Model Showroom III - Show Hard With a Vengeance

[saladin1973]

I'm no moddeler (sadly), Deepspace, but personall I prefer no.2 due the shape of the wings/fins. The first and third look like the wings/fins are an after thought, stuck there purely for the sake of it. But on number two they look part of the overall design asthetic. Like I said, I'm not modeler so take my view as you will

[deepspace]

Yep, based on Norse's Cata concept.

Edit: ninja, also I sort was going for a tacked on feel as they are going to look heat sinkish.

[MelvinVM]

Yep, based on Norse's Cata concept.

Don't forget to credit him though if you are going to use that model somewhere.

[deepspace]

Of course, besides I doubt I could make enough ships/(horrible)textures for a mod.

[MelvinVM]

Im just going to leave this here and tell nothing, nothing at all.

[Siber]

I'm going to make a suggestion that may seem silly, but is at least half serious. Turn those guns all to face one side of the ship. Then put engines on the other side of the hull. Then turn the ship 90 degrees. If it's going to be a broadside battler, why not have it be broadside all the time? Its not like it has to worry about drag being higher in that configuration, and it'd probably allow for more maneuverability and redundancy in the engines if you're looking at it from a engineering point of view. And it'd remove the thing that's always bugged me in HW2 where a ship will go broadside and then wiggle back and forth perpendicular to the direction of its engines without any visible alternate means of propulsion.

And on top of all that, it'd look pretty damned unusual, I think.

[MelvinVM]

And on top of all that, it'd look pretty damned unusual, I think.

Well shit, you've given me an idea for a 3rth race.

[[TDN]Mechanis]

I'll just leave this here:

Spoiler

the red bit is PTV's Needleship, imported for size and stylistic reference. it fits cozily inside of the main opening bay...

[saladin1973]

That brings a whole new meaning to threading the eye of the needle

[[TDN]Mechanis]

I'm thinking about big honken' doors to cover the main assembly bay. then I need to do a carrier and destroyer (I've even got names for 'em, the big needle there is aPillar-class assembly ship (SY analog,) while the carrier and destroyer will be the Haven and Chaplin, respectively. I'm also working on a point-defense turret for that meganeedle, that'll have some Very interesting characteristics...

[Proripper]

Looks excellent from here.

For a mod?

[[TDN]Mechanis]

I'm going to donate the meshes to the major mod projects that have Kadeshi and Hodders. I can't hod for $%^&. my few attempts result in CTDs 9/10 times, and the rest of the time it just plain doesn't work (guns won't fire, turrets won't track, repairships won't latch, etc. etc.) I'm not half-bad on the meshing side, and I can use existing textures well, but I can't make new ones or get anything ingame (I'm having enough trouble porting GC Lizaanj into PTV (as turanic mercs, I'm not ready to add races by a longshot), and their already 'done!')
I've still got to give it some more subsystems. the giant pink bit is the capital production, smaller pink is fighter, purple for frigates, blue for 'vettes. the tan bit could be used for sensors or firecontrol, but I've not made any more subs yet.

[Pouk]

Well Lizaanj aren't really done.

[Pegman]

Mechanis - what modelling program you using? That's a fantastic model. I have to love the fact that you're using PTV ships as a reference, even though I didn't create them...

[Zephyr]

Absolutely no innuendo in that picture :P

[[TDN]Mechanis]

I'm using 3dmax 9. the needleships are the easiest things I've ever modeled, starting with a cylinder and using extrude, bevel, and vertex-level moving and scaling, I produced that entire ship in about 2 & 1/2 hours, give or take. It's still lacking UVmaps, and I need to make more subsystems for it, then put it into .obj format and test it with cold-fusion, then hand the completed model off to the hodder-type folks until I'm better at it myself. and the PTV Kadeshi are perfect, even if their capital-class vessels need a buff and there frigates consist of only one type of anticapital and on type of antifighter....
*hint hint wink wink nudge nudge*
*edit* hey, how does HW handle smoothing? I'm unsure how to get it to work, as the kadeshi needleship, while smoothed in-game, has no soothing groups when imported. any hints?

[Pouk]

Since you said you're using 3Ds Max, I'll tell you how I do smoothing. Smoothing groups don't matter, you need to divide the geometry, it means to make an open edges where you want the edges to be sharp.
How to do it: First give the whole mesh an unified smoothing group, so you can see the changes later on. Then simply select your polygons you want to seperate as one smoothing group, but instead of assigning a smoothing group to it, detach them (make sure you have checked the "Detach To Element" option, so the polygons will stay as part of the original mesh).

[[TDN]Mechanis]

ah. cool. that's how I separate UVmaping when using tileable textures, so piece 'o cake. thanky!

[[TDN]Mechanis]

I made doors, along with a quick animation of one possible opening cycle. kindly ignore the purple diamonds, those are just a modeling helper for hodding.
I also started uvmapping the thing.

Pics

Doors

textures in progress

[jkberna]

I like it, but the doors have too many polys for such a simple shape. If the needleship is a perfect fit why don't you use it as the door?? then when it's built it's replaced by another needleship dish, apearing from behind?? do you understand? like mololu's missiles, it's always there until it leaves and is replaced by another one.

"I'm having enough trouble porting GC Lizaanj into PTV (as turanic mercs"
Why are you using the Lizaanj and who gave you permission for it??

[ajlsunrise]

As long as he doesn't release it in a mod, and it's just for his tinkering, I always thought it was okay...

