Atlantia- Before the Dawn - New mod I'm modelling now

[chrisdn]

Here are some images of some models I'm working on for a game mod based on a novel I'm writing called Atlantia. All of these images have been designed in AC3D and are unrendered screenshots.




This is a view of a light fighter
[/mg]http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/atl ... r_ttop.png[/img]
A Heavy Fighter


Little and Large


Close up on the exhaust nozzle and rail guns on the heavy fighter[/img]

[chrisdn]

Some of the models. Please remember that there are no real tectures used on these images as I'm looking for a devent render engine to use. If you have any decent textures(that show off metal plating then I'd love to hear from you.



This is a view from underneath the main ship- Atlantia.


From the Top


Showing the fighter launch tubes, If you see the image further down of the Heavy Fighter Launching then you should get an idea of the size of her.


Landing Bays for Fighters(Right hand bays), Shuttles and small cargo vessels(Bayto the left)


A heavy fighter launching from Atlantia's Launch Tubes


A heavy fighter launching from Atlantia's Launch Tubes


A heavy fighter launching from Atlantia's Launch Tubes

[Ryder P. Moses]

If you can't use what you've got, then getting a fancier software suite won't help you much. A solid procedural texture system might help your texturing deficincies some, but that's a crutch, not an aid, and you'll be pretty helpless at a lot of stuff if you end up relying on it. I should know, that's exactly what happened to me for years.

Anyway, textures are only the beginning of your problems here. Textures can only complete a solidly-constructed mesh. You need to learn how to model more than anything else right now, and that's something you can do just the same in any program. In fact, the simpler the better- you need to get the basics under your belt before you go fiddling with more involved stuff.

The first thing you should do is take a look at well-done models and renders by experienced users, especially game models and other low-poly stuff, with an eye to the mesh construction. You can learn a lot about how to make a model look good by seeing how successful ones look and trying to figure out how to duplicate that effect.

The second thing I'd recommend you do is redo the fighter models using a single mesh primitive for the entire body. That includes as many of the details you can manage. Single-object modelling is a bit tougher but it'll help you learn how to make efficient meshes that look like a coherent entity rather than a bunch of distorted primitive stuck together. It'll also hopefully get you to pay attention to your detail distribution- it's hard to tell in your renders, but it looks like about 90% of your polys are concentrated in 10% of the model. Again, you should look up some references while doing it, to see what actual machinery and vehicles look like.

[chuck_starchaser]

I like the design of the carrier, artistically speaking; very unique. And the fact that there's more detail to the thrusters than just a funnel shape is a commendable departure from game modelling traditions.
Seems to me, in general, though, that engines are undersized, unless accelerations are intended to be measured in milli-G's.
Also, by the size of the carrier I wonder if there's enough launching tubes; and I wonder, wouldn't landing bay entrance be better from the back of the ship? That way, if the carrier need to beat a quick retreat, fighters would be able to match acceleration during landings; wheras if the fighters have to come back in flying backwards, they don't possess forward facing thrusters, at least that I can see, big enough to match acceleration backwards.

[chrisdn]

Thanks for the advice but I'm not out to become a professional 3D designer- I have a social life and a job! Why do people creat rendering engines and texture modellers if they're crap? Not too sure what you meant by that but I intend to take advantage of as much technology as possible to make my life easier. Show me the texture engines!!!!
As for the polygon stuf...Not at all sure what that meant...I haven't smoothed down the wings yet as I thought they looked better sharper.
These models go with a book I'm writing which I eventually want to turn into a game using the VS engine in the future. I don't see too much point in making the things pixel perfect when they will never, ever be used in all of their entirety. I am trying to get effective models which I can build up on. The main ship is going to be elaborated on incredibly, including hangers, hull clamps for Heavy fighters, Obs Ports, gun placements etc etc.


Chucky...I'm a bit worried about the size of the nozzle but I am thinking of putting a real big one dead aft on the bulbous stern. Landing Bays need to sty facing ahead as there is no space aft as that whole aft mound is engineering and CTD core space. As far as landing fighters goes I'm thinknig of using a gantry grapple that extends out from the landing bay attches to the fighter and pulls them into the magrail tubes for transport. Think I've oversmoothed some of the surface and I think I'll recombine some surfaces to give it that angled, man made look. If you want the file to play with just give me a shout...its about 2MB right now.

