New Design: Space fighter

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

My bro asked me to do something like a P38 space fighter, this is my first mock-up:

[Havok]

Dig it. Not sure about the wings though. Can you throw up a version with them solid?

Needs more Gatling guns.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

A little less cutout on the wings, and somewhat thinner would look good as well. They are making it look rather heavy right now. Likewise the rear half of the engine/tail sponsons might benefit from being trimmed on the underside a bit, they look a little tail heavy. The tail itself looks lightweight and aerodynamic, while the wings and sponsons look like girders.

[Phantasee]

The wings look like one of those knives with the cutouts and shit. You should go more solid, more internal volume = more storage for bullets.

Which allows you to put more guns on it.

And it reminds me of the Duck Tales plane. Which was awesome!

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

[Kuroji]

That's pretty sweet. Definitely looks better with full wings -- looks like that could actually do atmospheric flight, assuming it keeps a decent speed.

[Phantasee]

Still looks like an exacto knife, but in an awesome way. Looks like it'll get as many by decapitation as it will by ventilation.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Decided to take the wings off to see what it was like....i kinda like it...??????

[Havok]

The solid wings look way better. I like it without the wings too. I wonder if you could have the wings retract or fold under as a different flight configuration.

[Alan Bolte]

I like it too. I'd like the see the outer most guns either partially recessed or ornamented in some way.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

I like it with the new wings better than without, but it could work. If it were me (and it's not) then I would make the central hull section a little larger and a good bit deeper, so that the sponsons and stub wings are not quite so dominating. It would make them look slightly more like Star Trek nacelles rather than a P-38 who's wings have fallen off.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Do you upload you models to anywhere for people to download? I recently discovered I can convert Sketchup models to Lightwave format and make animations or pictures with them. It would be fun to use something like this for a little conversion and animation practice. It's not too complex a model to convert, but good looking enough to use in animations and pictures.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

I can email it to you if you want to mess around with it. I would really like to see what it looks like with a real rendering.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Go for it, my website mail is kenny(at)kennyscrap.com and I'll see what I can do.

The last one I converted a couple of weeks ago is on youtube now, at...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhFe3r8PriY

The quality is a bit crap, I need to render at Youtube friendly screen resolutions.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Just sent you the file.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Decided to compile all my budding fighter designs.

In order of size:

Fighter:


Interceptor:


Heavy Fighter:

[Phantasee]

Holy shit, that Heavy Fighter side profile is something else! Looks very mean. Is there a gap in the wing or is that just a facet on the leading edge? It's hard to tell without shading/colouring.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

OK, converted the model and done some basic texturing. Here's a couple of shots for now, all too dark I'm afraid, but I'll get a better shot or two and an animation over the next few days.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4053/454 ... fb7b_o.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4072/454 ... ebd5_o.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/454 ... bfcd_o.jpg

I need to add some lighting in the cockpit to bring it to life, and do some better setup and textures. I have removed the gattling guns for now, I need to make new barrel ends so I can animate them spinning.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Dude, no joke, that looks fucking sick. You have got to let me send you more. Ive got a perfect ship to act as a carrier:



This design is a couple of years old and I really need to work with it....its not consistent anymore with the design of the newer ones:

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Go ahead and send them, we'll see what I can do with them. I think the limitations of Sketchup may suit the larger ships more, actually. Everything is rather sharp and chunky, since making more organic curves is not what Sketchup was designed to do. The architectural nature of your big ships should suit it down to the ground however.

On the fighters, I'd back off on the weapons a bit. The P38 appears to have 3 gattling guns, 2 enormous energy or rocket weapons, and 2 slightly smaller launchers as well. Those launchers in the wings are almost the size of the engines in the rear, they make doing front views a bit problematic. It might be more subtle to limit yourself to one or two prominant weapons and just hint at others with gunports or missile hardpoints or such. You can get away with sticking half a dozen missiles on a wing without it looking mental, but not half a dozen different built-in weapons. If it were up to me I'd have just the front gattling and a smaller energy weapon in each wing, or just the 2 gattling guns in the wing roots and nothing else. It would look formidable enough with just the gattling gun alone.

[Teleros]

Some nice designs there... damn but I need to learn to use some of these tools .

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Go download Sketchup from Google, it's free and by far the simplest thing to use that I've found.

Well, actually that's not true. DOGA is easier to use, but it's no bloody use as it's just a pre-fabricated parts box and doesn't render worth a toss. Go get Sketchup, or Blender if you're feeling really smart. It's worth it in the long run.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Done the basic conversion, but still need to go and fix all those funky polygon issues you can see on the surfaces. Once that's done I can start to surface and texture it properly, then light the thing. Any preference on colouration?

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Im thinking BSG Pegasus or Babylon 5 EA style, seeing as those 2 flow well with the aesthetic.