[Lepanto]

2013 MODELING CONTEST ENTRY - NEWCOMER DIVISION

Aaaaand it's done!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0-LZC1urvqDc3YteUtrUUNKS2s



The Ammit includes two table files: Ammit-shp is a bomber, and AmmitFighter-shp is an interceptor. Copy the entry of whichever one you're using to your ships-tbm, and delete/ignore the other one.

The Ammit comes with the GVM Khepri anti-capital dumbfire rocket.


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A modelling newbie's first model, using ShadowWolf's excellent tutorial. It's supposed to be, essentially, a post-Capella Vasudan Artemis with 1 better-placed 4-gun primary bank and the standard 3 secondary banks. Comments, suggestions, constructive criticism?

[Shivan Hunter]

That is very good for a first model! The overall profile looks believably Vasudan, too, so you've got a good grasp of their design.

See if you can curve a few of those hard edges, mainly on the underside and fuselage. Prominent regular shapes - like the parallelograms you have for the missile bays and beneath them - can break up the smoothness of Vasudan ships.

[Colonol Dekker]

Mentu-Seth hybrid look which screams Zod. This is a good thing.
(even though all zods must die)

Good luck in the design contest

[Rodo]

A good start yes yes, I concur with what shivan hunter said.
Right now the most prominent thing that screams "no vasudan here" are those parallel lines on the underside of the body, maybe curve a few of them and remove most of the others.

[An4ximandros]

 Good thing this is not a Destroyer.

Looks good; I'd change the underside as already suggested, not necessarily by removing the gills, but by making them more curvy/organic.

[Luis Dias]

Already an entry to the contest!

[Lepanto]

Thanks for your positive feedback! Zods aren't the easiest to model for in the first place, and I don't have a disciplined and efficient modeling style [resulting in a messy model and headaches trying to make revisions], so this has proven a bit difficult.

Good thing this is not a Destroyer.

Hm?

Already an entry to the contest!

If I've actually finished this by then, I guess I'll enter it in the contest and most likely lose. This project actually started as more of a diversion from my campaign, which has gotten bogged down in an endless cycle of bugfixing and beta-testing.

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And now I've made some revisions. I liberally applied Subdivide Smooth to the Ammit's straight lines, so its lines should now look more curved and Vasudan-like.

[Luis Dias]

That's going along fine. I'd say that the design of Vasudans is a cross between ancient egyptian aesthetics with Art Nouveau. Go along those two lines of inspiration and you'll be fine I think.

[Lepanto]

I've about finished the mesh. Unless there's a reason to make major changes, I'll clean up, touch up, and otherwise finalize the mesh. It's over 2000 tris now; should I try to reduce its poly count, and if so, any advice on how to do so?

GVB Ammit (View in 3D)

[BritishShivans]

I wouldn't worry too much about polycount unless you somehow hit the hundred thousands. FSO handles fighters and bombers with 10K~ polys quite well. Just try to avoid going over 20K, IIRC that's the point where the engine will struggle with large numbers of this model.

And as for detail, it's uh... kinda, visually noisy in the middle? I think you might wanna try around with the middle and see what you can do. It's a lovely model, but the "noisiness" detracts from the shape, IMO. I'm also confused as to where the cockpit is supposed to be.

[Black Wolf]

One of the disadvantages of the Modding Contest is that I feel like I shouldn't comment too much on WiP threads. So I'll just say congrats on learning to model generally - I love that you're going Vasudanm straight out, as well by the way - they're quite tricky I find - and that I hope you see it through and enter the newcomer's contest. Good Luck!

[SypheDMar]

You're right. I don't think any of the judges can critique the ships.

It looks quite nice. Smooth it out a bit and it'll be quite neat.

[Luis Dias]

Hey Lepanto, put that p3d into p3dbrackets! Like this:

[Colonol Dekker]

I think the mesh is 100% zod looking with zero unpleasant feels.


Keep it up

[Rodo]

You've got a pretty nice model there but I'll have to concur with yet another hlp'er, BritishShivans pointed out something about noisy structure. I'd say the noisiest part is the upper "neck", with that saw like scales.

From the side it looks a little straight, giving it an unnatural felling, and from the front the deepness of the gaps do not help, it's as if they seem to have a purpose but nothing seems to come to mind about it.

You could consider removing them all and using a smooth curved surface, something like in Perseus's neck, a smooth surface with a small part filled with intakes, as seen in this pic:


of course all this is optional.