Glad you liked the design...functionality is great but you can't beat a good looking object.

[Ryder P. Moses]

Dude. There is no program out there that will do the job for you. Period. They're tools used in the performance of a craft, not magical art-making machines. You want a fancy texture generator? They start at around $500 for noncommercial varieties and run up into the tens of thousands for the very nice ones, and you still will have to know something about what you're doing. You don't want to learn how to model? Don't model. It's really that simple.

Let me guess, you've started your book but can't be bothered to learn anything about literature or the English language because you're too busy and figure that if you buy a nice word processor it'll do the work for you.

[chuck_starchaser]

Chris, what I think Ryder is trying to say, with regards to the mesh, is that to be able to texture a mesh properly you need to make a clean job of the geometry first. I was going to mention that when you sent me the wireframe pic. He's also saying, try to make the whole ship, wings and stuff included, out of a single surface. Here's an example of my recent attempt to do so:



As you can see, the seams didn't work out. That's because I actually made the engines separately and then tried to stitch the main body and the engines, but I didn't add more lines. Where a surface makes curve of small radius you need more lines for it to look good. Anyways, you can see from the top view wireframe on the right, the mesh is mostly parallel lines, evenly spaced. It's not a good job but it's clean, at least. You can modify it more easily than if you have lines that loop around like barbwire. And it's easier to texture too.

[chrisdn]

I know what you mean now mate. I was planning on doing that once I'd worked out the final layout of the ships. At the moment I'm still figuring out exactly where things are going (external structures). It's take a while to do though because of the shape of the wings, bulbous stern etc. Is it best to atrt with a polyline or something else? The first I've done the body was made from a single spahere and the wings were extruded from a polyline and then subdivided to get the surfaces.

[chrisdn]

Re designed the main ship from one object rather that multiples glued together.



Flying in from below







The landing bay







Showing the mounts for the forward thrusters and 2 other mounts which will either be for missile tubes, deflector of some form or scientific sensors[/img][/url]

[chuck_starchaser]

Looks a lot better and cleaner.
Here's some possible little problems you'd better deal with early than later:



1) Looks to me like there's a triangle in one side that is covered by a quad in the other; but it could just be the perspective that causes the edge on the right not to show.
2) I can't tell from a 2D shot, but just wonder if this quad is coplanar, or roughly coplanar; or it's got a bit of a twist. Twisted quads tend to produce bad results when they are split into triangles (and they always are; if you don't do it the videocard will, --and then you don't get to pick along which diagonal the quad is split.
3) Looks like a break or step there, but I can't see.
4) You probably want your mesh lines to look square from top and bottom, rather than from the front, as the ship has a larger area of projection from the top than from the sides, least of all the front. You want the view with the largest area to get better pixel distribution.
5) I see it now, but I'm too lazy to re-upload the pic.. at the bottom left, just below that deck, there's a transversal line that is met by longitudinal lines from the edge of the deck. Shouldn't be possible to do that. Seems to me the larger quads at the bottom are just covering the narrower ones. That's bad. You don't want to have any covered polygons, or any large portions of polygons, as the videocard doesn't know that they can't be seen so it paints the hidden polys painstaikingly, only to then paint over them with the covering polys.

Also, wings are probably best made by drawing a cross section vertex by vertex, then extruding and scaling a few steps, till you get to the tip. This way, the edges of the wings will have more closely packed parallel lines to give the edge an even curvature.

[chrisdn]

This is a quick mock up I did of one of Atlantia's light fighters (thinking of class name) launching from one the launch tubes. Nothing is textured because I'm still trying to figure out how you do that really well.
The weapon pylons egdes are flat for the mag rail launch system inside the tube...the same system carries the ships from hanger to tubes.

I like the launch tube myself as it looks pretty smart (it's modelled on an air lock door from something I saw).

Let me know what you reckon...Atlantia is still getting re-designed with added surface details for armaments, comms, science, landing bays etc.



