you, but I can't satisfy everyone. Eclipse will not be changed soon and in foreseeable future either. At this point I'm not interested in continuing this discussion further.

[Nightmare]

1 more question if I may- wasn't the point about the Eclipse that it simply had parts of the old classic textures actually modeled?

[mr.WHO]

@Nyctaeus:
You might be right that the light and lack of shadow made it much more worse that in reality.
In the last screenshot you posted, Eclipse actually looks much better.

Would you be able to also put the same screenshot from top-front-side agle?

[Nyctaeus]

1 more question if I may- wasn't the point about the Eclipse that it simply had parts of the old classic textures actually modeled?

No... Please... K***a... Forget about this idea. Really...

The point of remaking tilemapped ships is actually doing everything to keep them as far from "tilemapped look" as possible. I won't model tiles. Nobody ever should do that. Anything like that will generate repeatable look and cover all the detailwork. Each part of the ship should look unique.

@Nyctaeus:
You might be right that the light and lack of shadow made it much more worse that in reality.
In the last screenshot you posted, Eclipse actually looks much better.

Would you be able to also put the same screenshot from top-front-side agle?

[Nightmare]

Well I've got no idea about modelling and some parts of the Eclipse decorations looked like parts of the old tilemaps.

[Nyctaeus]

Well I've got no idea about modelling and some parts of the Eclipse decorations looked like parts of the old tilemaps.

o____O?

Well... That's not what I expected. I guess I misunderstood you. If you have that impression it was not intended on my side, but it may not be actually bad thing.

Which parts reminds you tiles?

[Nightmare]

Some of the details on the fin and the rear, as well as the thing at the top looked like the TTil05 and 07 to me... maybe it was just my imagination.

[mr.WHO]

Hmm, with this darker light and shadows Eclipse actually looks OK.
I'd still say it's too overdetailed in the center, but the nose and engine sections looks nice (probably because some flat space   ).

Edit: Actually the center section reminds me kinda Battlestar Galactica with removed armor plates - it's like someone decided to armour nose and engine, but left the center uncovered.

[Nyctaeus]

[mr.WHO]

Is it just my imagination or new Auriga is smaller than old one?

[Nyctaeus]

Almost the same length as Orion [and old Auriga].