CORE Diplomat +1

[bwansy]

Just curious, is flipping the model intentional?
As for missile replenishment, perhaps after firing, a new missile slides out from the body?
Other than the body being a bit too wide, it's almost perfect to me.

[Zpock]

Upsring flips the model (the old is in upspring and new in wings still).

[MR.D]

The whole Launch gantry, stowed with missle is sealed within the symmetrical body, the Missle gantry slides open on the gear plates then the gantry raises up to fire, once the missle is fired the gantry stows back down and the gantry bay closes again to reload.

Very simple animation, but in case you need to see it play out, here is a short movie I put together of what the sequence for firing should look like.

**Short .avi movie**
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http://www.mrd.str8-6.com/files/diplomat-anim.zip
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watch and learn



I built the model flipped left/right to compensate for Upspring reverso trick.

[MR.D]

Were you guys able to get the video to load?

I used Div-X encoding, but sometimes the avi tool in max doesn't always work the way it should.

[[Krogoth86]]

Video works fine - the animation concept is good. I'd just use 5 additional faces to actually model that inward space were the rockets come out from with a simple "cubloid" so that entire launch pod with the rocket doesn't move in and out through that housing face...

EDIT:
Lol - that explains why the turrets for my T2-AA hover were on the flipped sides. Didn't know about this flipping of Upspring...

[MR.D]

It is a hollow inner chamber inside the bay, it just doesn't show it very well in the vid or renders because the door blocks the view and the renders are at an obscure angle.

[Warlord Zsinj]

It looks good, but for performance reasons I'd probably say the two little clamps are unnecessary - they'd have to be individual objects, and you would pretty much never see them. IIRC the performance penalty of having lots of individual objects is as much as hundreds of polies.

[Zpock]

Screw performance, it's moving little details like that who breathe life into the model! We could make all units into f***uing 6 sided boxes with a 16x16 texture and then there would be performance (except pathfinding etc would let you have like 10% more units anyway).

[Crayfish]

+1

[Warlord Zsinj]

Eh, zpock, no need to get indignant. And no need to reduce my argument to a fallacious end. Obviously I'm not advocating Cube Wars - but I think that as good designers you have to rationalise what you put in. I don't think the little latch really looks that good, and I don't think that you would see it in 99.5% of cases. If you follow the same reductionist logic that you followed to reduce my argument, one would find little bells and whistles on every unit, and performance would become a factor (especially with all the other performance-draining effects that are typically found in the more advanced mods like CA). That sort of attitude would result in some people being no longer able to play, with others on reduced settings (seeing as you can turn shadows off but you can't turn bells and whistles). Spring looks a hell of a lot more immersive with shadows and reflections on then with lots of little moving parts on units that you won't see most of the time that you are playing.

Obviously pure performance logic is no more correct then me advocating we play with only cubes. What I am saying is that 'screw performance' is an attitude that is no more logical then 'performance is everything, screw graphics'. A middle-line has to be found. And what I'm saying is that that little clatch really doesn't need to be there, and is on the side of 'graphics are important, but performance is also important, so let's consider both and find a suitable compromise'.

[Zpock]

Ok, to be more reasonable, I think that removing details is going in the wrong direction. These models are supposed to be a lot more interesting then the crappy OTA models and I feel that such little details are an important factor in that. If you find the clamps to be unimpressive, a better solution then removing them would be some better replacement? For example, the clamp could be doubled so you have 2 clamps that look the same and move together, but use the same amount of pieces, that might make them more "worth it"?

I really like MR:Ds attempts at creating interesting machinery in his recent models and really would like him to be encouraged to continue doing so.

Also those clamps might not be so big or impressive, but they do have an excellent position for being seen, at the top of the model easily visible from above. The same cannot be said for example on many of the moving tracks, wheels and propellers that were done recently without anyone complaining.

[smoth]

oh man, you are making a core version of swift... *dodges tomatoes*

[AF]

I like this model very much.

[MR.D]

I have a little bit done on the Diplomat so far.

Still need to do alot of work on the inner bay area, gantry and rocket, but its coming along

This has been a hard model to make a believable texture on, just like with the Slasher, it has alot of wide exposed areas that need to be broken up with greebles ect..

[AF]

Impressive

[Zpock]

No brown camouflage? The different camo colors distinguished some of the core units from eachother, tanks having the green camo and support vehicles had brown/desert. I can see how unified color might make some more sense but that's sort of lost anyway when you're on a mismatching map.

[Warlord Zsinj]

I'd like to see more wires and exposed mechanics on this one; it's meant as a support weapon, not as a frontline tank like many of the other things you've done so far, so it's more likely to have more of it's components exposed. It also has more complicated machinery in action then with any of the other vehicles thus far.

Don't forget to put scorch marks where the missile is launching

[MR.D]

No brown camouflage? The different camo colors distinguished some of the core units from eachother, tanks having the green camo and support vehicles had brown/desert. I can see how unified color might make some more sense but that's sort of lost anyway when you're on a mismatching map.

I never really looked at it that way, always seemed more random than ordered when it came to what units used what camo.

Good to know, I gotta pay more attention to what I'm doing then as these roll out

[Keithus]

I sometimes wonder how camo is going to help hide an object that sits well above even the highest tree line....

Otherwise it looks nice. :)

[Argh]

I sometimes wonder how camo is going to help hide an object that sits well above even the highest tree line....

It... uh... pretends to be a hill. A metal, spiky hill. Yeah.