[Vasudan Admiral]

The fact that the Colossus doesn't have places to hide in in retail, and that the fighter AI is too dumb to properly take out a fighter hiding in a place like that.

In other words, it would mess up existing missions.

Stop worrying about it. The amount of pure awesome factor this setup has over the original setup blows any piddly little cons like that out of the water.

Same for the 'not warship-like enough' argument too actually. With FS-universe models, the rule of thumb is (eyecandy/awesome) > realism. And besides, HT is quite right - the strength internal decks and stuff would add to the neck as a whole would be negligable compared to that of the external girders.

Looks fantastic Galemp - great idea, and keep it up.

[Kolgena]

Do as you wish.
Altough my personal preference is to design warships like they are...you know.. actually built for war?

True, but a game with completely smooth spaceships with no greeble (only idiots would build warships with exposed piping/hardware) is lame. Besides, building the neck with much less mass (we're talking the equivalent of an entire skyscraper's worth of empty volume) means that there's less stress on it when the colossus tries to turn. Otherwise, it may snap in two or something.

Hmmm. I'm wondering if it's possible to get colly-batted in a way that gets you stuck in the girders, so that you bounce/vibrate in the gap before dustifying. Might be funny.

But carry on. It's looking plenty awesome.

Edit: I just realized that this has the potential to look like absolute rubbish because the girders can't cast shadows. Can we fix that?

[Aardwolf]

Muahahaha lack of shadows FTL.

[Galemp]

I can bake the basic ambient occlusion that you can see here onto the texture, but hard stenciled shadows will have to wait.

[colecampbell666]

Do as you wish.
Altough my personal preference is to design warships like they are...you know.. actually built for war?

True, but a game with completely smooth spaceships with no greeble (only idiots would build warships with exposed piping/hardware) is lame. Besides, building the neck with much less mass (we're talking the equivalent of an entire skyscraper's worth of empty volume) means that there's less stress on it when the colossus tries to turn. Otherwise, it may snap in two or something.

Hmmm. I'm wondering if it's possible to get colly-batted in a way that gets you stuck in the girders, so that you bounce/vibrate in the gap before dustifying. Might be funny.

But carry on. It's looking plenty awesome.

Edit: I just realized that this has the potential to look like absolute rubbish because the girders can't cast shadows. Can we fix that?

I just realized. The CN Tower is 500 metres tall, the Colossus is 12 times that in length. Have you seen the CN Tower? It's big.

[Krelus]

Do as you wish.
Altough my personal preference is to design warships like they are...you know.. actually built for war?

True, but a game with completely smooth spaceships with no greeble (only idiots would build warships with exposed piping/hardware) is lame. Besides, building the neck with much less mass (we're talking the equivalent of an entire skyscraper's worth of empty volume) means that there's less stress on it when the colossus tries to turn. Otherwise, it may snap in two or something.

Hmmm. I'm wondering if it's possible to get colly-batted in a way that gets you stuck in the girders, so that you bounce/vibrate in the gap before dustifying. Might be funny.

But carry on. It's looking plenty awesome.

Edit: I just realized that this has the potential to look like absolute rubbish because the girders can't cast shadows. Can we fix that?

I just realized. The CN Tower is 500 metres tall, the Colossus is 12 times that in length. Have you seen the CN Tower? It's big.

You shoulda seen my face the first time I flew down the spine of the Colly. Absolutely gigantic ship.

[Kolgena]

I know, hey? Scale in freespace is horking massive, yet it doesn't seem like it. I blame over-sized cockpits. I mean, when you've got yourself a canopy the size of a large room (Valkyrie), but your mind's correcting that down to the cockpit sizes we're used to on modern day fighter jets, it's really hard to get a sense of scale.

I mean, the herc's the size of a house, and hornets are taller than people. Cyclops are limousine-sized, but thicker. Freespace ships are really, really big.

[General Battuta]

FOV settings can help with that, a bit.

[Bobboau]

the girder thing is great, make sure to do that everywhere the original texture was like that, and put the V on the sides and we'll have this thing about wrapped up.

[TomJeffersonJones]

I always thought the girder-texture on the colossus's neck was pretty stupid looking....but when you extend and flesh it out like this it starts to look very very good,

nice work galemp - really looking forward to this one.

[Dilmah G]

Well with retail textures you can barely tell what the neck is anyway

[Mongoose]

Well with retail textures you can barely tell what the neck is anyway

I certainly never noticed the girder pattern myself. I love what Galemp's done with it, though.

[Droid803]

Yeah, what Galemp's done is nice.

[maelstrom0511]

this is really good... keep it up!

[Galemp]

An update, another neck surface is done and I've added and cleaned up some window lights (not pictured.)

[blowfish]

Whoa nice.  But what's the current polycount?  This is shaping up to be as much of a beast as the Hades

[Davin]

Whoa nice.  But what's the current polycount?  This is shaping up to be as much of a beast as the Hades

Well, it is kinda bigger than the hades

[Kolgena]

There's an HTL hades?? Huh?

And yes, definitely like how this is coming along. Can't wait to see it in-game (even though that's a while from now).

[Droid803]

There's an HTL hades?? Huh?

Yes, but it's not done yet.

[Dragon]

I have a little request about the HTL Colossus (and Hades too).
Can you release them in two versions?
One tile-textured and one UV mapped?
I'm asking for it because I very like reskinning those ships and it would be very nice to have possiblity ro retexture their HTL versions.
The point is UV mapping always maked retexturing much harder.