Flying Imperial Ship

ysalex

Was putting these in my sketchbook, but since this project is taking up all of my time I figured I'd do it right and make a thread, so I can track my progress officially.

As always, crits and comments much appreciated.

Oniram

i dont understand how the name of the thread corresponds to the model. lol. looks really cool tho.

nicafornica

the matress might be too shiny and the text just seems like is there does not blend well with the wood. the wood planks are nice though. keep on keepin' on just ride the wave and it will come ut nice.

Jessica Dinh

I like this scene but I think maybe a lighter text for the sign would be better, easier to see. Also, I'm pretty sure the floor planks are wayyy too big - look at how big they are in comparison with the beds haha, it makes the scene seem really, really tiny. Look at this:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

megalmn2000

Where's the Star Wars ship?

ysalex

Sorry guys, definitely should have explained this project better.

I'm working on a game called Broadside with several other people. Broadside is a sky-pirate themed game which features flying airships, cannon, gun and sword play, both ship against ship and player versus player. The code is running with the stand-in art, and so I'm ramping up production of this ship to include in the alpha, which should be happening soon.

In multiplayer there are two factions, pirates and imperials. The imperial ship is massive and ornate (above deck) and heavily armed. This WIP is for the imperial ship.

This is the blocked in lower-res design:



The stuff I posted before was the below deck stuff. And this is further below deck stuff. This ship has a massive cast iron semi-steampunk style engine room, so these next images are just me testing the fore-decks to make sure the massive tanks look in place. I'm trying to keep a huge sense of scale, hence the huge wood planks etc (although I took your crit and trimmed them down by about half, and I think it was a good call -- so thanks.)

Oniram

ah ok. that makes more sense. sounds cool. reminds me of skies of arcadia. is this game going to be running in marmoset? Or are you just using that for visual purposes at the moment?

ysalex

Marmoset isn't an actual engine. The game is programmed around torque, Ive been using marmoset to check my maps, bakes, normals and meshes as they come off the production line. However our coder just sent me a license to a similar program to marmoset, but designed to pre-flight models specifically for torque, so I'll be switching to use that. I apologize I can't thing of the program name, I believe it's made by something like bitgame studios, or similar.

Oniram

ysalex wrote: »

Marmoset isn't an actual engine.

sure it is. :P im just not sure as to whether or not it can be purchased like other engines such as Unreal or Cryengine. But the guys at 8monkeylabs used the marmoset engine to make the game Darkest of Days

Jessica Dinh

Nice project idea! The overall ship looks pretty awesome. I also think the smaller wood planks look much better - honestly, with them being so big before, it actually made the scale of everything smaller in a sense, as if that room were a bedroom for mice xD

cdevens

Nice work, I can't wait to see what it looks like with more props added. The only thing that jumped out at me as an error was the stretched texture on the end of the boards on the bunks.

ysalex

@ Oniram -

Sorry man, I stand very, very corrected.


@ Jessica -

Thanks. My honest intent with this is to push the scale, to make the player feel like a small. The ceiling in the first floor there is (if a player is average 6 foot) somewhere between 16-18 feet tall.

But you were right, reducing the size of the boards was important because the materials still need to be appropriately proportioned -- what will make the player feel small should be the breadth of the ship, not the size of the materials. So thanks.

@CDevens -

Yep, your're right looking at it. It's slow going so far so I'll probably have to get back to that after the alpha.

ysalex

Here is some more stuff.

We worked out that for the alpha, the ships would be destructible. This means that when an enemy cannon-ball strikes your ship, the hull of the ship will break. The ship needed to be redesigned to incorporate cross-beams, so that when the hull is breached the cross beams will show through. So the whole ship was redesigned and remodeled, it took me the better part of the week.

The good news is that the rest of the ship stays intact, which is everything in the captains deck, as well as the entire lower floor. I'm very happy with how the ship and the top deck turned out, and I'm looking forward to texturing it.

The polycount I was given for the ship is 75,000. I am at 32,000 with the ship as it appears here, including the statues you will see and a couple of test players to measure size. That gives me a budget of about 40,000 to do the rest of the ship, including props and interior, which should be do-able.

I know that the statues are a bit grotesque. This is the Imperial ship, which is supposed to be classic antagonist evil, hence the slaves holding the beams and being strangled if they drop them.


