[Hellstryker]

  Underside of the "head" still needs to be fixed, however

[blowfish]

Nice.  Don't forget to leave flat areas on the hull where the turrets will be installed.

[BrotherBryon]

Underside of the "head" still needs to be fixed, however

Yeah that part is proving to be a little bit tricky. I'm trying to round that off a bit.


By brotherbryon at 2008-09-30

[Galemp]

Now THAT's more like it! I love the plates and bolts holding the arms to the body. That's exactly the kind of upgrade I was looking for.

[Bobboau]

once again calls for animation.

[Galemp]

How?  Aside from having the arms telescope out of the body I don't really see that much potential.

Care to throw something together for us, Bob?

[Bobboau]

have them rotate back or in or something, but that model has always screamed NEED ANIMATION to me.

[blowfish]

Can you have turrets on rotating objects?

[Droid803]

Turrets don't work when rotated. The firing point pretends it hasn't rotated at all.
The Poseidon has turrets on its arms = no rotation allowed.

[Trivial Psychic]

How?  Aside from having the arms telescope out of the body I don't really see that much potential.

Care to throw something together for us, Bob?

Since we don't have subobject translations (A-to-B) movement yet, and using invisible, non-collideable, hinged submodels to achieve the same result is a bit tricky, perhaps we just need the arms to clamp somewhat.  Have the arms stay vertical when there's not object docked, but have each arm pinch inwards to grab the cargo unit during dock.  You'd need the pads on the tips of the arms to swing outwards to the same degree that the arms swing inwards, so they stay parallel to the sides of the container.

[Bobboau]

couldn't you just move the turrets to the engine pods or something.

[blowfish]

[Akalabeth Angel]

   Isn't the whole point of the original Cargo Container is that it was built so the Poseidon could simply slide down the arms into the grooves and carry it away? Why would the container be shaped that way if not for non-rotating arms?

[BrotherBryon]

As suggested I've added thrusters, compensated for the turrets on the arms, and tweaked the underside of the head. Any other suggestions before I hand it over to blowfish for conversion?

[blowfish]

Any other suggestions before I hand it over to blowfish for conversion?

Well there's still texturing, not something that I'm particularly keen on doing.  Basically what I am offering to do is make sure all the geometry is stable etc and then convert it to a format that whoever plans on texturing it can use.

Speaking of which – any volunteers for UV'ing and texturing?

And BrotherByron, you should reduce the number of sides of the circles that compose the engines to 16 or 12.  Right now they take up too many polygons.

[Galemp]

Yowza!

And BrotherByron, you should reduce the number of sides of the circles that compose the engines to 16 or 12.  Right now they take up too many polygons.

This needs to be done right away.

Speaking of which – any volunteers for UV'ing and texturing?

The existing Poseidon UVs are 512x1024, if I remember correctly, which should be just fine. We may need to UV generic greebling with some texture that would fill in some gaps in the map, and it probably needs glow/shine/normals too.

   Isn't the whole point of the original Cargo Container is that it was built so the Poseidon could simply slide down the arms into the grooves and carry it away? Why would the container be shaped that way if not for non-rotating arms?

There's a FS1 CB Ani that demonstrates exactly that.

Bobboau, we appreciate your enthusiasm for docking animation but it seems a bit misplaced here. The Vasudan Maat, Bast, and Isis are all designed for docking animation (from the concept art at least) and could be done more faithfully.

[blowfish]

Speaking of which – any volunteers for UV'ing and texturing?

The existing Poseidon UVs are 512x1024, if I remember correctly, which should be just fine. We may need to UV generic greebling with some texture that would fill in some gaps in the map, and it probably needs glow/shine/normals too.

Well then, any volunteers to apply and upgrade the current Poseidon map?

[Rodo]

That's it!!! lovely thrusters!! ^^

[BrotherBryon]

And BrotherByron, you should reduce the number of sides of the circles that compose the engines to 16 or 12.  Right now they take up too many polygons.

Done. Is there anything else I can do while still in sketch-up? I've never built a game mesh before, so I'm not exactly familiar with the process.

Oh and should I edit the pipes in the head, they are 14 sided as of right now.

[blowfish]

Oh and should I edit the pipes in the head, they are 14 sided as of right now.

Yeah, that might be a good idea...

In terms of other things you can do while still in SketchUp, just make sure all of the geometry is stable.  i.e. no excess internal faces etc...




EDIT: 2000th Post!!! Can't believe I missed it earlier