Author Topic: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat  (Read 23404 times)

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Offline TomShak

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
I love the colours and surface detail on Fractals, I definitely think I'll be pinching those ideas. I'm going to aim for a rather different hull shape though ... something much closer to the Tie Fighter cutscene.

 

Offline TomShak

  • 26
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
So a little update on some new shapes I've been working on. I think this still looks like an Assault Gunboat, but also feels a bit more like the Lamba shuttle ...









Let me know what you think ...

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
I think it's looking good, though I'd sort of like to see you take it even further by squaring off the top of the fuselage and having the canopy edges be straight lines.  That might be going too far, but it would probably satisfy the pro-lambda crowd to at least see that it's been tried, heh ;)  Other random thoughts:

What are you going to do for the laser cannons?

I think it might look more interesting if the bottom of the cockpit didn't continue out in the same flat plane from the back of the craft.  I like the bottom being relatively flat under the main body of the ship as that's the part where the landing gear emerge from, but continuing those edges forward to a point where it is clear from the under-shot that there is nothing going on just makes it look harder to maintain from an in-universe perspective and sort of low poly from a purely aesthetic standpoint.

The only other big thing I can think of is maybe making the joints look more robust at the points where the wings are supposed to articulate.  They look sort of gracile right now, which makes the craft look a bit less assaultish IMO :)  One way to make the design seem more practical and beef it up a bit might be to have structural rings built around the weapon/engine pods, so that it looks like those wings have some support from the main body and or that the engines could be slid out from the undercarriage for maintenance without pulling off these huge wings.  Anyway, just some random ideas.

 

Offline TomShak

  • 26
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Yeah, I'd thought about squaring it off, but I think it might start to not look like an Assault Gunboat any more ... As I say I want to keep it looking similar to the TF cutscene, and that is very definitely not square.  I think to fit it only has to have recognisable Lambda heritage, it doesn't need to look like it was put together from spare shuttle parts ;)

I think I'll make the laser cannons quite like the wing cannons on the Lambda Shuttle.

Yup the bottom of the cockpit is very much unfinished at the moment. Just a place holder. And stronger looking lower wing joints and evidence of the wing rotation mechanism are also on the todo list ;)

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Cool, sounds like you've developed a good idea of where you want the ship to go.  Looking forward to seeing it progress!

 

Offline newman

  • 211
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
I'd make the center cockpit section thinner and the missile pods wider and higher, myself - current proportions look kinda off.
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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
I like swashmebuckle's thoughts on the bottom. It would be nice to see a bit of variation there, like angling the entire cockpit downward a tad, just to break up the flatness a bit. Make it a bit more dynamic.

A thought on the cockpit: If you want a more armoured look, you could use the Sentinel class shuttle for inspiration. It has a broken up canopy that appears more armoured.

 

Offline CountBuggula

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Yes!  I really like where you're going with this now.  I don't have much to add as far as other suggestions, as most of my ideas are already spoken by others here, I just wanted to give you a big thumbs up.

 

Offline TomShak

  • 26
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
So I had an idea for the cockpit that I wanted to try out ...





Thoughts?
« Last Edit: June 03, 2011, 05:52:41 am by TomShak »

 

Offline Thaeris

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
I'd refrain from breaking up the forward hull and the center section with a gap such as the one proposed. The Assault gunboat always had a nose section that drooped a bit, so that's all and good. However, I'd again insist on keeping some of the sharp lines as seen on the original design...

I might be able to upload some artwork over lunch break.
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Offline TomShak

  • 26
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Yeah ... as much as I play with the various options I still think I like the TF cutscene version the most ... I'm also finding it much easier to replicate an existing design rather than come up with my own ;)

I'd be interested in seeing your artwork Thaeris :)
« Last Edit: June 03, 2011, 12:33:32 pm by TomShak »

 

Offline chief1983

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Yeah, actually Brand's E-wing was inspired by some concept artwork from StarSlayer.  So for these EU ships a little artistic inspiration helps sometimes :)
« Last Edit: June 03, 2011, 02:29:07 pm by chief1983 »
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Offline Thaeris

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
This certainly isn't as drastic a change as slayer made to the E-Wing, mind you. This was scanned at work, and with whatever software that processed the image recognized some of the text accordingly, removing it from the master image. Those tricksy PDFs...



