Small transport

[bszlrd]

This is the small transport ship I'm working on right now.



She's about 7m high, 9m wide and 11m long (without heathsink fins). Has four aft and two retro engines and a redundant array of laterals. Name pending, but have to bee some kind of fish.
She's from the same manufacturer than the Pumpkinseed light courier. I imagine that yard as a CIW shipyard/design boureau. It's ships mostly are a bit behind the cutting edge regarding performance, but have good handling, redundant systems and low maintenance requirements with long maintenance cycles. Weaker but more dependable really.
Landing gear is modeled and animated, now I'm UV-ing the ship, then comes the texture, LOD and stuff. On the texture she will have a front ramp, and that recessed area is for an external docking port/airlock. There's another cargo bay door on the top (on the texture too).

Any input?
Here are some images of the untextured model with a human for scale:

[robn]

She's about 7m high, 9m wide and 11m long (without heathsink fins). Has four aft and two retro engines and a redundant array of laterals. Name pending, but have to bee some kind of fish.

There's a fish that looks almost exactly like this thing, but I don't know anything about fish so I don't even know how to google for it!

It also reminds me a bit of that cargo plane that looks like a whale. Again, google coming up with nothing.

Anyway, I like this. I don't have any particular input. It'll be nice to have something that isn't trying to be sleek and aerodynamic.

[bszlrd]

You mean this monster?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Space ... nant_Guppy

My aim is a bit of resemblance Streamline Moderne/art deco, and the planes of the WW II era and after that. A certain low-tech/retro but functional look. That's the reason for that style of landing gear too.

[robn]

You mean this monster?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Space ... nant_Guppy

I think so! Wow, what a monster.

[Luomu]

Do you have some animation plan for those rear "flaps"?

(yes yes, I know the game only has the gear animation, but maybe we'll cook up something...)

[bszlrd]

Nothing special. A bit of adjustment when gears are down, so it won't intersect with the ground. Maybe they can be used for limited thrust vectoring. The main point of those is to have an adjustable heat sink surface, so you can choose the direction to radiate heat. On a limited scale at least.
It will have cargo bay doors (on the texture right now, but I can remodel them to be movable) if that has any use.

[bszlrd]

I've manged to bring this ship to a usable level, it only needs some texture polish. Might need a little stats tweaking too.
I've named it Mola Mola after a sunfish, but that can be changed. I'm saving the Guppi for a larger transport.

Here's the mod file:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/456 ... lamola.zip
I've included a silluethe SVG and png too, so you don't have to trace it for the wiki.

Here are the source files:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/456 ... la_src.zip
It became a bit messy, but you only need the first 3 layer for the 3 LOD.

Any input?









I won't be around for a couple of weeks BTW, but when I'm back, I'm going to continue with these ships.

[Luomu]

By the way, you can still put decals (not labels) on curved surfaces. They are just a piece of geometry where the material is dynamically replaced, so you can make it any shape you want as long as it has sensible UVs for a square texture.

[Luomu]

Also, for collision meshes you don't actually have to export a separate file. If you name any object collision_whatever and export is as part of one of the meshes (avoid duplicates) it will be added as collision geometry. Which way you prefer is up to you.

[Zordey]

I like what you have done with the spec map making the seams shiny and the plates matte, it works well. I went the opposite way but think I will try that on another model.

By the way, you can still put decals (not labels) on curved surfaces. They are just a piece of geometry where the material is dynamically replaced, so you can make it any shape you want as long as it has sensible UVs for a square texture.

Interesting...

Also, for collision meshes you don't actually have to export a separate file. If you name any object collision_whatever and export is as part of one of the meshes (avoid duplicates) it will be added as collision geometry. Which way you prefer is up to you.

Also interesting...