This thread documents the process of building star ship models for freeOrion's combat
If you have any comments, please use this thread.
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This is something I've been working on for a couple of days. It's still a rather early WIP, but I thought it might be a good idea to share this. It's (very) loosely based on one of Josh's concepts, so I'm not sure if it still qualifies as Gyisache.
design notes:
compact shape - can take some hits but isn't too strong on the offensive side
FTL engines at the back and maneuver engines at the sides - fast and agile
curvy graphics = non-aggressive
sensor array in the front(still needs some work) - those guys are supposed to be afraid and sheepish, right?
I still need to detail some parts and then decide for the cutline layout. I'll create a lowpoly version and bake out the normal bump maps afterwards.
Some more things done. The underside will probably never be seen much, if at all, but I can't leave it unfinished, can I? I hope to finish this little sucker until weekend. I've done some testing with normal maps and it seems that transferring all detail to a lowpoly mesh will work without any problems.
I'm working on the low poly model now. Shown here is: high poly mesh (part of it), low poly mesh(wip, will be cut down more), normal mapped low poly mesh.
As you can see, all the details carry over very well. I'll paint in more of it once the baking process is done.
I've started the texturing process and will finish this before continuing working on Trith concept art.
Because this doesn't fit with the Gysache concept art Josh has done and because I can't say when I will create more ships with a similar design language again(the Trith will be my priority for quite a while), this ship will most likely end up as a universal hull - used as a filler, wherever it's needed. Could later perhaps be used as "The Guardian"?
It's finally finished and can be seen in the Ogre thread. (click image)
Not counting the huge breaks in between, this took me about 4 weeks. However, the highpoly model was done in Rhino, which was new to me at the time and an intense learning process. The design process was done on the fly - slowing things down as well.
Working from a concept I could probably pull something similar off in 2 weeks. I'll see if this proves true, once I build the Trith ships.
Here is the lowpoly version, currently at 512 polygons(triangles). I was hoping to not go above 300 when starting, but this will be hard to do. I'm going to cut the polygon count down, but I don't see this getting close to even 400.
This is also still just the initial UV layout, about half of the texture space is wasted, I'll optimize this. Here is a basic color map(ambient occlusion bake + lights + stripes) and normal bump map applied
I'm nearly done. It needs some more dirt, scratches and maybe ornamentation. Also, it looks like plastic at this moment, because there is no specular map, breaking up the clean highlights. There's a glow map now and the mesh is setup in a simple 2 point setup, similar to what we are aiming for in combat.
I've started working on the first Trith ship of the line. This is still the base mesh, which is going to be smoothed. Any suggestions about how the hull should be named?