Author Topic: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb  (Read 35508 times)

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Offline crizza

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
Given the easy shape of the Soomtaw capital ships and my failed attempts to get into blender I'm actually thinking of doing them in blender...
A friend of mine once said, that if you want efficent designs...look at the Borg thou^^

 
Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
I've actually already modeled most of the Homeworld/Catacylsm ships. The Somtaaw look really cool once you add detail. For example, here is the Deacon:

http://www.shapeways.com/product/RBB5ALBKL/somtaaw-quot-deacon-quot-destroyer?li=search-results-1&optionId=43552002


 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
I like it but I get your point 100%. And yes, I generally agree that Cata ships are not the feminine sleek and slim gorgeous ships of HW1 or HW2, but then again they are not feminine. They are masculine, brute-like, mining people like. It's like the ugly marginal big muscled guy who gets to save the day for once. Hey, it can't always be the sleeky super marvel-like heroes doing the job. Sometimes it's the janitor doing the ****. And that's the kind of story that Cata is.

So please y'all, stop fatshaming Cataclysm. The worst that could ever happen to Cataclysm is a sort of Hyperionization in the way of BP!

Yeah, pretty much this. With only like four or five exceptions, literally every ship you saw in Cataclysm was a combat vessel designed in a couple days by a half-dozen guys locked in a room until they made a spaceship and they only had a three-day-old cheese pizza to eat.  The design was then sent straight to the factory where it was deployed within hours of arrival, if not sooner.

They're not pretty. They're not efficient. They're not refined. These ships were designed under the motto "Second Best Tomorrow". They are the product of an extraordinary emergency. They look the part.
No, they don't.  There are plenty of designs that look decent while maintaining the form before function look.  Hell, most of the Taiidan capital ships qualify.  Somtaaw ships don't look rushed, they don't look rugged, they don't look industrial.  They just look lazy.

There was a thread for Homeworld ship redesigns on Relicnews a few years back, and Riess drew this for the Somtaaw carrier:


It's by no means perfect, but it's so much better than the one ingame I don't know where to start.  "Utilitarian" is nothing more than a stupid justification for visually awful designs, because there's no reason "utilitarian" must mean "ugly as hell".


tempest6677: I think all that link does is prove my point.  Somtaaw ships are not improved by more polygons.


*has not played cataclysm*

People tell me I should.
I loved homeworld, but the flood/borg/zerg bio-thing infesting everything is a meh trope/concept.
You should play it and make up your own mind, but yeah, Cataclysm is a story about the organic Borg.  Voyager's version of the Borg, Saturday morning cartoon villainy and all.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2015, 01:40:35 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
I have no idea when the concepts of "efficient" and "utilitarian" became mutually exclusive.

 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
They're not...

They're just really commonly used excuses for awful ship design.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2015, 01:17:04 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
Aesaar you missed the point  completely. I didn't use the word  utilitarian, we both said they were not efficient designs. They are ugly designs, and that's the ****ing point. Cata is not a game of beauty contest ships. It's a game where the ship designers have no time to design properly, both in terms of efficiency and aesthetics.  That cruiser you show is way prettier than the one ingame, and that's why it would be completely out of character.

Now I'm not saying they can be improved. They can, and probably should. But they should definitely not become beauty queens.

 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
Because you're wrong.  Both the Carrier and the Destroyer are adapted civilian designs, not ships designed from the ground up during the campaign.

Quote from: Cataclysm Manual p.91
The Deacon was originally intended to be a new generation of heavy transports...

Quote from: Cataclysm Manual p.92
The Shaman class Carrier had been in development for some time before it was finally brought into battle.  This Carrier was based on Kiith Somtaaw’s first foray into heavy ship construction, the Chieftan class Ore Processor...

In both cases, the designers did in fact have time to design properly, because they were both originally intended to be civilian industrial vessels.  There's no reason they need to look as terrible as they do.  The only one that was rushed like you describe is the dreadnought, and while it looks bad, it's still by far the best-looking Somtaaw capital.  The Kushan Heavy Cruiser is also a really ugly ship, but Somtaaw ships make it look amazing by comparison.

And there's no excuse at all for the laziness of Somtaaw corvettes.

Note that there's a difference between "good-ugly" and "ugly-ugly".  That concept up there is the former.  Somtaaw capship are the latter.  An in-universe justification is not needed for the former because the design says it all already.  And if you need one to justify the latter, you're designing your ships wrong in the first place.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2015, 06:54:33 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
There's no reason they need to look as terrible as they do.

Except for the fact that if you expect a civilian spaceship to look like anything but a giant block, I'm curious why. It's a spaceship. There is no reason why it should have an aesthetically pleasing shape and plenty of reasons why it doesn't want one.

The reason military ships have curves and swept lines in this case is because people think they should, and because angled armor in others (this is actually canon in a few places). The reason Somtaaw's ex-civilian ships don't is because they don't have to look like anyone's idea of a warship; they're not one in heritage and more importantly because being a giant chunk of metal is easy and cheap, perfectly in keeping for a group of itinerant miners.