The uppermost detail was the cannon mount, installed directly beneath the the primary wing glove. The next-to-bottom illustration is a view from the bottom of the fighter's nose section, and locates the position of the canopy, as well as the notable details on the bottom of the nose. The hashed section locates a level region of hull geometry beneath the nose, which would continue on to the rear of the ship... actually, if the ship were to bow out slightly on the bottom, that might not look all that bad. The two leader lines with circles mark the lower fuselage chines and characteristics of the forward nosecone: "lower main chine and foremost section of the nosecone maintains slight negative slope." This can be seen to some effect in the rough, incomplete profile view in the center of the drawing. Given the direction you were moving, a shallow Lambda-Class shuttle style inlet is located beneath the nosecone's leading edge. Keep in mind that a solid nose wouldn't look bad on the AG, further reverting to the original design.

Designing the AG is deceptively hard - it's sleek yet squat, angular yet smooth.
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline TomShak

  • 26
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Ehehe it'd be nice to have time to do drawings at work :) Not that I have the talent to do any ...

There's some good ideas there. I'm definitely agreeing it needs to keep the "armored lines" from the TF cutscene, as you say. If you take them out it just looks "flabby". I like what you've got on the underside, although I also agree a solid nose would look fine too.

The cockpit sections seems a little narrow perhaps? I think having the width there makes it less like the X-Wing.

Overall I think my general plan will be to follow the TF cutscene more or less, perhaps with some minor variations. The more I stray from those lines the less well it seems to fit. Which very much agrees with the style of your drawings I'd say ...

I definitely agree it's a hard ship to design. It needs to look like the Lambda shuttle ... but not too much. As you say the mix of smooth and square and sleek vs squat is tricky. Still progress is being made :)

 

Offline Thaeris

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Glad I could help. :)

The Assault Gunboat was always one of my favorites, even though when playing X-Wing I wasn't ever able to fly it... I spent most of the time dodging concussion missiles. :p If there's anything in particular you'd like me to try and work out, let me know. Today was a really slow day at work, so time was thusly available.
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline Angelus

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Glad I could help. :)

The Assault Gunboat was always one of my favorites, even though when playing X-Wing I wasn't ever able to fly it... I spent most of the time dodging concussion missiles. :p If there's anything in particular you'd like me to try and work out, let me know. Today was a really slow day at work, so time was thusly available.

The engine thingys, please.
They look on the original like bricks. Bricks are bad.
Even though i know that the model always had those bricks.

Also, good work on the model Tomshak, keep it up.

 

Offline TomShak

  • 26
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
So a bit of an update, I've been trying to recreate the shape in the TF cutscenes. Fortunately the fact that's it's symmetrical constrains the shape quite a lot so reconstructing it from a single shot has worked okay.

 

 

Looks pretty good I reckon, kinda stubby but then I always thought of the AG as being a bit on the short side ...

 
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
I think it's a good beginning.
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Offline Thaeris

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Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Wayyy to squat. Keep in mind that the nose panels are primarily flat - there should be very little curvature with the exception of the very front of the nose. Also keep in mind that all the canopy panels are flat as well.

*EDIT - I take that back, I put a bit of curvature on the uppermost canopy panels - the side panels, however, are flat affairs.

I kind of liked the length and slimness of your previous model. If you could keep that design aspect while getting back to the original shape of the Gunboat, I think you'll be on to something.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2011, 08:59:50 am by Thaeris »
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline TomShak

  • 26
Re: Resurrecting the Assault Gunboat
Here's another update, decided that the nose was indeed too squat. Looks like you read my mind Thaeris ;)  Interestingly that's the only shape the original TF cutscene image would fit. But it's not quite the shape I wanted. Also decided the nose was too curved, great minds think alike it seems ...

I've also added some of the original detail back in.