FreeOrion

shrinkshooter, I really like your fighter designs
Especially the crystal array is a great idea.
IMHO fighter 1 would look best with the octagonal or the asymmetrical engine. They are the most crystalline looking and I thing they fit best to the array.
Fighter 2 looks great, too. Here I like the beam crystal you used in your original figure best, followed by the obelisk one.
I also like the three wing configuration, however I would have the 2 wings at the bottom and the single wing on top of the fighter, so it can land without toppling over.
You are doing great, keep at it

The Chato'matou'Gormoshk looks really awesome, especially the cyrstal at the top looks great. It is very much like I imagined it, apart from the already mentioned claws.
It looks sooo much better than I could ever have done it myself.

As a matter of inspiration has anyone seen how the Shadows spaceships from Babylon 5 looked. Specifically the shadow fighters, which are these little ships shaped like the Chato'matou (that crystal life form on the top of the Gormoshk).

If you want links

Shadow Fighter

Other shadow ships

Great show, I wish someone will make something new that good.

Define what you mean by "that good" and I'll do what i can. From strictly looks alone the ships are quite unimpressive. From what I can tell they have weapons, engines, and a black hull. No windows, no defining features, just a symmetrical black shape. I don't know anything about the technology on these ships, which might be included in your definition of "good," but that shouldn't really matter because you can't see them, if we mean "good" in a visual sense.

_________________
Photobucket account for FreeOrion and List of Techs and Icons

[[[===LEAN, MEAN, PURPLE AND GREEN MACHINE===]]]

Tortanick is most probably talking about making a TV show and the whole story behind it when referring to "good".

Yeah, ahaahaha, I just read it over again and realized that's what he meant. Oh, man. I'm retarded.

_________________
Photobucket account for FreeOrion and List of Techs and Icons

[[[===LEAN, MEAN, PURPLE AND GREEN MACHINE===]]]

- moved from the brainstorming forum -


Just scratched the surface in depth or amount? I tried thinking of terms of technology and engine propulsion systems, but I was told not to worry about it and just be creative. I know I haven't made many concept designs yet, but as far as the scout and fighter are concerned I'm done for the moment, because I can go in one of two directions: the ships are rejected, and I start over, or they're accepted with some suggestions for alterations, and I redesign them. Either way requires the input of the community/someone of higher standing than myself whose opinion I respect and consider to carry some heavy weight (like yours). So far the only one who has actually commented on the ships designs themselves is Kharagh, and he gave me something i can actually go with.

I get the feeling that it seems to you like I'm rushing this, but this feels to me like normal progression. I'm far away from even completing the set of ships, because I know along the path of conception are snags and rejections and alterations. I won't make them into 3D unless I'm certain that they're wanted to be made into the game, and I won't know that for quite some time because it's not a priority right now. That's fine by me. What I want to know is in which aspect would you like me to scratch deeper into that surface? All I can think of now in terms of this is "more concepts," which means I would simply be hand-drawing ship designs and polling the community for their opinion, assuming the leads aren't really going to look at them yet.

_________________
Photobucket account for FreeOrion and List of Techs and Icons

[[[===LEAN, MEAN, PURPLE AND GREEN MACHINE===]]]

Both are tied together, aren't they? The more you sketch, the deeper you'll explore the subject.


If you need artistic guidance, than this forum is probably not the best place, because hardly any people are qualified to give useful tips(no offense). Places like conceptart.org and cgsociety.org would be a much better choice.


I just would like to see you putting some more time into this, because what I've seen till now, is not at the level of quality that I'd like to have for this project. That said, the array idea is nice and the fighter page is looking like a good start too. Especially for the fighter page, it might be good to pick one or two combinations and bring them to a further finish. Keep them different though, don't just modify a single part basically draw the same fighter two times. Obviously there have been many more thoughts invested than into your very first page.


Unfortunately I can't guaranty this. It will depend a lot on the quality of your 3D work if it makes it into the game. Wanted to be made into that game, are probably most of the races of the story board
From your introductory thread in the general forum, I'd say you can still need some 3D training. Maybe you'll notice in 3D that something doesn't work like it was drawn or maybe you'll get some new ideas. Happens all the time.


Yeah, more concepts if you like. Different proportions, different crystalline structures/alignments, more variety in crystal sizes.
The main proportions are still similar to an airplane archetype(if there is one). They could be completely different though. Just compare a space shuttle to a Goa'uld warship. Besides the obvious difference in size, the proportions are completely different as well. It's all about proportion and silhouette in the beginning of the design process.

Some random thoughts: Maybe your/Kharagh's race would include other materials into their ships besides crystal? Who says a crystal race is using ships made of crystal at all? Maybe they have symbiotic spaceships, just like they are symbiotic beings? You tell me!

Don't wait for me to accept or reject something. This will happen soon enough, once ship design is our main concern. Until then experiment, try out some ideas, find your pace. Do what you want

These ships might look like they lack detail, but in fact they are some very good designs, some of the best. The reason is because they convey the purpose of the shadows very well, which is that they are mysterious and scary. The crab like design of the bigger ships makes it look menacing, and its lack of detail and just being a dark shape makes it even scaryier because it does not look human at all. In regards to the technology, those ships are organic, so that is why they lack detail.

Watch this youtube video (3mins) - The battle of Gorash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYB8RcuKbaw


Look at the icon threads and you will see the process that has gone on there. Most icons when suggested are often accepted straight away. Those that have needed changes, have had advice given. I think you have been doing well, and people have been commenting and giving suggestions.


