Salute to Shmups! (Hangar and Aircraft Scene)
polycounter lvl 14
Hello all! Its been awhile since I posted. Had some crazy stuff going on in my life and its still not quite over. moving, switching schools, getting married, etc. But I've been dying to do a full environment so this will be my thread to get it done. I'll be quite busy here for the next month and updates will be low. However, after that I'm hoping that this will move along faster. So on to the nitty gritty.
Here is what I have thus far on the "Gladius" named in honor of my fav shmup Gradius
Goal: To make a cool environment that is scifi with some believability using all my own concepting and work!
Hangar - N/A (To be completed)
Gladius - Aiming for 6k polycount. Diff, Spec, Gloss, and Norm all 2k maps but will probably drop to 1k later.
Lowpoly: complete on fuselage, had a redo of the wings so currently just using the edge looped lowpoly atm.
UVs: complete on fuselage as well, started on landing gears and soon onto the wings
Textures: Currrently testing them a bit since I have little experience with getting the gloss, spec, and diffuse to look right to get the material I'm aiming for.
Known Issues: I've got to fix some baking errors that can be see where the wing meets the fuselage next to the cockpit as well as in front of the cockpit itself. The 'canards' also have a smoothing issue as well. I also need to fix the seam (looks a bit like a bulge) where the UVs have been mirrored.
Now I know what some of you are probably thinking, "didn't he say salute to shmups? Why would he be doing a hangar and stuff?" well this would be a point in the game where you would be between levels and we want a pretty scene to look at a really high detailed version of the ship you're flying around. I've got parts of the hangar I started on but that is still awhile before I can start to show any of that. I'll try to post up some of my texture reference later. I was going to go collect some from the local Air and Space museum once I got some time to take some pictures and do a material study. If anyone has some great reference analyze the specular highlights, fresnel effects, and gloss of some nice slightly worn aircraft I would be extremely grateful!
Comments and Critiques are most certainly welcome.
Here is what I have thus far on the "Gladius" named in honor of my fav shmup Gradius
Goal: To make a cool environment that is scifi with some believability using all my own concepting and work!
Hangar - N/A (To be completed)
Gladius - Aiming for 6k polycount. Diff, Spec, Gloss, and Norm all 2k maps but will probably drop to 1k later.
Lowpoly: complete on fuselage, had a redo of the wings so currently just using the edge looped lowpoly atm.
UVs: complete on fuselage as well, started on landing gears and soon onto the wings
Textures: Currrently testing them a bit since I have little experience with getting the gloss, spec, and diffuse to look right to get the material I'm aiming for.
Known Issues: I've got to fix some baking errors that can be see where the wing meets the fuselage next to the cockpit as well as in front of the cockpit itself. The 'canards' also have a smoothing issue as well. I also need to fix the seam (looks a bit like a bulge) where the UVs have been mirrored.
Now I know what some of you are probably thinking, "didn't he say salute to shmups? Why would he be doing a hangar and stuff?" well this would be a point in the game where you would be between levels and we want a pretty scene to look at a really high detailed version of the ship you're flying around. I've got parts of the hangar I started on but that is still awhile before I can start to show any of that. I'll try to post up some of my texture reference later. I was going to go collect some from the local Air and Space museum once I got some time to take some pictures and do a material study. If anyone has some great reference analyze the specular highlights, fresnel effects, and gloss of some nice slightly worn aircraft I would be extremely grateful!
Comments and Critiques are most certainly welcome.
Replies
i think the ship is much too flat for a horizontal game like gradius. if it was that flat it'd be hard to find amongst bullets at a glance, and the hitbox would probably be as tall as the entire ship. besides that, the ship is so flat that it just looks silly from any view other than top down and really could use a beefing up.
here's a little stretching out i did in photoshop. i think it looks a fair bit chunkier and easier to read as a fighter jet with the big vertical fin.
here are some other horizontal games for ship readability reference. the ships all have nice and meaty shapes so you can easily pull them from a field of bullets at a quick glance, and are recognizable at such small sizes.
treasure's gradius v:
cave's progear:
g.rev's border down:
hope this helps
Edit: Love the top silhouette, though. I could see piloting two of those against a swarm of alien space bugs...
So as you can see the hangar is finally coming along now that I've got a bit of time. I'm jumping back and forth on the modeling and texturing now as I need things. Still currently playing with some color themes in the back of my head, we'll see how it goes. Later all!
Racer445: Hey Racer! Long time no talk! Been AWOL for sometime now and I'm back, thanks for the critique and I agree it is a bit flat from the side, I beefed it up just a bit on the side's thickness however the intended angle is topdown like the 'Raiden' series. Which is why its strongest silhoutte is from the top.
tony: Yeah, I think the point your referring to is also kinda 'weak' looking but it isn't totally realistic. I may change it a bit later but I do want it to look imaginative even if it would break in reality. Thanks for the thoughts tho!
Here's a few more shots, not too much progress, added the beginnings of some door frames as well as the beginnings of a catwalk, etc. Let me know what you all think so far.
Compare the two images and the HighPoly model I posted from the other day and I'm sure you'll see what I'm referring to.
with Wires