Launch bays opening...you should just about be able to see the fighter



The fighter leaves the tube



Off he goes, looking for a scrap! You should be able to see the projectile weapon on its back...these weapons come as pods carried in this position and the light fighter can carry 2 pods-depending on the power of the weapon, it can only carry one of the rail gun pods I've designed whereas the heavy Fighter can carry 4.

[chrisdn]

Just worked out the Engine nozzle design, to the rear of the nozzle the blue area is the the vectoring system from each nozzle. This is one of 3 stern thruster sets for the Atlantia, she will also have one set of FWD thrusters in a different configuration.
For a rough size guide, each nozzle is approx 5m across.

[chrisdn]

Here is one of Atlantia's shuttles. Echelon Class are designed for personnel transportation, specifically to atmospheric planets. This is a bit of a Work in Progress but the wings have active aerodynamics during atmospheric flight and the ship can descend by altering its aerodynamics. Upon entry into the atmosphere the wings tilt so the back end face down (like the craft that won the X Prize). It's about the same size as a modern airliner and is capable of carrying about 300 personnel and various equipment or cargo in it's hold.
There will be landing skids added (when I design them) along with view ports in 2 tiers down the port and starboard side. Crew and paasengers board through a port directly behind the nose and cargo/equipment is loaded from the stern. I have the ports designed but I haven't added them yet because I think I can probably do the effect with textures (once I figure out how to UV Unwrap and actually learn the trick to texturing.

If anyone has advice on Software for UV Unwrapping then let me know- I use Photoshop or Corel Photo Paint for Bitmap manipulation so all I need is the UV Unwrapping bit.

If anyone wants a copy of Atlantia- Before the Dawn, the book this art is based around just let me know and I'll send you through what i've written so far (around 12500 words at the moment).

[chuck_starchaser]

You're getting better at modelling by the minute. I see you got the idea for how to extrude the wings. The engines are looking great. What I would add to them is a couple of pipes connecting to those annular pipes on them. And maybe the section they mount to is a bit too conical, in the sense that it doesn't look like it has enough room inside to fit the facilities that go with each engine.

There's a problem or two with the aerodynamics of this shuttle:
Wings are a bit too big and a bit too forward. And the roundness of the front, and (not too) gradual tapering at the back, are suggestive of a sub-sonic aircraft. When the Shuttle (generically speaking) enters the atmo, it's going at like at 35 times the speed of sound IIRC. First it orients itself tilted back, exposing its refractory tiles on its belly (and maximum area) to the wind, to maximize decceleration while the air is rather thin. Once it slows down to mach 4 or 5, not sure exactly, it tilts itself forward and glides supersonically for most of the rest of the way.
IOW, your shuttle would have supersonic aerodynamics: sharper (more conical, less spherical) nose, smaller and thinner wings, no --or very little-- taper towards the back; and be a bit thinner and longer over-all.

Keep up the good work.

[chrisdn]

The nozzle sets moutn is really only a mount...the workings are within the shuttle itself and the mount serves no other purpose bar holding the nozzles. The annular pipes aren't pipes but rather conduits supplying power to the magnetic rings around the nozzle.

I want the shuttle to have a stubby nose to make it look more like a work horse. I know quite a lot about aerodynamics because I studied aeospace engineering before I did marine and the shape is fine hypersonic flight as long the profile is narrowed enough which I've taken care of with the active aerodynamcs. The whole ship is a heat shield (some material I haven't thought of yet) which transfer the heat back into the engine exhaust to dissipate build up.

I was going to design it around that JPL prototype for the hypersonic plane...large delta wing layout with SCRAM intakes underneath (know the one I mean?) but I think I'll design another shuttle around that which is perefully for personnel transport.

I'm still not happy with the wings on this one so I think I'll practice wings quite a bit and then do a load of them all in one go.

[chrisdn]

Been playing about with ideas for her for a while and I think I'm happy with this configuration. I want to add more greebling but I'm not too sure what...anyone have any ideas?

