[Enioch]

Been working on this for a week now.

GTT Pelargos ("Stork" in English). Heavily armored transport for non-military VIPs. Pretty old (pre-Great War) design, upgraded with flak guns and still in use, wherever deploying an Argo is a no-go. Can't be used as a troop transport, since the payload space is limited to the centrifuge wheel -the whole 'back' section is just an engine room. Engines are independent from one another, so even if one is destroyed, the ship can still move.

Modeling is done. Texturing is at ca 90%.


[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Galemp]

Wow, that's gorgeous! Really rugged. The texturing makes the ship here; you took what could have been an ugly gray box and made it into a beautiful gray box.

...Hm, on second glance that looks an awful lot like the Greeble plugin for 3DS Max. Did you bake all that onto the texture, or are all those panels and pieces contributing to the polycount?

[Enioch]

Polys I'm afraid. 11k of them. 

I know, I know, it tops the Deimos. But it's worth it, up close.    After all, it's an old ship and a rarely used one at that (even in the GW times); you can't expect to see more than one (two tops) in any mission.

And I've got two more detail levels (as yet untextured, but coming along nicely). 

det0=~10k polys
det1=~500 polys
det2=~300 polys

And the turrets (flak is ready and blob is nearly done) =~100 polys per turret (4 total)

[Hellstryker]

Polys I'm afraid. 11k of them. 

I know, I know, it tops the Deimos. But it's worth it, up close.    After all, it's an old ship and a rarely used one at that (even in the GW times); you can't expect to see more than one (two tops) in any mission.

And I've got two more detail levels (as yet untextured, but coming along nicely). 

det0=~10k polys
det1=~500 polys
det2=~300 polys

And the turrets (flak is ready and blob is nearly done) =~100 polys per turret (4 total)

No, it's not worth it i'm afraid. You should never have that many polies for anything under cruiser sized 

[shiv]

Good work on textures , but the model doesn't give me FreeSpace feeling

[Galemp]

Bake it. Do the greebles with normal maps. That will probably take you down to ~2000 polies. You can then spend the rest on other fun details.

[Enioch]

Bake it. Do the greebles with normal maps. That will probably take you down to ~2000 polies. You can then spend the rest on other fun details.

Like what?

[Snail]

Radar dishes, animated docking rings, ornamental tissue boxes...

[Water]

11k poly needs to look more complex. Don't waste polys in minor details. As Galemp said normal maps can take care of them.
http://www.acetylenegames.com/artbymasa/tuts/tut-modeling_for_next-gen_games.jpg

[shiv]

I'd like also to see it more FreeSpace-Universe styled

[Hellstryker]

Yes, elysium mk II. I always thought those things looked/performed way better than the argo

[Colonol Dekker]

Baby Omega how sweet, i want one for a pet

[Bob-san]

Smoothen it out a bit: I like the blocky look, but it's too blocky.

[Enioch]

@Snail & Galemp: good points, I'm working on it

@Bob-San: It's meant to be blocky. But I see what you mean. I'll try to smoothen it a bit, but don't expect any major changes

@shiv_pl: I aim to please, but I really think it is Freespace-themed. If you have any suggestions I'd be happy to implement them.

@Everybody: I think I'll set myself a 3-4k poly limit and see where it leads me. Honestly, although I have some experience with max, I've never had to work with normal maps before    (thanks for the tutorial, Water  ). I'll do my best.

[Water]

The other way for creating normal maps is using height maps http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,55854.0.html

[Bob-san]

I'd say change most of those 90^o angles into two 45^o angles or something. Also, I personally dislike the Star Trek-esque engines. Blue?

[Enioch]

Also, I personally dislike the Star Trek-esque engines. Blue?

Gimme a break

No, really, that's easy to fix. I'd say 15' in Photoshop. But I thought since most GTA ships have blue thrusters, I might as well give it a blue cooling grid.

And I MeshSmoothed the Hull (working on the wheel and engine(s), now). The big blocky panels are still there, but their edges are more 'rounded'

As for the general 'boxy' feel, honestly I like it better as-is. I'll give it a radar dish or two, and use my extra ~7000 polies to add a few details, but the general feel is (and should be) that of a 'flying brick'. It's not meant to be beautiful.

[c914]

Flying brick.. now it has 3 engines 

You could relay replace al those thousand of polys by good texture and bumpmap

[Enioch]

Werllll...it seems I've hit a snag.

The normal texture MAX bakes is crappy. Even at 2048^2, I get foggy outlines and greeble offsetting. Plus, Max takes about an hour to bake the texture.

I tried NVIDIA's MeLODy, but, honestly, I have no idea how to use it. The user manual I got with it sucks; half the interface it refers to is missing. 

If you have any suggestions, please help...

[Water]

xNormal can create maps from either high poly models or heightmap textures.
http://www.xnormal.net/2.aspx