Your argument is ridiculous.
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Offline Aesaar

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
Oh FFS.  Are you even reading my posts?  It's perfectly possible to build a blocky, industrial, functional looking ship that doesn't look like ****.  I ****ing posted proof.

Your argument is ridiculous and is entirely predicated on the false assumption that Somtaaw ships are ugly because that's the only way to make utilitarian designs.  It's not.  Somtaaw ships look bad because the guy in charge of making them was bad at designing ships.  Which is supported by the fact that 95% of Cata's original ships look terrible.

There are a great many directions Barking Dog could have gone with Cataclysm's ship design that wouldn't have had them look like single lego bricks and might have given them some actual character.  Instead, we got got bland with a side of boring.

Actually, you know what, here's another example: http://norsehound.deviantart.com/gallery/6178305/Cataclysm-2nd
« Last Edit: February 02, 2015, 10:33:19 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline Hades

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
I've actually already modeled most of the Homeworld/Catacylsm ships. The Somtaaw look really cool once you add detail. For example, here is the Deacon:

http://www.shapeways.com/product/RBB5ALBKL/somtaaw-quot-deacon-quot-destroyer?li=search-results-1&optionId=43552002


Interesting link, if that is indeed your account, please explain why http://www.shapeways.com/product/87KRZPBTU/kadesh-mothership?li=more-from-shop&optionId=43797831 looks so incredibly identical to:


e: also the only vanilla cataclysm ship with any sort of potential is the Kuun Lan, the rest are awful
« Last Edit: February 02, 2015, 11:01:32 pm by Hades »
[22:29] <sigtau> Hello, #hard-light?  I'm trying to tell a girl she looks really good for someone who doesn't exercise.  How do I word that non-offensively?
[22:29] <RangerKarl|AtWork> "you look like a big tasty muffin"
----
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<batwota> wow
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Offline The E

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
this argument is so ****ing pointless god

WE HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE SPACE BOXES NOT UGLY BUT SPACE BOX MOST BE UGLY AND YOU ARE GAY BECAUSE YOU DISLIKE THE IDEA OF SPACE BOXES BEING MOST UGLY

i hope everyone in this thread dies of ****ing dysentery

*including me because the second-hand embarassment from watching this thread merely exist is killing me



Okay, if you're disappointed with the direction a thread is taking, there are ways to address that.

Hoping that everyone involved dies is not one of them.


That being said, as this is about artistic opinions, not some objective fact, I would like to ask everyone to cool it down a bit, yeah? No need to let this get ugly.
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Offline TrashMan

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
They're not...

They're just really commonly used excuses for awful ship design.

Well, to be honest, utalitarian pretty much means that you don't give a damn about visuals, only efficiency.

It's a fine balance in any visual media. Sometimes the designs are BOTH bland and stupid, sometimes they are just bland, sometimes just stupid.
Sometimes it goes into another direction, with designers trying to create "original" ship designs  that are so bizzare, non-human and non-functional, that you're end up going "wut?"
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
Because you're wrong.  Both the Carrier and the Destroyer are adapted civilian designs, not ships designed from the ground up during the campaign.

Quote from: Cataclysm Manual p.91
The Deacon was originally intended to be a new generation of heavy transports...

Quote from: Cataclysm Manual p.92
The Shaman class Carrier had been in development for some time before it was finally brought into battle.  This Carrier was based on Kiith Somtaaw’s first foray into heavy ship construction, the Chieftan class Ore Processor...

In both cases, the designers did in fact have time to design properly, because they were both originally intended to be civilian industrial vessels.  There's no reason they need to look as terrible as they do.  The only one that was rushed like you describe is the dreadnought, and while it looks bad, it's still by far the best-looking Somtaaw capital.  The Kushan Heavy Cruiser is also a really ugly ship, but Somtaaw ships make it look amazing by comparison.

I could address your point into nitpicky levels on differentiating how a civilian vessel design being adapted to military function could botch the entire sillouette of the ship, turning it into the ugly ships we all got in Cata, but that's also missing the point. The big point here is not whether if some writer in the development team found that they couldn't really explain how they got to design so many ships from scratch, so why not explain it away with some line about them being based on civilian design. It makes sense that they did so, but that's, again, missing the point.

The point is, and I've been saying this three times now so I will call it quits if it doesn't get through, that the main characters of Cataclysm are miners. They are NOT "beautiful" people. They are NOT the elite of the elite, BP Age of Aquarius 14th Battlefeet style, or even HW1 fleet style. They are miners. The janitors of the economy. Tolkien called them either trolls or dwarfs. They are the sweaty drunken big muscled people who would smack anyone in the face in the engineering room if someone started rambling on how the design was "ugly".

It can be the case that it was sheer lazyness. I'm not at all bothered by that, and you can refer to the "death of the author" in this case. I see not "lazy ships", but rather "Fugly ships", and that's what drives the characterization of the protagonists. To me, it was way more scandalous that the "moon base" was also ****ing ugly (and other third party ships), because those were out of character.

