My ship in progress. (no 56k)

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-09-19 07:52pm

This is my first real attempt in creating a 3D design of a ship. I haven't decided what class of ship this is. Any suggestions would be fine.

The ship is at least 50% done. Beneath the ship is a special missile used for planetary bombardment. It isn't a standard attachment to the ship.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-09-19 08:00pm

To be honest that missile makes it look ridiculous. Kind of like Woody Woodpecker. Maybe make the missile more bullet shaped and perhaps look for a different placement of the two guns. At the moment they also contribute to making the object look face like. Perhaps kick out one gun or put both on one side to make it asymmetrical.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-09-19 08:19pm

salm wrote:To be honest that missile makes it look ridiculous. Kind of like Woody Woodpecker. Maybe make the missile more bullet shaped and perhaps look for a different placement of the two guns. At the moment they also contribute to making the object look face like. Perhaps kick out one gun or put both on one side to make it asymmetrical.

Or put them on a mount. Right now they have zero range of movement, which is pretty unfortunate.

You should also ask what the purpose of the missile is--if it's for bombardment, then why not just have it sitting in space? Do you really need to attack the missile to a warship? You could stick it on a deployment platform instead.

Unless you want to use the ship as a resuable first stage for accelerating the thing (kinetic penetrator head?) I don't see a need for such massively huge piece of ordinance on the vessel itself.

What program are you using? It has a nice, soothing color scheme.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2007-09-19 08:36pm

The connection between the engine block and the forward block is too spindly. Also, the missile needs to have a provision to separate the booster (cylinder) from the reentry vehicle (cone) so the static margin of the RV isn't nonexistent or worse, negative. If you have (small wedge-shaped) guidance fins or thrusters, you can have the static marging a bit reduced, but it shouldn't be negative.

Also, consider putting a couple turret guns on opposite sides of the forward block (likely lasers) for a secondary battery, optionally driven by a centrally-placed laser engine. You'll also want sensors, docking bays, life pods, and provision for a small transatmospheric 'ship's boat' for crew transfers.

See Atomic Rocket for a good rundown on ship design ideas.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2007-09-19 08:37pm

Covenant wrote:What program are you using? It has a nice, soothing color scheme.

Google Sketchup. Instantly recognizable.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-09-19 08:54pm

salm wrote:To be honest that missile makes it look ridiculous. Kind of like Woody Woodpecker. Maybe make the missile more bullet shaped and perhaps look for a different placement of the two guns. At the moment they also contribute to making the object look face like. Perhaps kick out one gun or put both on one side to make it asymmetrical.

I'll blunt the nose.

As for the two guns, they are guidelines of the other guns I'll be drawing.

EDIT: Screw it. I've decided to dump the missile idea since it i too much of a hassle to make.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-09-19 09:54pm

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:The connection between the engine block and the forward block is too spindly. Also, the missile needs to have a provision to separate the booster (cylinder) from the reentry vehicle (cone) so the static margin of the RV isn't nonexistent or worse, negative. If you have (small wedge-shaped) guidance fins or thrusters, you can have the static marging a bit reduced, but it shouldn't be negative.

Also, consider putting a couple turret guns on opposite sides of the forward block (likely lasers) for a secondary battery, optionally driven by a centrally-placed laser engine. You'll also want sensors, docking bays, life pods, and provision for a small transatmospheric 'ship's boat' for crew transfers.

See Atomic Rocket for a good rundown on ship design ideas.

The middle section of the ship is still under construction.

I want to give it a sideways crane appearance with a couple of tubes connecting both parts of the ship.

Since I've decided to dump the missile, I'll be adding a few weapon hardpoints onto it.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2007-09-19 10:00pm

Eh, keep smaller HiBEX-type bombardment missiles if you want. The 'crane' bit you're looking for is called a truss. You'll want to have guns (laser and projectile) and missiles for a balanced loadout as well, as defined by mission parameters.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-09-19 11:35pm

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:
Covenant wrote:What program are you using? It has a nice, soothing color scheme.
Google Sketchup. Instantly recognizable.

Cool, I've seen several people use it. I use Maya and Max, but they are all SO FUCKING GRAY. I'd like if it had some prettier colors, at least when I was in default mode. I wonder if I can change that...

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-09-20 04:49am

Covenant wrote:
Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:
Covenant wrote:What program are you using? It has a nice, soothing color scheme.
Google Sketchup. Instantly recognizable.
Cool, I've seen several people use it. I use Maya and Max, but they are all SO FUCKING GRAY. I'd like if it had some prettier colors, at least when I was in default mode. I wonder if I can change that...

You can customize the color themes at least in Max, and i bet it´s possible for Maya as well.
Customize -> User Interface -> Color Tab
Personally i find it too much of a hassle to change the colors of everything, since it´s quite a lot and i´m actually fine whith how it is at the moment. But in principal this is where to do that.
You can also simply load another clr file. Another default that comes with Max is the ame-dark.clr (or discreet-dark.clr in older Max versions). This is also gray but somwhat darker and percieved as better looking by many.
Perhaps there are internet sites where you can download custom color setups. I´ve not cared enough about this to check but i could imagine that sites like this exist.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-09-21 09:36pm

Here is what I am doing to the mid section. Trusses!!!!!