I've left the surface completely plain for the moment to show off some the details and because I'm still stuck on how to do this UV unwrapping thing so I can start putting textures on her. She is very large and I think it's going to take bloody ages to texture her

[chuck_starchaser]

That's coming nicely.
I summarized a set of greebling ideas for ships in this thread:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 3252#43252
as follows:

Now, if you're just looking at Norlig's page and thinking " *those* greebles make no sense" I agree with you 100%. Not food for the eyes, or for the brain; just sickening sugar and grease doughnuts. But that's precisely what I was saying in my original post: Boxes upon boxes may be good for a movie, but not for a game. IOW: Have a *purpose* in mind before you start drawing a greeble: The engines here, do they need maintenance? Yes? Do we need a removable cover? Should the cover have a handle? How does this attach to that? How is it DE-tached? How does this ship get rid of excess heat? Where's the rad? Where's the cargo hatch? Where's the air-lock? Is the ship aerodynamic? If so, can it fly in an atmosphere? If so, does it have flaps? What about a carriage? What about an arrester hook? How do shields work? Some kind of plasma, eh? Okay, where's the electrodes then? Is there a hole or hook that the ship can be grabbed from for towing while inside a station? (To the repairs, to the cargo loading, to the launch platform) Or do they move the ship around by "grabbing it from the tail"? How does the eject pod work? Don't we need a seam around the area of the cabin that pops out to let the ejection seat loose? How is the ship refueled while in the station? Someone just walks in with a bucket of Helium 3? Any pivoting doors or covers that should have hinges? How are the batteries recharged? How is each of the subsystems accessed for repairs? How is the armor "fixed"? Shouldn't it be attached by some means, so it can be replaced? Are the radar, transponder, and other antennas exposed to enemy fire?, or are they under the armor where they can't possibly work? And what do we do about it?
And, last but not least, WHERE ARE THE GODDAM RETRO ROCKETS AND MANEUVERING JETS?!!! (Not to speak of vertical and lateral thrusters..)
((I'm not angry, capitals just for emphasis..)

I'd like to reiterate a concept I've mentioned many times:
Donno how realistic you want to go with your mod, but just food for thought. I would make a very sharp distinction between ships that fly in atmospheres, and ships that don't. Those who do should be aerodynamic, and feature no retro rockets, unless some kind of fold-out cover is provided that can cover it aerodynamically while flying atmospherically. Same goes for non-aerodynamic greebles. And perhaps they should have additional ailerons, flaps, rudder, air-brakes...
Ships that are not atmospheric flight capable (and these should be the majority) should NOT have "wings", or any aerodynamic features; though they could be shaped in some way to reduce radar cross-section. Then again, some could argue that something looks like a wing but isn't (engine mounts, weapon mounts); but then the question begs itself, "why does it look the way it does?".
But this is all, of course, for those who want realism, or believability, or consistency, or watchamacallit.

[chrisdn]

I know your view on wings Chuck and I also understand aerodynaimcs and alot of other things including marine, mechanical, aeronautical engineering, thermodynamics to name but a few.

I design from a practical point of view- nothing else. Speaking practically, what happens when a missile hits all the gubbins you have housed, unprotected, on the outside of your ship's hull? Mostly a large resounding boom would be the response. As a vessel of exploration and war, the Atlantia is built to anticipate anything that could happen. Reactors and fuel are located in the 'wing sections'. If a direct hit occurs to fuel tanks or reactors, the damaged wing section can be jettisined with minimal damage to the main hull and superstructure.

As for a vessel over a mile long entering the atmosphere for standard atmospheric flight then I think you'd be barking up the wrong tree.

We all like the design of your ship, I think it's really great but don't start trying to enforce your design considerations on other ships. Use your bloody imagination Chuck, this ship is set more than a thousand years in the future...Technology develops and as it develops it's causes other technology to develop etc etc Your ship is a 21st century vessel- something that could be built now if you had funding...Atlantia is a work of the future. Try to understand that...If you want ships to be all boxes and external pipes then play MS Space Simulator and design some ships that will work with that engine because that is all about current technology, it's realtime, 1 shot and your dead hyper realism.

Being realistic...A wankel pump in space? The most unreliable pump and engine configuration there is? That makes perfect sense...

