WIP Aera Vark Destroyer (Venerable)

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f1gm3nt3d
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WIP Aera Vark Destroyer (Venerable)

Post by f1gm3nt3d »

Lets get right to the pics.

Image

Front Perspective View

Image

Rear Perspective View

Image

Front view

Image

Side View

Image

Comparing View

Okay everybody, comments and suggestions. Being a WIP there is no texture yet, I personally consider it about 75-90% done and think it looks decent for the amount of polys(~2K+). Lemme know if this would be acceptable for an Aera ship(I'm a little confused as to what their acsetics are like.) Also if someone else is working on a model for the vark lemme know, I don't want to be stepping on anyone's toes. :D
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Post by Gorrünwe »

Ok, you demand comments. You will have comments... :D

First, i think you may give more angles to the general aspect of this ship. It looks like as if he is made in modeling clay :lol:

Secondly, if i were you, i would made the reactor with a bigger size and not sticked one to the other.

And thirdly, i think the wings are not enough aerodynamics... Imagine the problem you'll have if you penetrate in an atmosphere with your ship having such wings! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Here is my opinion... I wich it is useful to you!

Good luck! 8)
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Post by hurleybird »

I like it
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Post by f1gm3nt3d »

Thanks for the comments Gorrünwe, just a few quick things to note. It won't look so clay like once it's textured, also if you read this thread:

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=2652

you'll see Jacks says they should look like they were "carved out of some grea singlet mass". So thats all I've tried to make it look like as much as I possibly could. It has double "jets" mostly because I'm not entirely sure that in game the thrust can be distorted to be an oval. So as to keep with the body lines of the ship and not have them extend too much outwards I made it into two smaller more circular jets rather then one big oval. :) Admitedly the wings aren't super aeordynamic but they do taper in the front and back as real wings would, Also I think this was discussed in some other thread that the thrust would more than likely make up for some of the lack of aerodynamics. Alos there are far less aerodynamic looking ships then this one. ;)
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Post by peteyg »

I dig it. It fits pretty good with Jacks's descriptions too.

Get that bad boy textured! That'll be the trick.
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Post by pontiac »

Cool model. Texuring it will not be that easy i could imagine.

I think aerodynamical styled wings are not really an option for a big ship like this is (it's a destroyer after all, isn't it? ;)).
I would even suggest to make them a bit smaller (so the front of the wings is nearly the same size/wide as the front 'claws' , though that may have a bad influence on the overall cool look of the shape, so nevermind my comment at all ;-)

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Post by f1gm3nt3d »

I thought that about the wings originaly too Pontiac, this is actually the third iteration of it today. :) the wings just looked...weird when they were the same size of the front claws, I thought it would make it look "sleeker" but instead it made it look like the wings were going through SPEC but the rest of the ship wasn't. :oops: So yea. Texturing it is a pain but I'm almost done setting up the UV's then maybe I'll get a little texturing done tonight, if not I won't be doing anything else until friday, got some vacation away from home coming up. w00t.
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Post by pincushionman »

It doesn't look very substantial from the side. I'd add more bulk amidships (between the wings, that is). But the plan shape (view from the top) is great.

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Post by peteyg »

pincushionman wrote:It doesn't look very substantial from the side. I'd add more bulk amidships (between the wings, that is). But the plan shape (view from the top) is great.

-pincushionman
Yes... I would suggest a short, stubby, winglike structure attached to the bottom middle, but which extends backwards below the crack between the drive tubes. I'd make it taller than individual prongs at the front, but just about as wide. This would give the side view some extra coolness, and not wreck the cool forward view.

Or something like that anyways. : )
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Post by Silverain »

Maybe extend the power/engine ridges forward all the way to the prongs? This would give bulk from side view.

Questions: If ship is a fighter or bomber, need to put in a cockpit, so a bit of bulk behind the prongs may be necessary anyway.

If ship is a capship, what purpose would the twin tails serve? Would they be necessary? They appear as a flimsy joint attachment to the main body - maybe smooth them into the body more as an outgrowth, rather than an attachment?

Possibility: side view, the prong curves down to meet the extended engine ridge. This is a gentle joint, that then curves slightly in an oval shaped edge to the rear. It then meets up with the TIP of the tail wing, rather than joint?
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Post by mikeeusa2 »

If it's a big capship wouldn't it have a dock port somewhere? (might need to modle a fighter bay, I don't know though since I dont know what ship it is)
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Post by f1gm3nt3d »

It is a capship, an existing one that I'm remodeling. The tail extensions are there soley because they are present in the original one(see comparison pic). Yea, I know they look flimsy in th pics, for two reasons, one they are ;) (working on fixing that) and two when I was inspecting the model before making up a UV map to texture with I discovered that somewhere along the way some polys got deleted in the where they connect to the body, thus not making a smooth shade transition, I fixed this already and it looks much better. I like the wing out of the bottom idea more then extending the thruster fuselages. Though I have gone and given the ship body a bulkier stance.

Image

Quick bottom fin

Image

Perspective view of fin.