Album, per usual: http://imgur.com/a/zZAL7

And a selection of images, sorry for the number.

Tigerfeet

I like what you're doing with the statues, both the message they're sending and how they look. However, the hanging one bothers me a little bit because the footprint it makes at the top is so small there's really no way it could structurally double as a pillar. What if you took its right arm and raised it up, laying the forearm against the bottom of the balcony? It would make the silhouette a little more interesting and make the model look like he's suffering more, almost like he's in the middle of writhing on that noose.

ysalex

Hey thanks for the response!

Yeah, so he's supposed to be dead. Also the platform doesn't exactly need the support, it's more suggestive than anything.

However, your input makes sense. What's the point in having him there if he's not holding the thing up (besides making a point) and if I'm going to do it, why not have him in action, struggling against the noose? I kinda figured that the noose would slam him against the roof and break his neck, I suppose.

Thanks again.

Tigerfeet

Or optionally you could elongate his body so that the noose is completely tight and the side of his neck and head is against the roof while the toes are still touching the pillar on the bottom. He'd still be dead but you'd have more support as a pillar. It just looked weird to me from a balance perspective to have the one guy kneeling with such strong connections at the base and the ceiling and then on the other side having the connection so tenuous. I was thinking in basic shapes.

I'm such a sucker for steampunk though, I can't wait to see where this goes!

Alberto Rdrgz

Really coming along nicely!! can't wait for more.

ysalex

whoops, updated the wrong thread.

Didn't have much time this morning. Repositioned the hanging man so that his feet intersect the dropped pillar, and his face more than intersects with the captains deck, so hopefully it makes a bit more conceptual sense.

ysalex

Progress update. I struggled through the texturing of the ribs and ship, since I couldn't use tile-able textures, and because I needed to save on texture size -- but now the ships walls are ready to be destroyed by enemy cannon fire.

Cannon models were inherited by me from the last pixel-pusher, they need work. You might notice in some shots that the base texture is wrong, which I only just noticed. They are probably supposed to be two pieces and I just didn't get one of the texture sets.

Anyways, the core of the ship is built and ready for detailing, so hopefully now comes the fun stuff. Gonna have to switch out of Marmoset and get it into Torque soon, but MT has been great for pre-flighting things.

ysalex

WIP stills from where I ended up before the weekend. Got the lower deck partially squared away, at least blocked in as far as where things will go -- still have a lot to do down there. The upper deck is awaiting textures and details, but the ship is mostly ready for the alpha.

As always, crits and comments greatly appreciated. To those who've already commented, thanks, some of the suggestions have gone a long way to making this not look like utter sh*t, just regular sh*t.

Alex3d

Looks pretty good! I would suggest you break the body into multiple planks as opposed to a single piece. Also just a suggestion, maybe put some sculpture on the ship's bow?

ysalex

Hey thanks Alex. As for the body, I'm just taking orders from the coder who deals with the collisions and destruction, but I'll bring that up to him. And as for the statue, that's another good suggestion. The plinth you see above the bow is actually a platform for the main sculpture of the piece, which is a very large manticore with his stinger up and his wings spread, so hopefully it will look impressive leading the ship.

Any more suggestions I'd love to hear them, thanks for your time.

ysalex

New WIP shots. The lion is a zbrush sketch for a set of two face statues that afix to the rear walls of the ship and hold the ship flags. Lion head took about 4 hours. Only my second animal and I wanted it to be stylized, so took awhile to get the flow of the modeling down. Had fun though, still not completed. Also, I recognize that he doesn't have typical lion teeth, this was intentionally exaggerated, although if you have suggestions about it feel free to chime in.

Crits and Comments appreciated, crits especially. Workflow suggestions or tricks for large complicated pieces doubly so.

slipsius

Love what you did with the statues. very creative.

so far so good. ill be keepin an eye on this thread for sure

ysalex

Thanks Slipsius, haven't gotten the final word if they'll be in the final, but I can hope. I think they add something a bit more narrative and gritty to what would otherwise be a fully indulgent, slightly bland, fantasy set.

ysalex

Lion Head Ornament Update.

Tried to flatten and even out the head where the hair would be closer. Gave it a more edged look, but I'm not sure if it's working. I want the final model to look like convincing metal. Any suggestions or crits much appreciated.

Thanks.