new ship

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:10 am

I don't know so soon how I want to texture it, and I have no real name for this one:

Silverain · Post by **Silverain** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 6:03 am

etheral walker,

Can you make the engine nacelles rotatable? Would make for one h#ll of an agile craft!

Ares · Post by **Ares** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 6:32 am

Silverain wrote:etheral walker,

Can you make the engine nacelles rotatable? Would make for one h#ll of an agile craft!

I don't think that would make much diffrence in manuverability... It's probably light enough having them fixed would be just as quick..... Also the engine glow wouldn't move even if he could get them to rotate with the ships direction so it dosen't matter.

As for the ship.... It looks like a damn nice replacement for the light or medium hunter ship.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:30 pm

I will had a cockpit, but I don't know where so soon

The texture might be a bit "strange", but that's my first steps with gimp 2.0

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 10:31 pm

It should go in the mechanist race, I think. Is there already some ships from this race (mentionned in the history of vegastrike)?

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:56 pm

Ares wrote:
Silverain wrote:etheral walker,

Can you make the engine nacelles rotatable? Would make for one h#ll of an agile craft!
I don't think that would make much diffrence in manuverability... It's probably light enough having them fixed would be just as quick..... Also the engine glow wouldn't move even if he could get them to rotate with the ships direction so it dosen't matter.

As for the ship.... It looks like a damn nice replacement for the light or medium hunter ship.

I think the engine glow should follow the nacelles, because if I rotate the nacelles the meshes for engines will rotate too, but I don't see how should it be usefull, maybe for landing or stationery flight. To be honest rotating parts were my first idea when I drawed this ship, but the general look of the ship is not really nice with rotating nacelles. It's big brother will be animated like that, but it will be something more heavy, a sort a siege weapon, which will have to rotate engines to compensate its firepower retreat. But engines will be really biggers, and not so long

Post by **hurleybird** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 12:18 am

looking good! Would be cool if you could use it to replace one of the existing models that arent too good. (like the hunter ones).

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 12:28 am

Yes

@ JackS: have you got the list of ships to redo? Does this one fit somewhere?

Post by **jackS** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 12:49 am

etheral walker wrote:It should go in the mechanist race, I think. Is there already some ships from this race (mentionned in the history of vegastrike)?

No current mechanist models are in game.
I'm still working on the master list of VS ships (don't hold your breath, it'll take at least much of the rest of this week to complete)

Note that, if it is a Mechanist Military ship, there wouldn't be a recognizeable bubble cockpit - the Mechanist pilot would be integrated into the ship, getting all sensory input through the ship's sensors. The pilot would disengage and be transfered to a motile for any necessary off ship activities. (Note that Mechanist Military ships would thus not be non-mechanist flyable without massive customization, and if we want to make them player flyable, we should make a new cockpit whose view is clearly entirely artificial in origin.)

If it's a Mechanist Civilian vessel built with export potential, then it would have a more traditional cockpit.

However, the mechanists don't build small attack craft for export. Their advantages in zero-g vacuum construction make it profitable for them to contract for the construction of larger vessels, but small craft can be readily built in managed gravity full atmosphere factories. Adding to this the cornering of the high-end para-military market by the High-born (for those who don't know, the High-Born make, among other things, the Lancelot and Gawain), and there's just no profit in exporting small high-end attack craft - and the mechanists don't believe in building low-end anything.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 1:03 am

So does this one fit to something, mechanist or not?

Post by **jackS** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 4:00 am

etheral walker wrote:So does this one fit to something, mechanist or not?

I'm given to thinking that, especially with the current texture (which gives an almost patchwork appearance in comparison to the sleek, all but seamless hulls of certain other ships) the most likely faction to have built this vessel seems to be the Forsaken (Provided you get around to slapping a cockpit texture on it). The only current Forsaken vessel, the Hyena, is scheduled for model replacement. Thus, one is not constrained to adhere to an existing style.
------------
As I said, I haven't come close to finishing the master list yet, but here's a subset of planned Forsaken ships - I haven't written up any of the info for them yet:

Military (also for sale to anyone, the Forsaken aren't picky:

Hagfish: (Space-marine boarding craft)

Jackal: (Interceptor)
Hyena: (Fighter)

Vulture: (Corvette) System patrol, interdiction, stages boarding operations via Hagfish

Condor: (Frigate) Border patrol, convoy escort

Catfish (Military model A): (Support) Repair, Refuel, Rearm, Resupply. Carries small contingent of Scarab-MAs for shuttling work
Catfish (Military model B): (Troop ship) Troop ship. Carries large contingent of Scarab-MBs

Scarab (Military model A): Ship to ship mixed cargo/personel
Scarab (Military model B): Ship to ground Marine assault shuttle.

