Remodelling the Robin

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Dragonseraph Angel
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Remodelling the Robin

Post by Dragonseraph Angel »

I noticed the Robin seems to be somewhat outdated and it doesn't look like anyone has begun work on a replacement mesh, so I think I will give it a try

Unfortunatly I have never modelled anything worth putting in game before, so I am definitly going to need some guidance...

Some other things you should know are:

1. I use Wings3D, which some people here don't like

2. I have never UV unwrapped textured or bump-mapped anything and have very little idea of how to do this

3. I have never even tested a model in game, don't know how to convert or import/export a file from Wings to Vegastrike

4. I don't know very much about the realism and design conventions - How does a plasma engine look different from an ion engine, and how does that look different from a chemical engine? Which one should be used? How large should the
radiators be? Where would retro-thrusters go?

I have been lurking around the forums doing nothing for years now, and really want to do something to contribute. It will be a slow learning process I am sure, but hopefully I will be more of a help than a hinderance. I chose the robin because it is small and comparatively simple - maybe I will be able to handle it. But if you want someone skilled to do all of the new ships, or the Robin should be left alone, please stop me before I cause to much trouble.

Before I even get started, assuming no one wants to stop me, I do have some questions

1. What kind of mounts should the robin carry?

2. I heard that instead of modelling weapons, mountpoints should be left as bare flat faces for the weapons to be placed on later - Does this go for missiles too? Is there a certain size that the faces should be?

3. About how large is the robin?

4. Are the wings for atmospheric flight or are they radiators? Should they even remain at all?
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by klauss »

Dragonseraph Angel wrote:2. I heard that instead of modelling weapons, mountpoints should be left as bare flat faces for the weapons to be placed on later - Does this go for missiles too? Is there a certain size that the faces should be?
It's true for all.
Well, actually, you could get away with providing a generic missile launcher mesh for missiles... I believe missiles currently have no mount mesh. But instead of attaching the launcher mesh to your ship, I'd rather have you whip up a generic launcher mesh to be used for missile mounts in all ships.

Although, I'm thinking, some launchers in some ships would be internal, and need to be attached to the ship. Not sure the engine supports this. Don't feel constrained, however - if you want your model to have internal launchers, just make the launcher part of the ship. If you want your model to have external launchers, just make the launcher a separate model and leave the "mountpoint" free on the ship's mesh.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Deus Siddis »

Dragonseraph Angel wrote:1. I use Wings3D, which some people here don't like
It's for good reason though I'm afraid. Wings lacks many modern features that are important for creating quality content. Also, the people most capable of assisting you use the much more capable and popular Blender.

If I were you, I'd make switching to Blender priority #1. You want to start off with the right tools and the returns will be much greater than the initial investment.
2. I have never UV unwrapped textured or bump-mapped anything and have very little idea of how to do this
Some tutorials and a lot of practice will be important for UV unwrapping. There's some tutorials on the VS wiki and many others elsewhere on the web. It's basically two things-- placing seams in 3D model space and then fixing, scaling and arranging the resulting cutouts in 2D UV/texture space.

Bump mapping is simply painting in or adjusting gray-scale details in a 2d raster ("paint") program like the GIMP or Photoshop. With some practice and creativity you can make some very cool stuff with bump mapping.
3. I have never even tested a model in game, don't know how to convert or import/export a file from Wings to Vegastrike
You export your models as .OBJ and then use the VS console-based conversion program 'mesher' to convert them. The process is a little buggy, but it isn't as hard or convoluted as it may seem at first.

Also this isn't something you need to worry about from square one, you can take it a step at a time.
4. I don't know very much about the realism and design conventions - How does a plasma engine look different from an ion engine, and how does that look different from a chemical engine? Which one should be used? How large should the
radiators be? Where would retro-thrusters go?
Thrusters are usually largely cylindrical. They can end in a cone like chemical rockets.

