Post your space station concepts and designs

Thinking about improving the Artwork in Vega Strike, or making your own Mod? Submit your question and ideas in this forum.

Moderator: pyramid

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Should more contemporary science be used in Vega Strike vessels?

Poll ended at Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:27 pm

Yes
6
30%
Yes
6
30%
No
1
5%
No
1
5%
Don't Care...as long I can shoot things I'm happy
3
15%
Don't Care...as long I can shoot things I'm happy
3
15%
 
Total votes: 20

DualJoe
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Post by DualJoe »

Haha, graag gedaan!
GAlex
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Post by GAlex »

PLEASE, STOP TALKING KLINGON!
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(Galileo Galilei just after abjuring to the Inquisition)
Kangaroo
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Post by Kangaroo »

bIjatlh 'e' yImev! :lol:
Actually it was Dutch. :P
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ergo
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Post by ergo »

my firs take on station design , whole scene has 4k polys
Image
Using : SVN
OS: Windows
Halleck
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Post by Halleck »

Not bad! The texture is kind of bland.

Reminds me of our refinery, this could be a specific faction's refinery.

Also, don't worry about polycounts for the top-level mesh. As long as you make an appropriate low-poly version of the mesh, we can use it as a Level of Detail and have the engine display the high-poly mesh when the object is closer to you in the game.

Generally, one mesh with all the detail you want and one LOD is sufficient, but you can make multiple LODs if you feel like it. The lowest LOD should have about 500-1000 tris.

See Development:Model Guidelines#Polygon/Vertex Count on the wiki for more detailed information.
chuck_starchaser
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

You can go a lot higher with the poly count for a station. You could save the file as is for the 2nd LOD, and then make a version with added detail.
(The secret for avoiding detail popup is to make the extra geometry almost invisibly thin. Maybe poles, antennas, pipes, wiring, frames around features, overhanging cables.. but very very thin, so that as you get closer, at first they look like a fuzz. Also, might as well spend most of the extra polys on features that stick out of the structure, as superficial features can be done with the bump/normal map. Variety is important also, like some could be thinner than others, some square or triangular, some cylindrical, some orthogonal, some slanted, some straight, some curvey. Lighting poles/fixtures near docking areas, too.)
Very nice.
What's not totally clear to me is whether the outer "cylinders?" with "spherical?" caps are intended to appear so.
If so, they could use more subdivision -- even for the 2nd LOD--, and perhaps smaller features on the bumpmap, to help hide the smooth shading artifacts.
If not, I would emphasize the polygonality by making the texture "acknowledge" the geometry, as in having lines along the geometry edges on the specular map, say, or painted/bumpmapped frames around the polygons.
Either way is good, but not when a feature is "sitting on the fence", between roundness and polygonality, and you can't tell which is intended.
Halleck
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Post by Halleck »

Indeed... the latest model I punched in (gas mine) is an excellent example of "acknowledged" polygonality:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/album ... punch1.jpg

The texture has struts along the tesselation lines of the icosphere. When you're able to see the polygonality of the sphere, you just think "oh, it's some sort of geodesic dome-type sphere."

Doesn't enter your mind that it's just some wisely concealed polygons. ;)
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Re:

Post by pyramid »

chuck_starchaser wrote:I said what the heck, and did it:
Image
And it's only 20k polys; 11k vertices. We could stack half a dozen without as much as tickling the GPU. Here's the file.
Still needs some greebling, if anyone's up to it. Anyways, I'll definitely use this station for my mod, but if any other mods want it, just grab it.
This is a very nice station for the first Forsaken colonies, be it intact (though worn with use and micro-meteors) or decommissioned (in which case it might need remodeling to make it appear abandoned).
Your thoughts are welcome.
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Re: Post your space station concepts and designs

Post by chuck_starchaser »

I probably still have it, if you want it. Easy to unwrap using Smart UV's, as it's mostly just rectangles. Might look pretty good with real, CineMut shadows between buildings; and the little city and glass bubble could be made into a sub-unit and called four times, so no big deal to texture either. Ask JackS if he has any use for it, and if so I think I could produce it in a day, probably.
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Re: Post your space station concepts and designs

Post by pyramid »

Chuck, thanks for the offering the station to VS and the offer to bring the station model/texture further.
(Why do I get the impression that you've got a 48h day at your disposition? :shock: Any tips on how to make your day longer to accomplish more tasks?)
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Re: Post your space station concepts and designs

Post by pyramid »

Tried that. Still, my VSL (Vega Strike Life) gets neglected by far too much :lol:

The Space Colony for now was put into the masters in case any talented artist (with maybe more than 2 days off work :wink:) wants to pick it up for texturing.
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