Grahfs New Fighter

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Once again the Seeker of Power has churned out a model in Sketchup and sent it to me for a conversion to Lightwave, so that we can see what it can really look like in a decent render engine. This is the straight conversion from Sketchup-8 to 3DS to Lightwave, with very little done to it at this stage. The conversion has removed 59,000 points, about 35,000 polygons and reduced the file from 57Mb down to about 800k. Sketchup is not the most efficient 3D model maker, but you cant complain when it's relatively easy to use and absolutely free to download.





Grafh, I'd like you permission to play around with it and change some of the detail again. Some of it is just a bit clunky, Sketchup just cant match the pro stuff for getting finer detail in there, so I'd like to tweak a few bits before I finish recolouring and texturing it. If you want I'll just leave it as it is, just say the word.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Definitely go for it. I couldn't get the knd of curvature I wanted for the cockpit section. It took a couple of hours to just make the wing surface. The program is not good at all with complex curvature.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

What sort of curvatire were you looking for? The cockpit is more a skylight than a forward window, did you want it angled downward more?

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Im going to do a quick drawing tonight and I'll scan it in and send it to you.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Todays updates - beefed up engine nozzles, beefed up engine detail in the middle sections of the casings, made more detailed vents on the tops of the engine casings, sorted out more surface properties, made new torpedoes and removed the spare fifth engine in the centre.

Now the torpedo I designed doesn't look that hot. I tried to stay close to the original sizes but without putting lots of fins on a missile it's hard to make it look good. Might take a few attempts to get something nice and dangerous looking, and if anyone has any ideas for it let me know.

As for the middle engine, it looked very lost and alone in that big gap at the rear on the centreline. I like the idea of the vanes around it, but the execution was not good. I thought about making something similar around the 4 main wing engines instead and putting something else in the centre space, but it may end up looking too like a Babylon 5 ship then. I'll experiment and see what looks interesting without looking too derivative. We'll see what occurs when the drawing shows up.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Did this REAL QUICK this morning before work. It turns out that the entire central structure is going to be revamped:



I changed the central section to house the main engine while the gun pods have small maneuvering engines with thrust vectoring. The main engine is pretty much identical in design as the one on my SP-38 design. Im going to work on redesigning it. If you think this will help I suppose would could compare later on.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

OK I get it, looks very nice. Shouldn't be a problem to do that. The larger central section will make putting a larger central engine into it a lot easier. If I get a chance I should get the new centre section knocked up tomorrow.

[Nephtys]

Isn't that a VF-4 Lightning?

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

I made something similar myself years ago, it's a fairly common layout. How many anime/manga fighters look like they're based on the F14 and F15?

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

OK, here's todays updates. As per the sketch, I made a new central section, added flaps to the smaller engines, a new main engine and cowling, new front wings and took some of the weight off the main wings. The spiky bits are a bit odd on the sketch, and rather than make an odd looking radiator I tried making it sensor pole things such as you see on some anime stuff. Let me know what you think anyway.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

That is pretty damn close to what I was thinking. Now we just need some animation?!?!?!?

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Easy tiger, we still need to finish making the model first. Those flaps at the engines are just floating in space, there's almost no detail on the surface and it will still need textured and image maps added to get it looking decent. Once that's done then an animation or two can be done.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

So tell me what you think about this one:

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Very swoopy with some nice detail work, you're certainly starting to do a bit more with Sketchup now than you did at first. I particularly like the engine and engine placement, as well as the detail on the top and the way the wings are mounted. Anhedral wings always make an aircraft look more aggressive, like it's hunched up ready for action. The wings are also a reasonable thickness this time as well, rather than looking way too heavy, and I like the little details on the end.

It also has your trademark hugely long cockpit windows, which would make putting a cockpit behind them something of a problem. If I made a pilot small and thin enough to fit in the space I'd have to sit 3 or 4 of them in a row to fill the windows. If I didn't what would be behind the windows? Empty space? Equipment? Why would that need a window? For me the cockpit glass should be about a third of the length it is now, and to fill the space I'd make a coloured detail around the new window in a shape similar to your current windows. That way you have a more realistic cockpit configuration and still keep your trademark visual cue.

My only other gripe would be the 'kin huge guns. Each one is nearly the size of the fighter body with a barrel only slightly smaller than the main engine. They're so large you mistake them for wing mounted engines. They look very heavy in the forward view, partly because of the shape and partly the size. The juxtaposition (love that word) between the small, graceful, sharp lines of the fighter and those massive guns is quite jarring. The biggest built-in weapon on any modern fighter is the GAU cannon on the A10 which is the size of the gun on the front of this thing, but you hardly notice because of those huge pods. The A10 is limited to 1 second bursts because the recoil slows the fighter down dangerously. Fire your main guns and the wings would fold up.

Fortunately, that's just an opinion. It doesn't matter, and you can keep on making stylish fighters regardless. It looks very swoopy and pointy, and the side view in particular is lovely.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Well, the deal with the guns is that they are some sort of directed energy weapon and the actual emitter is shrouded in the inside. The large barrell mostly accounts for large focusing rings. The actual weapon is not that massive. And the pods themselves hold their own power generators. Plus, the fighter is tiny, like viper size.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Nice fighter. Looks like something I'd build. That gunship's wings are begging to be done with a real airfoil section and thinned by half. Wait, those 'air intakes' on the engine pods are guns? Dayum.

Also, can Sketchup do curves and thinks like splines rotated to form a body of revolution (cone or bullet shape for nose cones and shit)?

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

On the trek forums I see plenty of ships made with saucers, domes, cones and so forth, so it is possible with Sketchup. I dont think it's easy to do, but it's possible.

By the way Einy, that fighter I made from your plans a few years ago is now available on my new website. It's been downloaded a few hundered times in the past 5 months.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

[Havok]

Like the last versions. Very slick.