[redsniper]

Yeah that turret looks like it could be knocked off with a broom.

[Galemp]

Also WAY too high poly for a single turret.

[c914]

Turret so delicate, light, a beautiful peace of abstract art but you could destroy this only by looking at it. That is  not the way for building armed stuff

[Luis Dias]

Also WAY too high poly for a single turret.

There's no other way I can make this concept fly. But I have some arguments for it:

1. Turrets are the most observed details in every cap ship (in order to destroy them!)
2. There's only one beam turret in the rakshasa apart from the pointers in the base model.
3. It will still take 100 Rakshasas to make your computer as slow as you'll get if you put your own Colly on screen 

Joking aside, what's the max polycount I should aspire to in turrets?

[Droid803]

If you can get the orb there to be semitransparent with an animated glow inside that would be awesome.

[Rodo]

What about three fingers sticking out, one on the upper part going down, two on the lower part going up, like a sinester hand closing or somewhat like that?
Oh I love sinester looking things , specially on the shivans.

[Mongoose]

This is turning into the Hatshepsut thread here.  Remember, guys:  guns.  Not gargoyles, guns.

[Galemp]

There's no other way I can make this concept fly.

Negative. A simple )( structure with the orb on top can be textured and normal-mapped to achieve a similar result. Having that many itty bitty triangles in such a small space is simply asking for trouble.

[Luis Dias]

There's no other way I can make this concept fly.

Negative. A simple )( structure with the orb on top can be textured and normal-mapped to achieve a similar result. Having that many itty bitty triangles in such a small space is simply asking for trouble.

Hmmm, I wonder, does the engine start to confuse the placement of those vertices, because of low error margins, or what have you? Didn't thought of that. About your idea, yeah, of course that also works. Tomorrow I'll give it a try. But something else came to my mind, and I have a question that I should probably ask elsewhere, but why not:

In Doom3, one of the biggest achievements of those guys were to make 2-10k models seem as if they were 100k. How did they do this? They made 2 models. The first with the 100k polys, and the other with the +-5k (or something). Then a program would calculate the difference and, here's the magic, would render a normals map that emulated the former. So I ask here, does this kind of thing exist for the common people, or is it still something hidden in the higher levels of the illuminati?

Yes, you see where I wanted to go here. And yes, I'm lazy 

[Hades]

I can't say that I like the new orb turret. It just seems so... organic and unreal. I don't want Shivans being any ****ing closer to being organic space ****s in space.

Let's try something totally unheard of! Why not try to make it look like the normal turret?

[High Max]

;-)

[Raven2001]

In Doom3, one of the biggest achievements of those guys were to make 2-10k models seem as if they were 100k. How did they do this? They made 2 models. The first with the 100k polys, and the other with the +-5k (or something). Then a program would calculate the difference and, here's the magic, would render a normals map that emulated the former. So I ask here, does this kind of thing exist for the common people, or is it still something hidden in the higher levels of the illuminati?

Yes, you see where I wanted to go here. And yes, I'm lazy 

Yes, the process is called projection. 3dsMax has the render to texture tool, which does that, but I don't like it to be honest. The best software I've encountered is called Xnormal, made by Santiago Orgaz. Run a google for it, its entirely free, easy to use, and has a very nice and small documentation.

Finally, I don't like the turret design, sorry Go for something more simple and shivanish

[Luis Dias]

I see people are not liking it, nothing that I wasn't expecting, after all it's not exactly "canon" and anything that deviates from "canon" is always problematic.

The orb idea came from ragingloli's Hatshepsut, yes, but also from a tautology: the beam seems as if created by a point in space, not a conventional turret.

Yes, the process is called projection. 3dsMax has the render to texture tool, which does that, but I don't like it to be honest. The best software I've encountered is called Xnormal, made by Santiago Orgaz. Run a google for it, its entirely free, easy to use, and has a very nice and small documentation.

Thanks! I'll google it!

Finally, I don't like the turret design, sorry Go for something more simple and shivanish

I'll try harder.

[Galemp]

I think the IDEA is fine, but the EXECUTION is problematic in the extreme. You could do something that LOOKS like that in about 100 polies, but doesn't actually have so much geometry in such a small space.

[Thaeris]

The Rakshasa look beautiful, Luis. I wouldn't change the hull design any way from what you have now.

If I'd suggest an idea for the anti-fighter beam turret I'd again suggest using "the claw" design as seen on the Lucifer's lateral turrets. This would actually be really cool when firing, as the glow would appear in the the "void of space" (if you will...) between the claws (maybe roughly comparable to the Sathanas' subspace projections?), and then blast something in the usual beamy way... hopefully not you... I could prepare another sketch if you'd like.

-Thaeris

[Commander Zane]

The Rakshasa look beautiful, Luis. I wouldn't change the hull design any way from what you have now.

If I'd suggest an idea for the anti-fighter beam turret I'd again suggest using "the claw" design as seen on the Lucifer's lateral turrets. This would actually be really cool when firing, as the glow would appear in the the "void of space" (if you will...) between the claws (maybe roughly comparable to the Sathanas' subspace projections?), and then blast something in the usual beamy way... hopefully not you... I could prepare another sketch if you'd like.

-Thaeris

This would be good if it was to be used as a default Shivan AAA design for capital ships.

[Thaeris]

Perhaps I should try and produce a sketch by tomorrow then?

 

-Thaeris

[Droid803]

The Rakshasa look beautiful, Luis. I wouldn't change the hull design any way from what you have now.

If I'd suggest an idea for the anti-fighter beam turret I'd again suggest using "the claw" design as seen on the Lucifer's lateral turrets. This would actually be really cool when firing, as the glow would appear in the the "void of space" (if you will...) between the claws (maybe roughly comparable to the Sathanas' subspace projections?), and then blast something in the usual beamy way... hopefully not you... I could prepare another sketch if you'd like.

-Thaeris

This would be good if it was to be used as a default Shivan AAA design for capital ships.

Oh yes this would be awesome

[ragingloli]

i would prefer it if the orb was held by a rib structure with spikes sicking out of the side of the rib ends. that would be more fitting for the overall shape of the model.

[Vasudan Admiral]

I'd agree with making it a claw shape rather than an orb of any kind - an orb (especially one held by what look like squishy tentacles) just seems way too 'generic organic alien' to me as Hades pointed out, and far less Shivan because of that.