Yes, I agree. shrinkshooter, I think you have essentially been giving us only a taste. It would be good to see some more complete renders, all hand drawn of course. You have drawn some ships in full 3d view to a minor degree. But it would be good if you could do as PD suggests and for example draw the fighter or your next ship in two or three variations, as complete ships, maybe with notes on details you want to focus on, to the side.


I had a similar thought. While a crystal style ship is often done as just plain crystals in a ship like shape, you could have more impact if you had two materials used. One dark material such as black or dark purple. And one light material, representing the crystal, eg it could be pink or light purple. This way, you could think of the crystal bits as being the 'windows' of the ship, and therefore you can have excellent contrast, and more unique forms of design that differ from the often overused plane shapes ( no offense, but it's true, not to say we can't use plane shapes ).


We'll makes sure we keep the threads in a safe place. Maybe with an "Index of race renders: Ships and Creatures" Thread stickied in the graphics forum?

Thanks. These last two posts have clarified a lot for me. Much abliged. If you want detailed renders, I'll give you detailed renders. Of course, I'll vary designs and things. The ships to date have just been rough outlines, sketches, and doodles. They have been nothing but concept boards, so to speak, not meant to actually illustrate the full visual of the ships. So I'll start work on the fighter renders shortly, and after that just screw around with different designs, artistically twiddling my thumbs until the time for ships kicks in gear.

As for my 3D skill, I would certainly not call myself an expert. But I will do my best, and I believe I can do quite a number in Blender. From looking at the game, I thought perhaps this would be a nice project to contribute to, because it doesn't seem like it would have 3D models will insane amounts of detail, since the ships are kept relatively small most of the time (from what I'm seeing anyway).

Now, these are slightly bigger than should be on the forums so I'll put direct links, but I suppose I'll post these here just to show what can be done:

http://downloads.clanpsl.com/images/Hell%5C's%20Orb.jpg

http://downloads.clanpsl.com/images/ship.jpg

The skull was done by me, but this picture probably doesn't show you anything you care about. The ship was done by my brother, two years younger than me. Making something along those lines or more detailed wouldn't really be a problem. The only issue I see myself in a pickle is if the ships are too detailed, like looking at a Borg cube or something. The fine little details in the sides of the hull might be a little iffy.

_________________
Photobucket account for FreeOrion and List of Techs and Icons

[[[===LEAN, MEAN, PURPLE AND GREEN MACHINE===]]]

That's what textures are for. You can make a low-poly model (basic shape), then use the new sculpt tools to make a more detailed model (the fine detail), UV-unwrap the low-poly model and bake the hig-poly version normals to low-poly version texture. Then another texture would be used to paint on the surface, and possibly another for baking the self-shadowing (ambient occlusion), another for self-illumination (lights, engines, viewports, etc.) and then all those would be combined in material definition in Ogre engine.

Edit:
This inspired me to do some quick modeling in blender. Here's the result (only geometry and baked ambient occlusion - no external light sources, etc. These are screenshots from blender, not renders)



It has about 500 faces (some tris, some quads)

I figure it could look a bit better if I didn't get bored with placing all those crystals (I was also a bit worried I would go overboard with them).
A tip if you want to make something similar: first model all the regular parts (in this case, front hull and engine), then make some spike designs, and then copy, resize, move, rotate, and either create some new faces or merge vertices to create one smooth mesh. Also: UV-mapping this and making proper textures will be difficult.
(attached is the .blend file - just bake the texture and you'll have the same effect as on my pictures)

_________________
abs(imag(ME) / abs(ME)) = exp(PI) - PI - 19;

@shrinkshooter
Those models are excellent.

@MareviQ
Thats awesome.

Not really. It'd only be difficult if you aim for a single large UV chunk. But since we don't have a single continuous surface here, it does make sense to split the UVs too. Unwrapping crystal by crystal should be pretty straight forward and not to time consuming either.

I'm not too sure about the usage of Ambient Occlusion. AO wouldn't happen in space, because it's a shader approach to simulating a (hemi)spherical skylight, which does not exist in space. Also, if it's a highly reflective surface, there wouldn't be any surface shadows. For stylistic reasons we might just ignore this though.

mareviQ: just as Kharagh said that my rendition of his creature was just as he imagined, so is your modeling the same thing of what I had in mind. I knew what it looked like in my minds' eye, I just never felt like throwing together a quick model. Of course, simple 3D models are perfect for visualizing about what it will actually look like, so perhaps after initial concepts I should start doing that anyway.

Now while it is very close, and almost exact to the point of the difference being neglible, it's not totally what I had in mind but it's so slight, it doesn't matter. I could remake this ship myself, but I was wondering, would you be willing to throw me the .blend file? Your models are so close that me doing it from scratch is a little bit of wasted effort, even if it only takes me 30 minutes.

edit: well, AO might have its place, I'm not certain. Light in space comes from all direction, so having a rendering trick that simulates light as though the environment is surrounded by a hemisphere wouldn't be too inaccurate, I think. However, I'd say that if used, this AO would be so slight that we might as well not use it all.

_________________
Photobucket account for FreeOrion and List of Techs and Icons

[[[===LEAN, MEAN, PURPLE AND GREEN MACHINE===]]]

A typical lit space scene, consist of a single sharp light source. The many distant stars all around don't have a vivible effect. There is some heavy bounced light involved if you are near a planet.