[Ryder P. Moses]

Looks better, although those greebles on top are... unfortunate.

You've spent so many polys on making the whole thing rounded and aerodynamic and kinda inflated-looking, why would you then go and put a lot of cubic structures on the top? None of them look like part of the ship, they don't necessarily need to fit the smoothed aesthetic but there at least has to be a visual accounting for why they look the way they do, and some attempt to incorporate them into the vehicle as a whole.


And your detachable reactor-wings seem... ill-considered. For one thing, ejecting any one would put the ship off-balance, which is bad for something that presumably has to move. For another... you really don't want to be dumping your reactors, especially in combat. I mean, dude, if you're in battle and your reactor goes you might as well let it vent and do the relatively small amount of damage a properly designed fusion plant failing would do, you're gonna be dead in a few seconds anyway.

You want to keep your reactor at all costs. Bury it in the core of your ship, down there with damcon, so that by the time the enemy gets to it they'll have to have taken apart the entire rest of the vessel anyway. No quick, easy critical kills due to engineering incompetence.

Wings can still serve a function- they'd make good radiators, for one (depending on how realistic you're going, you may well want enormous radiators), and also provide a nice hold-out boom for turrets- stick a big gun on the end of one of those things, it'll have almost 360% of clear fire to move through without hitting your ship. But they're not auxiliary pods. There's only really one place that'd be really useful as an ejectable, and that'd be your bridge as a lifeboat.

[chuck_starchaser]

We all like the design of your ship, I think it's really great but don't start trying to enforce your design considerations on other ships. Use your bloody imagination Chuck, this ship is set more than a thousand years in the future...Technology develops and as it develops it's causes other technology to develop etc etc Your ship is a 21st century vessel- something that could be built now if you had funding...Atlantia is a work of the future. Try to understand that...If you want ships to be all boxes and external pipes then play MS Space Simulator and design some ships that will work with that engine because that is all about current technology, it's realtime, 1 shot and your dead hyper realism.

Did I invite all this animosity? Didn't I say "IF you care for realism..."?

... and I also understand aerodynaimcs and alot of other things including marine, mechanical, aeronautical engineering, thermodynamics to name but a few.

Gee. You should post a copy of all your PHD's here. Funny that you said you knew all about astronomy, and then you claimed it would take my ship months to get to Mars at 0.3 G', when at 0.3 G's you actually cover 1 AU in 5 days flat... and later said you could lower the orbit of a geosynchronous station by "making it heavier"... Thermodynamics: According to your erudition aerogel "wouldn't explode like metal would", paraphrasing, when hit by a fast particle. I suppose aerogel teletransports the particle's energy to some secret black hole at the other end of the galaxy... Not to speak of aerodynamics...

[Ryder P. Moses]

You missed the bit where he claims to understand it but can't even spell it.

[chrisdn]

Well you 2...Saying as you're so upto speed on everything and know everything there is to know then why not work for ESA or NASA? God knows they could use 2 minds as 'brilliant' as yours!

Ryder I like your sentiments on the reactor side of things and damcon etc and the intricacies of it are something I'm still trying to work out in my head. Apparently, you're some king of texturing and modelling god. What software are you using right now and what do you think is the best bit of kit around at the moment?

Chuck...Since when does acceleration have anything to do with astronomy? (gee I haope I spelt that right, wouldn't want to get de-merits from you!!) I believe it would have more to do with astro physics?

Chuck...you're a programmer not an engineer and no matter what you read on the internet it will never, ever, ever give you the experience of working with the materials and gaining the experience of how things interact. Theory is wonderful...In real life it doesn't work always. The perfect example is the Wankel pump...it looks so efficient and straight forward on paper...in reality it's a pig to work on, repair, get parts.

If you reckon you're technial knowledge is so far in advance of us mere mortals, who are doing this as a hobby and not something that consumes their life, then I suggest you go to college again and then apply to JPL for a job in experimental design. You think you have all the answers already so you'd probably be best off doing that.

