Spring RTS Engine

the fans are too far forward.

grab a book, and try to balance it on the end of your index finger, the balance point will be dead centre of the book.

now add some weight to one end, and try to balance it on the end of your finger. you will notice the point where it balances is closer to one end.



if you draw a horizontal line on that shot through the centre off the fans, look at the apparent distribution of mass ahead of and behind the line. its WAY off.

ps: the Orca has a fan in the tail (that isnt visible in that shot) to provide lift for the tail. also, in a side view of the orca, you can see that aft of the main engines it has a tail that resembles that of a helicopter, ie it has minimal mass.

*edit* look @ this.

Pressure Line wrote:ps: the Orca has a fan in the tail (that isnt visible in that shot) to provide lift for the tail.

No, the tail fan does the opposite it blows at top to balance out the heavy mass at the front of the orca.

Either way, its there, and my point still stands.

Now i see what you mean!

but the thing it, there already are three jets supporting the back. The fans are not the only lifting gear on this thing. If you think it's a good idea, I may even replace those jets with a third fan

...but then it'd look like a mini-krow
whatever shall I do?

^Did this thing ever actually fly?

On topic: Yeah, keep the balance. As a general rule, drawing lines through the modes of propulsion (engines/legs/wheels/midgets/fans/whatever) and making sure the mass of the unit is equally distributed between them is a good way to measure it. There are exceptions of course: tanks don't really have this problem as the treads take the weight of the entire profile equally, whilst things like fighter jets are designed with their engines in the very back and hovercraft keep themselves 'upright' anyway and (ocean-going) ships are just built that way.

And ALWAYS look for references. If nothing else, it can't hurt. I even have four books with the specifications of military vehicles (tanks/trucks/armoured cars etc), modern aircraft, WWII aircraft and battleships and destroyers, then I have a load of other books that do pretty much the same thing for the Star Wars universe (Which I've only just remembered and that the SWIW team would probably have found quite useful now that I think about it... >_>).

MidKnight wrote:Now i see what you mean!

but the thing it, there already are three jets supporting the back. The fans are not the only lifting gear on this thing. If you think it's a good idea, I may even replace those jets with a third fan

...but then it'd look like a mini-krow
whatever shall I do?

different modes of propulsion on the same unit...

your llt and hlt models are great. they show a singular vision, and dont look like some technological frankenstein built out of an aerospace junkyard.

srsly, im not trying to troll you. just trying to hammer it into your head that while mix/matching design ideas with a faction's units is ok, its probably best to avoid doing it on a single unit.

or more simply: if you have jet units holding it up in the air, why bother with gigantic fans? surely these same jet units (or possibly slightly larger ones) could hold it up on their own?

@ GMN: apparantly, yeah it did fly ^_^

thought you'd say that

now then, I'm down to 2 choices:
1: shrink back area to it's balanced
2: add a mini-fan in the back and remove boosters.

also, how should i implement the weapon? I'm all out of ideas that don't involve giant hinging rocket launchers

Also: why the boosters are still on the unit, and not sitting in the storage bay of the aerospace junkyard:

MidKnight wrote:leaving the boosters on was the result of an interesting story (i had hid the boosters, an they showed up again for the final render, then I thought "these actually spruce the model up a bit!" so i tweaked and kept them) your opinions? keep em, toss em, or change them from boosters to large bulbous energy core thingies?

I N33D D1VIDoRZ!!! that justifies my double post

and this:

seriously, gun on top of the aircraft, it is attacking ground targets just let it hang on the underside like a bull dick.

also, I figured you would get to it but I am saying something... those props need work. seriously what the hell why do a lot of new guys do that...

A: maglev

B: how the moo would I animate it if they are connected? since it isnt perfectly round, gaps in the mesh show

@ #2 >:|

Connect the fan to the nonagon around it and animate the whole thing as one.

CarRepairer wrote:Connect the fan to the nonagon around it and animate the whole thing as one.

what do you thing I was doing before?

also: uvmapping WIP

MidKnight wrote:A: maglev

B: how the moo would I animate it if they are connected? since it isnt perfectly round, gaps in the mesh show

B:1: you doin it wrong.

B:2: like this...



*edit* also, the model looks like you drew it out flat (like on a piece of paper), then extruded it vertically. it lacks '3d-ness', or at least a lack of consideration of the fact that its not always going to be viewed top-down. don't be afraid of creating elements that extend in 2 axes, this isnt 1997.

1. Get rid of the loopy turret gun already. Stick a rocket pod in the front.
2. Take smoths advice on the fans.
3. Clean up some of the geometry its getting a bit messy. Lots of wasted polygons especially in the middle.
4. Still no eye strip.

The uvmap looks bad, alot of distortion.

after optimization:

no more wasted polies?
@pressureline: it does lack 3d-ness. I was thinking of that while making it, but i figured, why waste polies on stuff you'll never see?
all the same, the front section of the bottom dips, like a pelican's beak ^_^ , and the back has the little sensor/energy/landing thingies

Flying objects are probably the number one object that will be seen sidelike. A low-riding tank is one thing, but a near eye level plane will be seen from the sides/bottom much more often than the tank (think of the screenshots!) side/bottom features are important!

my point was more about it looking like something you could make out of a single plank of wood without too much trouble.

yeah maaakey. i play in fps view, not TA camera, so do many others. tbh, im not sure if i should bother saying anything more, because short of using a stick to beat the points im trying to make into your head... well, you get the idea.

ps: for a novice model its pretty good. you just need to work on concept & visualisation (specifically making stuff look like it is technically *feasible* [even if its not currently possible] and making it look like the way its supposed to work

/me readies a stick

Pressureline, I've always valued your advice very highly, because rather than just saying 'this is stupid,' you take the time to actually analyze the model and find out exactly what's wrong with it. The reason i didn't end up 'improving' the model is because i didn't fully understand exactly what you were trying to pound in my head
For example:
you said to make things reflect their purpose: I tried to make the raven look slow but sturdy

you said that modes of propulsion shouldn't be mixed: I removed the jets

Also, after a short conversation with hoi, I realized what you meant by the whole "make it look aerodynamic" spiel, or at least, I think I did

in the next revision of my model, I tried to incorporate more of what you and others, such as hoi, maackey, and saktoth said. You be the judge of whether or not I was successful


Enough talk:

the weapon will either slide+fold out Mr.D-tremor-style, or the hatch will open up on hinges (like the hood of a car). Which would you prefer?







And for anyone interested, this is how I got to this stage of the model:

After reading maackey's and pressureline's posts, (and realizing that some people actually used fps camera ) I decided the the bottom of the model did need some spice, and tweaked it as such. I also reworked the engines, they now work via magnets, superheavy materials, and gravitrons, and are not as much propellers as they are 'gravity generators' ofc that's all just boring, useless fluff; model-wise, I added the central column and the top section of the shroud.
I also added one of Saktoth's requests: a recessed eyeslit.

the result is as follows:


I then realized that blender's renderer actually has settings ( ), and promptly began fiddling with them, producing this pic:


I then had my short conversation with hoi, and started working on the current revision. Along the way, I fiddled some more with the renderer, and discovered ambient occlusion

the final pic you saw already, so here's a bonus pic, of the bottom of the newest revision!


TL;DR: the first pic up top is the latest version, so is the bottom-most pic. the rest are wips