I don't know if aerospike configurations would make sense with electromagnetic thrusters or not.
I have been lurking around the forums doing nothing for years now, and really want to do something to contribute. It will be a slow learning process I am sure, but hopefully I will be more of a help than a hinderance. I chose the robin because it is small and comparatively simple - maybe I will be able to handle it. But if you want someone skilled to do all of the new ships, or the Robin should be left alone, please stop me before I cause to much trouble.
Heheh, no I don't think you'll cause trouble, just be patient and willing to keep learning and trying and retrying.
1. What kind of mounts should the robin carry?
For that kind of information, you'll want to check units.csv, in the "units" directory of your vega strike install. It stores all the data for each ship including weapon mounts; very useful.

Looks like three light guns, four special gun or missile mounts and two medium missile mounts.
2. I heard that instead of modelling weapons, mountpoints should be left as bare flat faces for the weapons to be placed on later - Does this go for missiles too? Is there a certain size that the faces should be?
It depends on the size of the mount. Unfortunately we never established exactly how big each weapon size is.
3. About how large is the robin?
Probably about 20-25 meters long.
4. Are the wings for atmospheric flight or are they radiators? Should they even remain at all?
They might be used for both.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Dragonseraph Angel »

1. I use Wings3D, which some people here don't like
It's for good reason though I'm afraid. Wings lacks many modern features that are important for creating quality content. Also, the people most capable of assisting you use the much more capable and popular Blender.

If I were you, I'd make switching to Blender priority #1. You want to start off with the right tools and the returns will be much greater than the initial investment.
I know blender is one of the best free modelling programs (Possibly the best - from what I have heard it can compete with many high-end commercial programs :D )

But I also heard that It was hard to learn and it looks really intimidating

I don't know about what wings is lacking, but when people are making things like this

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l44/o ... edFire.jpg

with it, I assumed it was good enough

1. What kind of mounts should the robin carry?
For that kind of information, you'll want to check units.csv, in the "units" directory of your vega strike install. It stores all the data for each ship including weapon mounts; very useful.

Looks like three light guns, four special gun or missile mounts and two medium missile mounts.
I knew it would be easy to find, but with all of the updating and stuff I thought maybe the mounts were being changed too :wink:
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Deus Siddis »

Dragonseraph Angel wrote: I know blender is one of the best free modelling programs (Possibly the best - from what I have heard it can compete with many high-end commercial programs :D )
But I also heard that It was hard to learn and it looks really intimidating
I don't know about what wings is lacking, but when people are making things like this
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l44/o ... edFire.jpg
with it, I assumed it was good enough
I don't know all of wing's exact capabilities and limitations, but at least when it comes time to bake maps, you'll need Blender or something like XNormal for that stage.

Also you'll probably have to go to the wings community to ask specific technical questions unless there's still a knowledgeable wings user hanging around this forum.
I knew it would be easy to find, but with all of the updating and stuff I thought maybe the mounts were being changed too :wink:
That's a possibility too, I'm afraid. The game isn't very well balanced atm, so future updates might give the Robin a different array of weapon mounts.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by -REBEL3- »

Deus Siddis wrote:
Dragonseraph Angel wrote:
I knew it would be easy to find, but with all of the updating and stuff I thought maybe the mounts were being changed too :wink:
That's a possibility too, I'm afraid. The game isn't very well balanced atm, so future updates might give the Robin a different array of weapon mounts.
It might...though I doubt it. It's pretty well balanced, for it's price. It *could* use a bit of a price reduction-not much, maybe 1k or so.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Deus Siddis »

-REBEL3- wrote: It might...though I doubt it. It's pretty well balanced, for it's price. It *could* use a bit of a price reduction-not much, maybe 1k or so.
No, I'm talking about a re-balance with a much greater scope than just the Robin.

All thruster accelerations and governors, weapon systems and defenses, sensors and drives, reactors, everything. There is currently no part of VS' gameplay that isn't significantly imbalanced or broken in some way.