Those shots are just a quick mockup of something like what Peteyg suggested. (Note that if I go with the fin it will be mch more smoothed into the body and most likely a bit thicker at the base.) hmmmm...mikeeusa2 has a point I checked the stats and it carries cargo stuff so I assume it's dockable and I have to add some sort of dock. If I go with the fin idea, I think I'll place a dock on each side of the fin. If not well, then I'd have to find somewhere to put one ;). Just when I thought it was safe to do UV maps. :oops: ;) Well off to bed and vacation I go.
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Post by Silverain »

<thought>

Rather than docks on either side, replace/enhance the fin with a wider bottom section underneath, with the dock location inside - like a hangar.
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Post by jackS »

I've been out of town this weekend, or I would have responded to this thread earlier, but here goes:

The original model wasn't the best baseline to start with, so I'm going to try to push you away from it, pull you in various other directions, and probably end up being somewhat aggravating for not saying all these things _before_ you started work :-( -

0. Thanks. The existing model needed redoing, I appreciate the effort, and am hopeful that it will turn out well. Now for looking the gift-horse in the mouth:

1. Ditch the tail fins. They serve no discernable purpose, and they don't look anything like the body extensions present on the 3 existing Aeran models.

2. Your current model is heavily anorexic. Maybe remembering the sense of scale will help - the main body of this vessel is going to be (assuming basic shape doesn't radically change) >= 1 km in length. It needs more bulk. adding thin fins, like the one on the belly, is not conducive to increasing meatiness, and, again, runs somewhat off from the existing body projections of the 3 base craft, which tend more towards wedge shapes than fins.

3. again referencing scale - those projections in the front, in the original model, were the spinal gun mounts. In keeping with the mission profile of a multi-purpose (but heavily leaning towards escort duty) cap-ship (as an Aeran destroyer is) the proportionality is off - the gun mounts are too large for the rest of the vessel- it should not be quite so overly front oriented - it's not a giant fighter, nor a special purpose assault craft. Fortunately, as they were just gun mounts, you're entirely free to move, delete, or otherwise modify them.

4. continuing the above, there are some things that are not clearly present - docking, well defined places for turret mounts, missile/torpedo launchers, and (until it gets bulked up) storage space for said missiles/torpedos. The docking issue isn't one of it carrying a complement of fighters (it'd be carrying shuttles, maybe a few probes and such), but more of a sanity issue in terms of the logistics of resupply (having to resupply at stations is a bad feature for something capable of use in offensive maneuvers) Speaking of logistics, it'd be nice if there was room for fuel for some nice big (and slightly more heavily housed than in your model) engines (if you wish to keep similar engine aesthetics to the fighters, you might examine their curves and tapering - but you're also free to do something different) the proportional size of the engines should convey that, for a ship of this size, a larger than perhaps expected amount of thought has been given to acceleration.

5. For extensions away from the body of the ship aerodynamics are to be completely ignored. As said before, it's at least 1 km long. It's not designed to make frequent landings planetside - that's what dropships and supply shuttles are for. The best example to glean from is the aelar, with its thick, solid, wedge-shaped hull extensions, all of which are used as places to put weapons. The curves on the 3 good models tend to be gentle, some of the places on your model are rather sharp.

6. I think, as you bulk things up, you might want to change the shape of your "wings" and make them decidedly less wing-like. However, I think changes in this direction will come as a logical consequence of bulking up, and aren't interesting to discuss until a new shape has been given to the "torso" of the vessel.

7. The unit file is not fixed in stone, do not use it as requirements list with regard to weaponry. It makes some reasonable suggestions, but it's too front oriented at the moment, as the previous model was heavily front-oriented.

If I seem overly picky, ornery and cranky then it's probably one or both of the two following things:

A) Unlike the humans, who have the myriad subfactions of the LIHW to ascribe ship manufacture to, the aliens, especially the Aera, are going to be kept to a fairly tight set of craft, so if something is not sufficiently becoming the Aera ship it was slated to be, then there's not nearly so much room to make use of the art anyway - so I'm going to be very picky, even though I'm a rat-bastard and haven't actually written the descriptions/made sketches for said ships yet... (notably, I've mentioned before, and I'll mention again, if you want to do a particular ship, you can contact me and request a description - note that while this seems a particularly onerous bottleneck, the idea is to establish a body of representative work for each of the factions under intense and constraining scrutiny so that future submissions won't have to ask what the aesthetics of a particular group are - but we're clearly not there yet, so... I'm staying in stickler mode)

B) I'm awake and writing this right now(more or less right after getting back from a trip, as opposed to several hours from now when I'm happy and rested) because it's too hot for me to sleep.
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Post by strangelet »

why not try this... mentally divide the ship into plated segments, then select each group of polys that make up a plate and extrude them out a little - this looks just like armour plating over hull structure... sections can be left unextruded for unarmoured chinks etc.... upload the model and i'll show you what i mean

looks great tho and i cant wait to see the finished version...
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Post by f1gm3nt3d »

Jacks, regadring your whole post:

0. No Problem.

1. No Problem and thank god, those tail fins where being a major pain in the arse to UV anyhow.

2. I'm aware of the models state as having a severe weight issue ;) and

3. So basically I can redesign a good deal of the ship because the original wasn't a good baseline to begin with. I thought that it was just for continuitys' sake so I just tried to fit the old design more into what the 3 good aera ships seemed to be design wise.

4. Docking and all the afformentioned are going to be more clearly defined this go around.

5,6,7. Roger.

strangelet: I know exactly what you mean about dividing it up for a more armored looking surface, though I'm not exactly sure how well that fits into the overall design of aeran construction. It's a pretty simple and fairly inexpensive way to bring good closeup detail in to play.

Bah , Having just slept in a soggy sleeping bag and a few inches of water last night, I know the feeling. Well all that being said, I'm going back to my vacation, expect to see something maybe, saturday afternoon.
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