Not the miners. The miners are supposed to be ugly. This attempt to Brad Pittyfy (or Angelinalize) every single thing on-screen is a thought cancer. No. Ship designs are not beauty contests, they are character builders. This is why, incidentaly, the Millenium Falcon is such an incredible icon, despite someone saying "What a piece of junk!" It is a piece of junk. I know, I know, it also has some good lines in it (the overall shape is sleek), but to the average viewer in the 70s, used to sleek designs in sci-fi, it appeared like a garbage truck with electronic trash glued in its outside.

So, even if I completely 100% agree that that Destroyer design is ugly as hell, I also think that's completely in-character and paradoxically gives weight to the game.

Quote
And there's no excuse at all for the laziness of Somtaaw corvettes.

Note that there's a difference between "good-ugly" and "ugly-ugly".  That concept up there is the former.  Somtaaw capship are the latter.  An in-universe justification is not needed for the former because the design says it all already.  And if you need one to justify the latter, you're designing your ships wrong in the first place.

I think this difference of "good-ugly" and "ugly-ugly" is too thin and too subjective to discuss, but I could indulge such conversation. Again, as I also said, and no I am not wrong even by pointing this out, I don't mind that this "uglyness" has a bit more depth and interest in it. It totally can and probably should.

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
this argument is so ****ing pointless god

WE HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE SPACE BOXES NOT UGLY BUT SPACE BOX MOST BE UGLY AND YOU ARE GAY BECAUSE YOU DISLIKE THE IDEA OF SPACE BOXES BEING MOST UGLY

i hope everyone in this thread dies of ****ing dysentery

*including me because the second-hand embarassment from watching this thread merely exist is killing me



Okay, if you're disappointed with the direction a thread is taking, there are ways to address that.

Hoping that everyone involved dies is not one of them.


Why?  It worked in the Holy Grail.

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
Luis: Stop insinuating that my problem with Somtaaw ships is that they aren't pretty.  It's not.

It doesn't matter if they fit.  A good design doesn't need additional fiction to justify it.  If a ship is a militarized civilian ship, then that's something that should come across with nothing but the visuals.  The Millenium Falcon is a great design because it has character.  Just looking at it tells you a lot about what kind of ship it is and what its owner does.

Somtaaw ships do none of this.  The Deacon would be no better or worse a design if you said it was made by an interstellar empire with vast resources and ample time.  It would be no better or worse a design if you said that, in-universe, it's the most efficient and effective warship ever.  It's a failure because visually, it tells you nothing.  The Carrier is in the same boat.  The Dreadnought is equally ugly, but it's a far, far better design because you can tell they were trying to do something with it; namely, evoke Bentusi ships. 

It's not just that they could be better. The Taiidan Heavy Cruiser is one of my favorite HW1 ships and it could still be better.  It's that I have a hard time imagining how they could be worse.

Another example:  the Borg Cube is a really, really ugly ship, but it's actually a brilliant ship design because it manages to say so much in its brutal simplicity.  It has character.  The first time I saw it in Q Who, I wanted to know wtf it was and who built it.

I misspoke before.  Somtaaw ships don't fail because they're ugly.  I've seen uglier ships which I've liked a lot more.  You could come up with a dozen wildly different reasons for why Somtaaw ships look as they do.  They're blank slates.  And that's why they fail.  Because they're utterly lacking in character and personality.  Because a picture says a thousand words, but Somtaaw ships manage to say nothing at all.

If this doesn't help you understand where I'm coming from, then I'm really ****ty at explaining this and there's no point in trying further.  Chalk it up to irreconcilable creative differences if you like.


BritishShivans: There are no words that can adequately express how little I care.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2015, 02:33:31 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
I can only insinuate from the words I've read you write. I'm just incapable of telepathy. Now that you wrote this last comment, I think we are on the same page here, at least from principles, and I admit I can be a bit colored by my own nostalgia in my lack of acknowledgement on the lazyness of their design.

 

Offline BirdofPrey

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
I think the horse is dead by now
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Offline BritishShivans

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
I think the horse is dead by now

that's what i was saying

ADDENDUM: Also I'm glad Aesaar/Luis managed to find a common point because the thread has become somewhat pleasant again.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2015, 01:37:56 pm by BritishShivans »

 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
I can only insinuate from the words I've read you write. I'm just incapable of telepathy. Now that you wrote this last comment, I think we are on the same page here, at least from principles, and I admit I can be a bit colored by my own nostalgia in my lack of acknowledgement on the lazyness of their design.
TBH, that last post is probably the first time I've put into words exactly why I dislike Somtaaw ships as much as I do.  Before, there was just this indistinct loathing.  So thank you for forcing me to examine them harder.  This argument has actually accomplished something. :)

 

Offline Ghostavo

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Re: Homeworld Remastered Collection pre-order up on Steam release 25 feb
Somtaaw ships do none of this.  The Deacon would be no worse or better a design if you said it was made by an interstellar empire with vast resources and ample time.

I've always seen the Deacon as a sort of retrofitted GTFr Triton, hence its little arms in the front.
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