[The Dagger]

I agree with the coolness of the model, still I have some critiques.
As I mark in red in the picture, there are some straight lines that break the curvy vasudan feel (or rather my interpretation of vasudan ship philosophy):

I think some of the lines can be breaked relatively easy (see the blue lines). If you are using Blender, the lattice modifier is perfect for retouching the overall shape of the model, which is somewhat difficult to see when you are working on the details.
Finally, using square insets to add detail on your ship is not a good way to go (see last image). First of all, it's rather boring and doesn't worth the added polys. Get some curvy panels over or simple leave it to the normal map.
But overall, a very good first model . It certainly has a good vasudan feel and all I've said is basically nitpicking.
I hope you'll be putting it up for the contest.

[Mad Bomber]

I love it.

Quick note, tho: two of the dorsal ridges seem asymmetrical (the second one from the back, and the fourth one.)

[Lepanto]

Thanks, everyone, for your positive comments and constructive criticism [especially The Dagger for your detailed and graphical breakdown]. And I'm tickled that my project got a mention on the newsletter [even if Axem does report everything going on on HLP anyway].

I kinda liked the dorsal ridges, and put them in to make the ship look a bit more Vasudan-ish, but they seem to be unpopular. Does anyone think it could work if I lowered the cockpit a bit and so gave the spine and ridges a bit of a downward curve? I've already flattened the ridges a bit, so hopefully they don't look quite so odd/noisy.

Again, Vasudans are hard to design for, especially for a newb like myself. Even after looking over some MediaVPs Vasudan strikecraft for design pointers, I haven't gotten the Vasudan ships' distinctive scaled armor down right.

I agree with the coolness of the model, still I have some critiques.
As I mark in red in the picture, there are some straight lines that break the curvy vasudan feel (or rather my interpretation of vasudan ship philosophy):
I think some of the lines can be breaked relatively easy (see the blue lines). If you are using Blender, the lattice modifier is perfect for retouching the overall shape of the model, which is somewhat difficult to see when you are working on the details.
Finally, using square insets to add detail on your ship is not a good way to go (see last image). First of all, it's rather boring and doesn't worth the added polys. Get some curvy panels over or simple leave it to the normal map.

Dagger, I'll give that lattice modifier a try. Anyone, please tell me if you think I'm missing some obvious Blender function that would make the model look better, seeing as I'm still kinda new to Blender. I now realize [after not reading through ShadowWolf's tutorial properly and putting in a lot of effort on the current armor plates] that I could've made some better looking/curvier armor scales with judicious use of the Knife tool. 

This is supposed to be a post-Capella design, well after the Terran-Vasudan alliance, so tech base fusion could explain some of its Terran-looking design elements, but I still think I'll edit it a bit more to make it look more authentically Vasudan.

By now, I've been fiddling with this thing for a little while and would kinda like to just move on to texturing. But better I spend the time to improve and correct this model now, so that it looks better for the contest, and [hopefully] in mods for years to come. 

I do plan to enter the contest, providing I retain enough motivation to finish this project.

P.S. Does anybody find it odd that the FS1 Vasudan strikecraft, despite mostly being designed in-universe BEFORE the Terran-Vasudan alliance, look somewhat more conventional/Terran in design than the distinctly curvy FS2 Zod strikecraft?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Thanks, everyone, for your positive comments and constructive criticism [especially The Dagger for your detailed and graphical breakdown]. And I'm tickled that my project got a mention on the newsletter [even if Axem does report everything going on on HLP anyway].

Hey, you've got some promise as a modeler - not everyone's first model looks like that! (Mine looked like a turd, anyway )

I kinda liked the dorsal ridges, and put them in to make the ship look a bit more Vasudan-ish, but they seem to be unpopular. Does anyone think it could work if I lowered the cockpit a bit and so gave the spine and ridges a bit of a downward curve? I've already flattened the ridges a bit, so hopefully they don't look quite so odd/noisy.

I, for one, like the ridges - they give it some aggression. To improve on the 'noisy' thing, perhaps consider removing one or two, and making the others larger? Curving the spine should be an improvement as well, that'll give it some more of the 'flow' that the Dagger mentioned. You may want to check out Blender's proportional editing (O key) for that.

Again, Vasudans are hard to design for, especially for a newb like myself. Even after looking over some MediaVPs Vasudan strikecraft for design pointers, I haven't gotten the Vasudan ships' distinctive scaled armor down right.

You're coming along fine, the armour on the side pods and centre body is definitely looking Vasudan. The engines and upper wings (marked red in the Dagger's last pic) do have a bit of a bathroom tile look though Perhaps consider adding some exposed techy greebles in those areas?

[Lepanto]

Switched the bathroom tiles out for more of a fish-scale hull pattern that I do think looks more Vasudan, and lowered the neck and flattened the ridges. This should (hopefully) be my final major mesh revision.

There are a couple of triangular "spikes" in the very front. Just pretend they aren't there; they're some kind of ghost object not controllable in Edit Mode and I don't know why they're there or how to get rid of them without deleting some important vertices. Anyone know where these "ghost objects" come from?