So big changes will have to happen eventually. They might have already happened if the pace of development hadn't slowed as much as it has in the last couple of years.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Fendorin »

If you are not against and a bit patient (few days)
i would like to propose a sketches for the Robin to follow, something look as starship not airplane ,
something maybe in the structure and the design can be a good base for begin LIHW artstyle guide
:Some of this Lihw menber can pilot:
Image
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Dragonseraph Angel »

Yes, Fendorin... Oh yes

I never had help from a LEGEND before :D
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Fendorin »

thanks for the legend 8) (which i m not) i m still young :roll: legend is for :?: .... not for me but thanks :mrgreen:

then let's make out quicly:
here a draft sketches
I used my camera instead of my scanner ( i put it away as i don't use a lot ) for publish it then sorry for the ugly quality of the sketches
but as i had to wait a wihle for got comments over my past work posted (some are still travelling and maybe will never arrive :wink: )
i don't want you wait too much as i had wait; is loosing both of our time and can putt you away from the task you want handle for help this project.


The proposed ROBIN model:the general shape is a vertical structure with 2 huge reactor pack at each side of the main body
the cockpit is under at front (smooth round shape) this reactor are retro thruster too

from each top of the body and at level of the reactor pack support (those 2 lines/rod) are attached maneuvres and turning thruster.
The vertical body get additional booster at rear part,
For this same vertical body and at front of the thruster pack position is storage (mostly for weapon and missile)+cockpit/living part (the official lenght will come later)
As usual in lot/most of my design weapon are suggested and never showed outside (weapon "are ugly pins")

Image

Image

Better drawing concept accurate and then more clear should follow as well with change if they are necessary (after kind discussion)

any question, remark or comment???
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Dragonseraph Angel »

Nice drawing, very interesting - I like the details alot - but I am going to need some more perspectives before I can really get a good Idea of what it looks like...

But I was also wondering - the original Robin looked almost exactly like stereotypical fighter plane - Aerodynamic body, swept back wings and slanted tail fins - If it is like most of the other vegastrike fighters, it needs to drop those characteristics... But what if it is a 'hybrid' Atmospheric fighter in addition to being spaceworthy? Then it might need to retain some of the airplane look :?

I don't know if the older design was intentionally created to look like something that was made specifically for atmospheric flight, or if it simply has the "airplanes in space" dissease :wink:

Oh, by the way, Fendorin, you are a Living Legend, the best kind :D
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by -REBEL3- »

I like it, but...

It looks too massive, IMHO. It looks like a small capship, maybe a small fleet tender or recon craft. It could use a bigger cockpit. :D

I'll post some more on it tommorow-got to get to bed now.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by charlieg »

-REBEL3- wrote:I like it, but...

It looks too massive, IMHO. It looks like a small capship, maybe a small fleet tender or recon craft. It could use a bigger cockpit. :D

I'll post some more on it tommorow-got to get to bed now.
There's nothing to suggest scale. It only looks massive because you are imagining it that way.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Fendorin »

In space there is no top no bottom only front and back no? ( the cokpit don't have to be at "top")
The proposed ROBIN model:the general shape is a vertical structure with 2 huge reactor pack at each side of the main body
the cockpit is under at front (smooth round shape) this reactor are retro thruster too
like i wrote the cokpit is under at front the vessels sketched the cockpit is the smooth shape at left bottom corner(as i m not english native maybe is not enough clear)
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Deus Siddis »

It looks either Andolian or maybe Mechanist to me, going by the Wiki descriptions. Maybe this could be a replacement for the Thales?

Also, regarding aerodynamics, these aren't a bad thing necessarily, unless the craft is truly space-only. If the craft is meant to sometimes land or fight in the atmosphere of a planet, then some streamlining could make sense.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Fendorin »

Deus Siddis wrote:It looks either Andolian or maybe Mechanist to me, going by the Wiki descriptions. Maybe this could be a replacement for the Thales?

