(WIP/Feedback) Late 80s-early 90s animation style starships.

Brandross

All right, this project came about when I decided to teach myself how to use cel-shaded textures and ink outlines.  I had some spaceship models that I made a while back that I thought would make good test subjects, and the project took off from there.  Since the results reminded me of the sort of thing you'd often see in space opera cartoons and anime back in the day, I decided to run in that direction for a while and see where it led me.

Instead of using a heavily defined plating texture, I tried using a painting-style texture to try and make it look like a traditional artist had hand-painted the ship as a stock background element. 




Still working out the kinks with scaling the outlines, especially with distance shots.  I think there's some good possibilities in how the textures I made for the planets are turning out, though.


Here I was messing around with some filters to try and make the scene look like an old TV screencap.  It did soften up the line-work a bit, so I'm hoping some more experimentation in this direction might help me figure out a way to better emulate the hand-drawn look.

Kisyq

Woaw, look so cool, love it !

Brandross

Played around with it some more.  Added a little bit of extra detailing to one of the models, and tried out a new texture with a more defined and rugged look to it.

The exhaust is still very much a work in progress.  I'm trying to figure out a good compromise between the simple white streaks the older shows often used and something a with a bit more visual impact.


The hand-painted look of the texture really stands out in close-ups.  It would definitely be a bit more work to get the mapping set up, but I'm thinking I might cheat the linework just a bit with some thin, rough black outlines on the individual plates.  See if I can't make it look a bit less machine-precise.

Another attempt at replicating an old TV screencap.  Still fooling around with filters.

Brandross

Modified some of the textures, fixed some of the line scaling issues, made the exhaust streaks a bit more prominent.

Brandross

Decided to experiment with a different approach to texturing the models.  I swapped out the detailed "painted" look for more of an "animator is rushing through detailing work because he has a dozen more cels he needs to get ready by the end of the day" look.

Brandross

Gave one of the models a red, white, & gray paint job. The ship definitely has a bit more of a 90's anime vibe to it now.  I think it's finally starting to get to the point where it believably could have been in one of those old shows.

Brandross

Put the new color scheme on some of the other ships, so I could render them in formation.  Also made lo-poly versions of the models so I could render a massive fleet without giving my computer a nervous breakdown.

Brandross

Made a more refined texture that sort of blends the painted-on and the sketched-on looks that I used previously.  Also, lasers.

Brandross

Decided make some fighters to go along with the carrier model.  They're still a bit rough around the edges as of yet, but I figured I might as well post 'em to make a record of my progress.


The fighter itself is still a fairly simple model.  I'd call it good enough for group distance shots, but I'm still working on a "hero" version for close-ups.  Among other things, it could use a texture better suited to small vehicles than the ship plating used on the big cruisers.


I also started work on a completely new carrier design that isn't just a modification of the cruiser model.  I'm honestly not sure if I'm too happy with the design, and I'm debating whether I should keep working with this particular model or just scrap it and approach the design from another angle.

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Brandross

TeriyakiStyle said:

what 90s thing are you referencing?  I find the backgrounds very distracting maybe just try a simple gradient while you develop the look.

I wasn't really going after any particular series, just the general aesthetic that was popular at around that time.  If I had to pin anything down I would probably say the  (non-mecha) ship designs from Gundam, Macross, and Outlaw Star as having some influence  Honestly though, I'd probably re-title the thread if I could.  The style kind of veered off into it's own thing as I played around with it.  I will see about making some plain renders of the ships though.  Now that you mention it, I probably have been messing around with too many things at once with this project.

Durkel

Ooeh, I love big ships. I'd love to to see how you'll be approaching texturing and lighting or are you mainly focussing on the design?
Can you provice a reference or mood you want to achieve, just out of curiosity.

Brandross

Here's a couple of plain shots of the cruiser and frigate.  (The Praetorian and Phalanx classes respectively.)  In hindsight, I really ought to have posted something like this before making a bunch of diorama shots.

Brandross

Durkel said:

Ooeh, I love big ships. I'd love to to see how you'll be approaching texturing and lighting or are you mainly focussing on the design?
Can you provice a reference or mood you want to achieve, just out of curiosity.

I pretty much just grabbed a bunch of old anime screencaps off of google for mood/reference material.  Here's just a couple of 'em shrunk down and stuck on a .jpg.    Though, as I said earlier, I think the project may have started drifting off in it's own visual direction since I collected these.

Brandross

Ended up shelving the previous carrier design and went with this behemoth instead.  The frigate model could almost fit inside this thing's hangar bay!

After looking at the fleet in formation, I think I might have to change the red on the front of the cruiser to match the gray "hammerheads" on the frigate and carrier.


I also made up a new asteroid texture.  

Brandross

I went ahead and changed up the cruiser's paint job to match up a bit better with the other models.  I also swapped out the turrets for lower poly versions, since the detailing on the old ones didn't show up very well anyway.  


I also experimented with planet textures aside from the generic colored blob.  It turns out that the  ink&paint textures make it pretty easy to light up the dark side of the planet.  Alas, the clouds are just painted on.  I seem to have trouble getting transparent textures and ink&paint to play nicely with each other.


Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever really fooled around with animated .gifs before.  This came out better than I expected.

Brandross

Did some optimization on the rest of the models.  Now I can put a bunch of ships on screen without having my laptop stutter horribly.

Brandross

I made some enemy ships, so now I can finally set up a proper space battle.