[Flipside]

Ok, I'm working on this with a mind to making a new heavy assault TV Hybrid ship, basically I wanted to be able to see the Ulysses, The Myrm and a few Vasudan ships in it.

This is how things are going on the 1024x1024 maps.



You can see most of the top of the ship from here, the plating effect is done purely with bump/normal mapping.




From the rear, definite shades of Myrmidon or Serapis showing through.




From the front, this ship is essentially a heavy assault ship, the Minigun is designed primarily for strafing hulls, I'm going to try and give it about a seconds 'spin up' before it lets all hell loose.

Comments/Ideas/Suggestions?

Edit : Oh, and under 1000 Polys at the moment

[asyikarea51]

Reminds me of a bot from Descent... 

Certainly doesn't look conventional, that's for sure...

[Flipside]

Heh, oddly enough, it reminded me a bit of a bot from Descent as well, I think it's the miniguns

[asyikarea51]

To me, the whole ship resembles a Descent bot...

[NGTM-1R]

It's the shape, it screams one of those guided-missile bots from Descent II at me.

I'm not really feeling this big chunk of a front, myself. Made lop off the skids-esque bits on the bottom to change the profile.

[Flipside]

Odd, I've never played Descent 2 either...

Yeah, the front is a bit of a problem, and the texture isn't finished there yet. I think flattening out the entire model, and giving it a higher width/length ratio might help, but I don't want to deform the textures, and I'll have to be careful about the miniguns, I don't want the barrels to end up oval.

[Mefustae]

Looks like a fighter about a generation or two before the Myr but within the same lineage. An early concept prototype, perhaps.

[Flipside]

Hmmm... ok, it looks a little better with the shape change, I'm going to look at building up the back a bit somehow.

I'll change the pictures at the top in a few minutes

Edit : Updated, need to shorten the barrels still though.

[asyikarea51]

One question.

Is the rear sloped down? Sort of... "decreasing thickness" towards the rear of the ship?

 

[NGTM-1R]

Much better.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Oh wow, - that has to be one of the most brilliantly executed hybrid ships I've yet seen. I love it.
(And especially the rivets!)

My only three suggestions would be to:
1) Model in the missile/gun ports the holes represent. The ends of the barrels/missile tips poking out of the recessed black area around them would be perfect.
2) Model in some basic Deimos-like thruster nozzles in the engine recess.
3) Recess the mechanical cut-away areas to make the armour look a bit thicker perhaps?

[Flipside]

Thanks I'm going to look at the guns and things, I did have a look at the exposed tech to see if I could recess, but it goes across a lot of thin polys, which is just asking for normal/vertice errors if I start playing around with cutting/bevelling. Instead, I'm going to look at raising the plates around it, which should give much the same effect but will be far less 'dangerous' to the geometry.

I'll try to post an update this week

[spartan_0214]

awesome... I'd fly that any day....but not with a Vasudan aboard. Is it a two-person craft? It's big enough to be one...

[Flipside]

Thank I still need to finish off the textures at the front, and probably add some more poly-details.

My original idea was that the Ulysses was a highly succesful hybrid Interceptor, the Myrmidon was a Heavy fighter that was quickly gaining a good reputation at the start of FS2. Basically, logic suggests that the next step would be to work on a hybrid assault ship/light bomber, which is the role this is designed to fill.

I suppose the ship could be a 2-man craft, I don't plan on modelling pilots though, I'm very picky with regards to the poly-count and could use them elsewhere to more effect

[Taristin]

From the first image, the cocpit area seems a little too blunt for my liking.  Other angles show it off better, and yes, it does resemble all the ships you say... but something, and I can't tell what, seems just a tad off with the cocpit area. Perhaps it'll come to me, or grow on me, or something. >..>;;

[Nuke]

gatling gun == da awesome ****!

youl want to put it in a different model and use vwep though.

[spartan_0214]

I suppose the ship could be a 2-man craft, I don't plan on modelling pilots though, I'm very picky with regards to the poly-count and could use them elsewhere to more effect

you don't have to, the viewscreen is big enough

[Flipside]

From the first image, the cocpit area seems a little too blunt for my liking.  Other angles show it off better, and yes, it does resemble all the ships you say... but something, and I can't tell what, seems just a tad off with the cocpit area. Perhaps it'll come to me, or grow on me, or something. >..>;;

Yup, the cockpit area is too 'blunt'most Vasudan ships have very rounded cockpits/fronts, whereas this one is more flattened. I'm thinking of greebling the front up a bit more so it doesn't look quite so much like a snifit...

[spartan_0214]

Yup, the cockpit area is too 'blunt'most Vasudan ships have very rounded cockpits/fronts, whereas this one is more flattened. I'm thinking of greebling the front up a bit more so it doesn't look quite so much like a snifit...

NO!!! DON'T!!!!   

[Flipside]

Heh, well, I'm greebling up now, added some thicker panels around the exposed tech sections, and pulled out the main guns so they protrude a little. No matter what I do to the cockpit, it's still going to have that blunt effect, but I'm putting some supports and things merging the cockpit to the panels on the front more, so it has more of a feel of being 'part' of the ship.

I'll try to post some picks once I've done the Engines