I'm asking people for tips on modelling and texturing...not on the layout of the ship. This is a work of imagination to which I'm trying to add technical details. If you want to play about doing hyper realistic stuff Chuck then go for it but do not attempt to put your views onto other people...only narrow minded people and children do that. I'm trying to add more concepts, ideas to this Forum and Vega Strike in general...not have you sit and try to pick every design to bits because of your own personal view.

Remember the first messages you sent me when I'd commented on your ship??? I do genuinely like your input but do not try to enforce what you think is right on other people.

[chuck_starchaser]

Chuck...you're a programmer not an engineer and no matter what you read on the internet it will never, ever, ever give you the experience of working with the materials and gaining the experience of how things interact. Theory is wonderful...

What do you know what I am? In fact, I'm an engineer, not a programmer. Electrical engineer by training and profession, but I started working in metalurgy and instrumentation at age 13 (35 years ago). Like you're going to teach me about wankel pumps, kid.

I'm asking people for tips on modelling and texturing...not on the layout of the ship.

You never specified that.

If you want to play about doing hyper realistic stuff Chuck then go for it but do not attempt to put your views onto other people...only narrow minded people and children do that.

You're the one who told me you intended for your game to be "hard science fiction" by email. You forgot that now? And I phrased my comments very carefully "IF you care for realism..."; so you had no justification to tell me off. Just telling me you wanted no more advice on realism would have been enough. Talk about narrow minded people and children...

Remember the first messages you sent me when I'd commented on your ship??? I do genuinely like your input but do not try to enforce what you think is right on other people.

In what way did I try to "enforce" [sic] anything?

[chrisdn]

Chuck...don't think about calling me a kid, sunshine. I'm a fully qualified 2nd engineer (have a look and see what that covers because you don't seem to know what one is)...What does a leccy know about mechanical pumps? Metallurgy??? Loads to do with it mate...and at the age 13 I bet you went into loads of detail in your studying and as for you being a programmer, I believe that's what your profile says you are mate.

Now you've mentioned you're a leccy it explains alot...As for putting your views on other people then try not writing in a condescending, I know everything manner. You come across as being the sort of bloke where it's my way or the highway. I'm still learning modelling and I love the way people swap ideas in this forum but that is what it is...a swapping or collaboration of ideas. Not an I know everything and my ideas are better than yours kind of forum which is how you come across.

I love your input and appreciate your attention to detail but I'm more of a bigger picture person.

As for Hard Science Fiction then I guess what I'm writing isn't your kind of Hard Science Fiction but it fits into what I class (and what many other people I swap notes with on writers.com) as Hard Science Fiction.

By the way...have you ever worked on a Wankel pump or engine? or even a centrifugal pump? How about working on a gas turbine? or steam turbine? How about refrigeration plants (not the electrics or control systems)? Have a look to see what marine engineers are qualified in...it took me 9 years of studying to get my 2nd engineers ticket, that study time doesn't include the seagoing experience you have to possess to get
the qualification.

Your argument about aeorgel...it obviously isn't something you wanted to use as you had your heart set on armour plates ...if its so crap then please tell me why future NASA craft have plans to use to absorb impacts from micro meteorites? Guess that they're wrong and you're right eh?

You havew a bit of an attitude and if you are 48 years old then I advise some self help course to learn how to work in a team or to collaborate ideas.

[Ryder P. Moses]

Because the kid who comes on to a development forum spamming up every single active thread demanding help in modelling and then whines when it is given doesn't have any social issues, nosir.

Seriously, dude, lose the attitude. Nobody's interested in giving a guy who just insults everyone any help. The primadonna attitude only really works when you've achieved something.


Anyway, I use 3DS MAX and a whole shitload of third-party plugins which mostly probably can't even be found anymore. Time passes quickly and I stopped upgrading about two years ago when they stopped adding anything I really needed. The 'best bit of kit' is generally a custom-designed piece like most of the pros use; a step down from that would be one of the big three; MAX, Maya, or Lightwave. Take your pick, they're all godawful expensive if you want to get any good out of them, they all do more or less the same things in the end, none of them will magically make your model for you. From a basic modelmaking perspective, there's very little in MAX that's not in Wings or Blender, and nothing I wasn't easily doing without before I ever got it.