When I was making the trusses I accidentally added a new layer and made it translucent. It looked nice so I decided to keep it and expand upon it. Transpari-steel?

Any SketchUp users here? I'd like to download some new paint like neon colours and the like. How do I find them?

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-09-25 11:26pm

I temporarily dumped that ship and went for a different design that was not as hair ripping as designing the first ship.

It is not complete but the body of the ship is 75% to 85% completed and the drives are about 50% to 60% completed. The pain in the ass will be designing and installing all the weapon hardpoints and the main gun plus the port holes.

Any comments are welcomed.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-10-04 05:45pm

I am about done with the hull, I just need to build the bridge. For the moment most of the ship is grey mainly so you guys can see the ship and yeah I painted flames on it for pure shits and giggles.

I am currently designing the weapon turrets but I cannot decide which turret to use, should I go for the sphere or cylindrical turret? Or should I use both?

Sphere Turret:

Cylindrical Turret:

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-10-04 07:02pm

Right now the ship is very flat which is ok. But i think the design would greatly benefit from one vertical element contrasting the flat part. This vertical part could at the same time be installed asymmetrically to counter the otherwise symmetrical design.
Kind of like in this image. You can probably do better but it illustrates the gist of what i mean.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-10-04 07:08pm

How the hell did you make the ship so fast? Anyways, I'm planning to add on a bridge near the back to add some height and to offset the lower part of the ship.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-10-04 07:30pm

Salm is using a higher-end 3D program. A ship out of a few poly like that would only take you about... what, two minutes? to make using Maya or Max. Now, of course, you still need to add all sorts of bitz to it to make it fancy after you do that. Using a powerful program just gives you less excuses for making it flat.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-10-04 08:07pm

Soooo... which turret design should I use or should I go for both?

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-10-04 08:16pm

It´s a big ship on which you can put lots of detail, so going with both is the way to go, IMO.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-10-04 08:33pm

salm wrote:It´s a big ship on which you can put lots of detail, so going with both is the way to go, IMO.

As much variation as possible is good. Look at cool models of starships, they've covered with lots of little details. Two or three different types of turrets, vents, ductwork, and so on all across the surface will make it look a lot sexier. No windows though!

Phantasee · Post by **Phantasee** » 2007-10-04 08:49pm

But I like windows!

I want to see the stars outside sometimes, y'know?

Flames are so cheese man. It looks like a hot rod.

I like the style of the second ship. The first looks near future, the second looks like it's from a galaxy far far away.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2007-10-04 10:37pm

they cylinders look more aesthetically pleasing to me, but i'd go wit the spherical if you're planning on giving it 360 degrees of fire.

Now the question is, what is the purpose of the forked shape? Intended for use when boarding or docking ships of a smaller size?

Also, what's the inteded scale?

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-10-05 12:06am

Darth Fanboy wrote:they cylinders look more aesthetically pleasing to me, but i'd go wit the spherical if you're planning on giving it 360 degrees of fire.

Now the question is, what is the purpose of the forked shape? Intended for use when boarding or docking ships of a smaller size?

Also, what's the inteded scale?

Notice the little indentation in the middle of the fork? That is where a special weapon will be installed.

Thanks for the info, I'll be using both plus a couple of more weapon types such as a heavy weapon cannons on top and below each fork.

As for windows, I haven't put them in yet but in the end I'll put up pics of the finale shots of the ship with and without windows.

As for the change of ships design, I haven't abandoned the original, I just put it away because of the hair pulling detail I've been putting into the mid section of that ship as you can see above in my earlier posts.

The ship's dimensions are L: ~1650.37meters x W: 460.42m x H: ~242.84m. That should probably put it in the same area as an ISD.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-10-05 02:35am

One thing about mesh resolution:

Make sure that all objects have about the same mesh resolution. More important objects can have a higher one but they should be at least in the same league. Check the turrets for example.
The main hull of the semi spherical one has six horizontal segments. The barrels have a lot more segments even though they´re a lot smaller.
It doesn´t make sense to give smaller objects a higher resolution than larger objects, because in order to see the detail on these smaller objects you have to make shots that so close that you can allready see the single polys in the lower resoluted larger object.
The following illustrates this:

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2007-10-05 10:58am

Enigma wrote:Soooo... which turret design should I use or should I go for both?

Use the dome design for the outter hull, dorsal and ventral sides. If you put any weapons on the midline, use the cylinder ones. Function over form or atleast in this case function based off of form over sheer form.

The cylinders look like they'd be clumsy to travers but good on elevation and depression, so mid line where they'd do that. Opposite for the domes.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-10-05 05:51pm

salm wrote:One thing about mesh resolution:
<snip>

Problem with that is that I doubt Google SketchUp allows you to change resolutions otherwise I'd do as you suggested.

Oh and here is a bird's eye view of both turrets side by side. The cylindrical turret has larger gun barrels than the sphere and both have the same range of movements except I might use the sphere as a light weapons turret, thus make it move much faster than the cylinder (which would probably use medium type weapons).