Civilian (for sale to anyone willing to buy one)

Scarab (Civilian Model A): (Shuttle) Multi-purpose moderate sized mixed cargo and personel shuttle. Removal of military hardware and armoring has made the ship capable of carrying much more cargo, if much more likely to explode if attacked.

Catfish (Civilian Model A): (Support) Essentially a Catfish (Military Model A) that has never had armor, weapons, or heavy ordinance handling systems installed, and carries a small contingent of Scarab (Civilian Model A) craft for shuttling purposes.
Catfish (Civilian Model B): An elongated Catfish (Civilian Model A) featuring many more modular cargo containing sections. Engine performance and handling have in no way been altered to compensate, making it slower, less maneuverable, but gaining extra cargo space on the cheap.

Members of the Forsaken purchase other civilian craft from external suppliers.

Installations:

no info yet.

------------------
So, as far as I'm concerned, yes, there is a place for it, provided you slap a cockpit texture on it.

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 3:19 am

the name cephalopod or trilobite would sound pretty appropriate to me.

-pincushionman

Post by **jackS** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 6:35 am

pincushionman wrote:the name cephalopod or trilobite would sound pretty appropriate to me.

-pincushionman

Neither cephalopod nor trilobite are specific enough to fit the scavenger|carrion/detritus feeder naming scheme of the Forsaken.

DirtyMagic · Post by **DirtyMagic** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 8:02 am

If it's just the texture that's keeping it from being useful, I'd say change the texture. I love the lines on 'er! Alien chic.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 3:20 pm

so what do you suggest, as a texture?

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 4:34 pm

a scheme like that? I can add or remove rust and diferent style of lines and dirt

DirtyMagic · Post by **DirtyMagic** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 4:46 pm

Honestly, jackS would be the guy that could say for sure that "This ship would work well as a <insert race> <insert class> with a more <insert random adjective> texture.

I would think maybe get rid of the panel/rivet textures and make her smooth, dark, and predatory. A lot of the ship textures I've been checking out lately, including in the VS texture pack, have really subtle plates all over 'em. You might even want to go smooth and slick like this...

http://desktopstarships.com/SciGallery/ ... fi_47.html

I'm currently only on my very first Wings3D texturing project so take this with a grain of salt... I've had pretty good luck so far adding extra surface lumps and "pseudo-greebles" by embossing the texture. I've been playing with using a surface layer for the actual hull material set about 70% opaque. Then under that I'll do up a black&white or black&grey set of details that I emboss the hell out of to make the hull surface "pop".

Again, I love the ship design. You should definitely try to bring this baby to life!

Post by **hurleybird** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 5:15 pm

The model is good, but i agree it deserves a better texture. Its a very sleek model so maybe you should make it jet black (and maybe with some dark grey areas), and shiny in-game. I think that would be very cool for such a sleek model.

DirtyMagic · Post by **DirtyMagic** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 9:24 pm

How 'bout some pseudo-organic lumpiness like in this Babylon5 pic?

http://desktopstarships.com/B5Gallery/B ... /B5_2.html

Just trying to give you some ideas.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 9:53 pm

here is the concept I used to make this ship; what about doing something similar for the texture?
(img removed due to 3dtotal policy)

Post by **hurleybird** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 11:00 pm

The pic above looks like a good design to follow. I would try different types of textures and see what works best. The one thing a would stick away from would be platted metal with lots of nuts and bolts. IMO whatever the texture is, it should help make the model seem sleek

strangelet · Post by **strangelet** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:15 am

my advice would be to keep it simple and go with the lines of the shape. dont use too many main colors. this will help bring out the lines in your sexxi curvy craft.

keep the panel divisions down to a minimum. mb just three or four running around the fuselage with a few lil panels.

less is more. (plus the dirt looks better if there's nothing underneath it)

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 12:43 pm

I'm redoing a texture like you said, will post WIPs this night

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 11:56 pm

Do you prefer it like that? I have the same in army green; or I should do the same metalic only

Post by **hurleybird** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 12:24 am

Very very nice!

Im not sure which color is better though, i would have to see both first

You might want to keep both, it might be able to be used for 2 factions.

One thing though is that at the ends of the engines it looks too dark maybe try to change it to the same color of grey as in the rest of the ship.