Also, regarding aerodynamics, these aren't a bad thing necessarily, unless the craft is truly space-only. If the craft is meant to sometimes land or fight in the atmosphere of a planet, then some streamlining could make sense.
Imho
-it is still to smooth for be mecchanist (the mecca ships MUST look more ..mecca , bulky, ugly with no sense of design at all)

-Andolian,.. maybe but still not enough hi tech good point for the thales as is a corvette (originally bigger class) but the current in game is not as bad quite nice indeed,

-Lihw i will submit new sketches with taking above comment in consideration.

for atmospheric looking as JackS advised just few specific ship must be aeroodynamics shape then i would like to redraw the fighter with taking this idea in my mind.

earky i proposed this kind of structure at orbital planet to dock , the idea was to use as space port too instead/ for waiting implementations of the seamless planet flight :
for those ships are perfect for space flight and very bad or can't land on planet
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Dragonseraph Angel »

Maybe this could be a replacement for the Thales
Maybe I don't know what I am talking about, but I am in no rush to replace the Thales - it is (in my opinion) one of the most detailed pre-0.5 ships, as well as one of the best.

I would think it may be some time before we make such a well designed ship a replacement priority :?
Also, regarding aerodynamics, these aren't a bad thing necessarily, unless the craft is truly space-only. If the craft is meant to sometimes land or fight in the atmosphere of a planet, then some streamlining could make sense.
As I said earlier, I don't know if the Robin was made SPECIFICALLY for atmospheres, In which case, I would think it may very well be beneficial look similar to some form of airplane; Made to be capable of atmospheric flight, in which case, some streamlining would be sensible; or if it was intended for space ONLY, in which case there shouldn't be any real reason (asthetics perhaps?) for an aerodynamic look.

Just my ideas - I'll try to make it, whatever design is agreed upon :wink:
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Fendorin »

As I said earlier, I don't know if the Robin was made SPECIFICALLY for atmospheres, In which case, I would think it may very well be beneficial look similar to some form of airplane; Made to be capable of atmospheric flight, in which case, some streamlining would be sensible; or if it was intended for space ONLY, in which case there shouldn't be any real reason (asthetics perhaps?) for an aerodynamic look.
I m proposed a concept you are free to follow :D or not :x :(
i will redo concept more LIHW style and more "readable for your future work which i m glad you seems to be happy and enthousiast to do.
discuss every details and argu before begin work is an old tradition on VS forum :roll: :wink:
let's make it fun :mrgreen:

bt really we should try to be a bit far and more "modern" in our general approach of staship and begin to forget wings and flight in a sky is a space ship game

not sky ship but i m agree for our eyes of human living inXXI century the aerodynamic feeling look more aesthetics.
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Dragonseraph Angel »

bt really we should try to be a bit far and more "modern" in our general approach of staship and begin to forget wings and flight in a sky is a space ship game
Are you saying that there shouldn't be any ships designed with atmospheric flight in mind?

I thought some of the ships were supposed to be made for fighting inside an atmosphere...

After all, a lot of people want that seamless planetary flight - Of course, this doesn't mean that every ship needs to be outfitted for air - for many, the landing and launching will be trivial compared to the amount of time they spend in space - thus they only need to be able to survive it - not handle it well.

On the other hand, however, seamless planetary flight would suggest (I would think) that the atmosphere is still fair game for engagements under some circumstances (shoot them while they are out of their element, hindered by friction and gravity.) In a case like this, the attackers would only have an advantage if their ships were outfitted for atmospheric flight, or they would be just as slowed down by friction and gravity.

In this case, some sort of hybrid might be useful? :?
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by -REBEL3- »

There's an easy solution to this

The wings of the robin are not wings, but heat radiators.
It's thin to present a smaller profile to enemy ships.

That explains the old model, and allows us to make some changes to it, while preserving fendorians sketch for another ship. :)
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Dragonseraph Angel »

I'm not adamant about having wings - we can take them off :wink: - but I am just hesitant about removing them when i'm not sure if there was a reason for them in the first place...

Radiators are fine :D
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Fendorin »

Image

here new sketches more fighter war looking maybe ?
Note there is radiator no wings :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :wink:
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by klauss »

Cool art :)

Is it wikified?
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Fendorin »

klauss wrote:
Is it wikified?
no all arts i posted art not wikified but some are "galleryied"
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Re: Remodelling the Robin

Post by Dragonseraph Angel »

It looks really good...

I'll try it - but its going to take a very long time

I'm having a horrible case of "real life syndrome" :x

I hardly have any time to model anymore, and its not like I was fast to begin with. :oops:
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