Elite / Frontier Cobra MkIII for me

potsmoke66

potsmoke66
again to the size of the ships:
you can download a set of most FFE ships as DX .x models from elite.ru
http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/viewtopic.php?p=1359917#1359917] "models.rar"
the size is excactly FFE and if you use a grid of 0.1149 (0.115) spacing you get the centi meters

them did almost the same as i did (except i calculated 3m per floor for the small house):
album_pic.php


to the outrigging missiles, no problem you must know frontiers missiles only explode on selected target (has to have a mass reading to), else they are harmless, also they will self destruct after a few minutes flight, it's been stated that once a whole city was vaporized by a stray missile.
 
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steve tyler

S
kenny, regarding high-poly models, its common to build a high detail and a low detail model for a game. the high detail being used to generate normal maps for the lower detail model and make the low detail appear to be more detailed than it is. FFED3D doesn't support this as yet as far as i can tell but i expect in future it will. But the term 'low poly' is relative... you could consider 100,000 triangle models as "low poly"

btw, potsmoke if you're interested in converting my viper model to pioneer feel free, if not, no worries.. is there someone on their team i could submit the model to?
 

Kenny 10 Bellys

K
Hi Steve, nice to see you around here.

I might use the high-detail model to make a map for a low-detail version. I saved the early versions of the model in case I wanted to do that, but I didn't really intend this one for the game anyway. This one was intended as a sort of definitive Cobra MkIII for myself, how I always imagined it would look. My plan was to make some low-poly original models for Oolite to get some practice at converting to a game format, then have a go at Pioneer and FFE3D.

Anyway, here's some progress on the Cobra. It now has collision lights, panels around the engine area, antennae, landing lights and some random surface details. I plan to add some more greebles and nurnies to make it look lived in, then a bit more detail in the cockpit as well. Once I'm happy with the detail I'll start the image maps as well. Here's a short animation showing the surfacing and lighting so far, and a quick ortho layout...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUoRoSUwpig

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/4651802901_567d4e5058_o.jpg
 

Kenny 10 Bellys

K
Well, here's the plan. I wanted to do an animation with it doing something, so today I started to knock up a space station model for it to dock with. I'm always fascinated by the sheer scale of some of these sci-fi constructions, and it's always interesting to see them in action. My station is 2km across, a nice round number for a big station, and I'll modeled the interior somewhat in the style of the mammoth Spacedock in Star Trek. There's going to be a load of Star Wars style open hangars, and a few docking booms as well for larger ships to use. Here's some quick storyboard style pics I rendered, larger versions available on my flickr page...

4659740691_d4898e871a.jpg

The cobra reaches the station. You can just see its shadow below the door, it's tiny at this scale.

4660362918_17c6695dd7.jpg

Now at the doors, which open star wars style!

4660363190_daa8bc6ae8.jpg

through the doors, the central spindle with hangar bays visible

4660363450_b00c47f3be.jpg

A view back from inside, more bays and door visible.

My plan is to fill the interior with loads of low-detail ships from all over, lots of spotlights and little stuff moving around to make it look lived in. It'll take a while to model the station fully, ages to set up all the lights and a ****** dogs age to render, but it should look nice when finished. It's a view I've never seen done correctly in any landing animation in the games, so it should be fun to do.
 

Geraldine

Geraldine
Yes I agree very nice work Kenny. :) One question though, are you going to light it up a little with planet shine? I noticed you have an external white light source, perhaps a mild green or blue light source would add to the look of the texture?
 

Kenny 10 Bellys

K
There actually is a little planetshine, a slightly green light set to about 20% shining on the front of the station. The main 'sun' is set to a slight yellow tone at 115% power, so it's not easy to see. I was more interested in how the station lights would look in the dark, and how the surface looked at the two distances. When I do the animation I'll probably have to make it more obvious as the planet will be seen just before this shot, and will probably be a fair bit brighter.
 

potsmoke66

potsmoke66
kenny i have a request

Dark1, admin from spacesim central www.spacesimcentral.com
needs a little clip for his site, he requested that a half a year ago.
i know that you're able, but are you kind?

my idea (pasted it from sci-fi meshes):

suggestion:
let's say three ships aproaching one after the other from behind any planet, asteroid or station, moving in front, vanishing and leaving the letters SPACE SIM CENTRAL as remnant.
should of course reflect the games, so no fantasy ships rather than copies of ships used in popular space sims.
what is a space sim in Dark1's eyes? things like Frontier, Wing Commander but even ST would fit.
FE2's Courier, a kilrathi Dralthi would fit to, or one of X-beyonds models, maybe a Enterprise but close as possible to TOS imo, but not necessarly any.

i do models for games, i like to workaround problems that appear when you do so, you do models for movies :rolleyes:

the space on the header is limited so it won't be the most stunning hi-res clip be needet.
maybe, we can do some team work, but single me and a complete new field to work on, would cost me aeons.
 
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potsmoke66

potsmoke66
we can open a new thread here for that, i know ther's a dude willing to make a small movie, but it seems like he even knows not much more than me how to ;)

i won't be mad if you say no, you might have other things up to do.
 
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Kenny 10 Bellys

K
No problem Potsmoke, I'm sitting at home ill with the Cold anyway so I have some time. Do you know what size the header is in pixels? 1024 x 200 or whatever? I have a selection of models that could qualify as game models; Star Trek, Star Wars, Wing Commander, my Cobra, etc. I'll rig up a little scene and see how it looks.

EDIT - never mind, checked i out and the size is 1024 x 149
 
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Geraldine

Geraldine
Hey, that's a really nice thing to do guys! :cool: I am sure Darkone will really appreciate it. :), oh and get well soon Kenny!
 

Kenny 10 Bellys

K
My nose is red raw from blowing it every five minutes, and that's no fun. All the food I eat tastes like plastic now. What a way to spend your birthday.

I've set up the first scene of an animation for the site, which will render out overnight. My plan is to do a long version in HD and a cut-down version that would fit in the site header. Rather than 3 ships, I thought I'd go for a few more than that given the number of space sims involved on the site.

This animation starts Apollo 13 style with an Apollo CSM heading for the moon, then without warning another spaceship blasts by. It's quickly followed by another and then another, and then lots of ships race past and curve around the moon, spinning the CSM wildly. The camera follows around the moon and we finally reveal the sites name in huge letters in space.
 
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