OPLI Barnard ship line.

[FluffyFreak]

How many triangles are we talking about?
I wouldn't worry unduly until it's gone north of 10,000 for the highest detail level :)

[torham2234]

Looks good! What are those circular stuff on the top?

At the moment that's where I was planning to put the gun mounts, but I don't like the circles much. I think I will put something else there, it feels.... untidy...

@triangles:
Well, the original model was around 3200 tris, this one is 1223, not including the landing gear (not done yet). It is still well under the 10K target, but it never hurts to be efficient....
The main saving was redoing the cooling grills at the back in a more efficient manner. Since there is 4 of them every face is quadrupled.

[torham2234]

Ok, I did manage to finish up the next ship over the week.

I am a bit confused over some lua values of other ships. for example the natrix has got the hull mass of 15 tons, despite being actually larger model than sinonatrix. Am I missing something, or are the early ships just not properly configured?

Zip file:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/4rkbu ... natrix.zip

[Nyankosensei]

i'm not an expert, but what you need now is only patience, try to finish 1 model right, nerodia is a nice model and in some point is much better than this one, try to improve it with some external features like the texture, and try to finish it with a clean model a nice uv-map and lod objects after with the experience you have reach gradually you can finish this one right

P.S.
booleans operations are good but after is need a lot of cleanup

[bszlrd]

Yes, the stats are all over the place. The newer ones (Deneb, Venturestar, Kaluri ships, Amphiesma) tend to have their capacities correct though.

There's a bit of room for cleanup, but not much really. I've gone trough it and highlighted what I found. It's good, just needs some care. :)
I couldn't find much room for a more tight UV. There's a bit more in it, but it seems it's not really much. Diagonals aren't making it easy in this case. Some islands are not to scale though, the engines for example.

[torham2234]

i'm not an expert, but what you need now is only patience, try to finish 1 model right

I never aim for ultimate perfection. I like to iterate on my designs. Make something, finish it up, see how it looks and behaves, go back, improve, do something else, redo the old ship.... I usually get bored if I spend weeks and weeks on one project.
There is never a point where you can say - this is finished. You can always improve and tinker. Its the same at work. On every job I have to decide when to stop working and declare the job finished. Otherwise I could easily spend two weeks in one room, and no one would pay my that much money for painting.

If I would spend a month perfecting a design, I would learn how to perfect that specific design. If I spend a month doing different designs, I will learn the PROCESS of making a good design.

nerodia is a nice model and in some point is much better than this one, try to improve it with some external features like the texture

That is clearly a personal preference. I like sinonatrix much more than Nerodia :D

P.S. booleans operations are good but after is need a lot of cleanup

Yes, I have drastically cut down on the use of bolean. The only things that are boleaned here are the manouvering jet nozzles, and even than I was very careful to bolean with only 1 polygon at a time, so that I can control everything.

I have left the low_LOD out, since the model has got so few tris already ( I think its just over 1500), I don't see the point in reducing it further.

[torham2234]

Yes, the stats are all over the place. The newer ones (Deneb, Venturestar, Kaluri ships, Amphiesma) tend to have their capacities correct though.

There's a bit of room for cleanup, but not much really. I've gone trough it and highlighted what I found. It's good, just needs some care. :)
I couldn't find much room for a more tight UV. There's a bit more in it, but it seems it's not really much. Diagonals aren't making it easy in this case. Some islands are not to scale though, the engines for example.

Wow, you have showed me quite a few mistakes.

But these three verts were put there by hand, what is wrong with them?

[torham2234]

nevermind, I see you have corrected them on the second design...

[bszlrd]

They are just isn't really necessary to define the shape. They don't really cause any problem though.

[torham2234]

instead of just cheating and using your improved model, I have recreated all the adjustments myself to learn some stuff.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/l66tj ... natrix.dae