[[TDN]Mechanis]

yeah. I imported them purely for my own use, 'cause I liked the look and background. I will not be redistributing them in any way, shape, or form. as for the idea with the doors: it wouldn't really work, since the Avatar and Templar also exit via the frontal aperture. my planned carrier and destroyer are tiny (sorta like that frigates :3 ) and will use a separate docking path.
(of course, I'm in the process of cleaning up and fixing the Hod for the Bastion, so if the guy who made them would like it when I'm done, he's welcome to it.)

[jkberna]

That will be me, in that case you are free to use them, i can get you a more recent and finished version of the bastion, and with modular subsystems, if you want.
About the doors, what about an iris?? like in stargate sg1?? It would be a lot of work, but would look great and fit the kadesh perfectly .

[[TDN]Mechanis]

I got done making stuff and UVW mapping:

ohwatsthis

[MelvinVM]

It's...blurry..

[Carl]

SO are virtusally all ships at that zoom level MelvinVM. Try actually zooming in somtimes. It's only user created stuff with really incrediblly detailed textures that isn't. Nothing wrong with following the HW2 norm here...

Or are you refering to somthing completly diffrent?

[MelvinVM]

Talking about some parts of the above ship, extremely blurry or stretched out.

Try actually zooming in somtimes. It's only user created stuff with really incrediblly detailed textures that isn't. Nothing wrong with following the HW2 norm here...

I'm modding HW2 itself, are you saying that I'm not knowing how my own modded game works? Also zooming into a image isn't going to work that much.

[Carl]

Well i'm talking from in game and in hod editor experiance with the defualt ships here. I can't texture period, and most user created ships have better textures than the defualt anyway. They don't tend to have great textures, they rely on the cute vishual tricks the human eye can achive and the distance you veiw them from to work.

[MelvinVM]

But the above screenshot is Max. not the HOD editor.

They don't tend to have great textures, they rely on the cute vishual tricks the human eye can achive and the distance you veiw them from to work.

Isn't a good texture a nice trick for the human eye to begin with? thats what texture is for?
No offense, but do you have any idea what you're talking about and what im referring to?
Nearly every custom ship ive seen in many mods have textures on a higher quality than the original game.

[EDIT]
It's a MODEL showroom

[Carl]

Nearly every custom ship ive seen in many mods have textures on a higher quality than the original game.

Yes but there's no requierment for somone to do this, nor is there anything wrong with it.

Also, yeah i need to get modellign again, computer issues stalled me for a bit thei've been playing catch up with my games .

[MelvinVM]

Yes but there's no requierment for somone to do this, nor is there anything wrong with it.

Never said that it was a problem though, i just said it looked blurry :V


You indeed have to model something, model a giraffe.

[Carl]

I'm in the middile of my Hyperion MelvinVM, and sorry i thought you where saying it was crap becuase it only went as far as the defualt ships. Apologies.

[MelvinVM]

Make it have a giraffe texture.

[Carl]

Well this is the originol. as i say it's only going to be loosely inspired by this, it's more a jumping off platform, but it should help you with the aim .

[MelvinVM]

Make sure "inspired" does not exactly mean a ripoff from the same shape though.

Will it have a giraffe texture?

[saladin1973]

That Kadeshi ship; the Head doesn't have the sweeping curves of the original/PTV versions. It's a bit flat imo.

[TonyOneBlairoby]

I do like those curve, they are different than usual kadesh stuff, and its not a bad thing. But maybe yes the very front could benefit from a little moar details ^^.

[[TDN]Mechanis]

I've since hodded and re-Uv'ed the SY with a higher-res texture, the only thing I need to do is get the docking paths working correctly and make greebley bits (some of which will be on the nose)
I also made a cute little chibi-carrier:

pics

Pillar

note that I have changed to a higher-resolution texture and fixed the subsystem errors since this screenshot was taken.

Haven

without subsystems:


Frigate and Corvette production (top/main bay slot):


Fighter production and Nebula generator/whatever (underside):


Heretical Armor:


an example of a frigate exiting the bay (with Frigate production and Heretical armor subsystems):

please note that texuremapping on this needs some clean-up, I'll get to it when I can.

I was going for something halfway between a Podship and a Needleship. I like it, and its dinky, which was the plan. and less polys than a stock Vaygr carrier too! it does look kinda like a fish tho 0-o
and I shall call it... BUBBLES!

[jkberna]

While the needle ships reminds me of a elegant jellyfish, that one reminds me of a tadpole. The textures need a lot of work.

[[TDN]Mechanis]

oh yeah. I'm working on the main textures. they're... messy. rounded shapes do NOT like nontileable textures... X(
and now that I look at it, it does look kinda guppy-ish. huh.

[MelvinVM]

Do you kitbash your textures? because that never really works.

Draw them yourself for best results.

[Pixelgent]

as its HW related i thought i would throw it in here as well. i will update here every once in a while. Im going to model a high poly sub-d version use that to bake normal's to the low and texture.

Just remove the space between the http: and the // and you good to go (after 7 days ill fix and update this)

http: //i159.photobucket.com/albums/t127/willy-wilson/Capture-147.png

http: //i159.photobucket.com/albums/t127/willy-wilson/Capture1-16.png

[MelvinVM]

Repost of Pixelgent's work so people can see it without getting frustrated

[Overmind5000]

Envy...

[Pixelgent]

thanks

[Carl]

Oh my...


WANT SO MUCH....

[Ringleader]

Has anyone heard from Whisper recently? I'm trying to get in touch with him.

[Ringleader]

Anyone? Anyone?

[ajlsunrise]

Try PMing him? According to his profile his last activity was on 1st Sep 11 7:39 PM (MDT)

[Ringleader]

Yeah, I tried. No luck.