Random WIP 2006-2011

[Saktoth]

stop this sacrilege. why are you working on a ship thats already perfect when you have so many much more ugly units in ca?

Perfectly untextured.

sacrilious. now, turn your rear railgun and show me that it clips.

The rear gun will have arc restrictions. This will change the way the unit plays (broadside). Unit isnt even scripted, the turret will be turned in script, but must face forward because thats the direction the bullets come out! This is just testing the AO bake. You'll notice the turret is also black at the front due to the clipping (already fixed this).

[Master-Athmos]

Will be much work texture wise - the problem is that it looks extremely similar to the AA ship so it's all about the texture to give the player a clue which one he's facing there...

[Saktoth]

The tower is set much further back, the whole body is wider and more wedge-shaped, it has only one tower, the turrets are longer, it lacks the twin 'stripes' coming off the tower which makes the aa ship so distinctive, it has an aerial at the top of its main tower, it has several 'panels' along the waterline (which will be teamcoloured)and i think that, on the whole, it will be just fine.

If all else fails, we can vary the underlying base colours, make this one slightly darker and bluer, the conship slightly browner and rustier, etc.

[Argh]

I really hate to be a major pain in the ass and offer a negative critique, but I'm afraid that I really think that the various ships need more variation in their base geometry, or to use more than one major color with enough contrast to break the geometry up better. And the TC placement mainly ends up making things more noisy, instead of less, imo. It's a ship- they aren't teeny, they aren't cheap, and a player should know where they are. They don't need TC everywhere like that- the stripes on the sides are probably sufficient.

'Tech Gray' all over means that the minor areas that vary just mainly translate as noise in a quick glance. I think that global changes (lighter / darker) will just look really awful, tbh, and won't really help a lot.

Again, sorry if that sounds harsh, it's just that I can hardly even make out the AA guns on that one vessel, it's so noisy, and the shapes just aren't very clear on either the AA ship or the constructor, and I'd hate to see that cruiser get a similar treatment.

[Saktoth]

Cremuss is perfect and i shall brook no criticism of him.

[PicassoCT]

besides the railgunturret-syndrom i have no critique on it. If they cant be identified, players will complain later- until that happens, keep up the good work.

[KaiserJ]

do you want to have a go at making ships out of my legos?

[Hoi]

Cremuss is perfect and i shall brook no criticism of him.

He is not perfect, and although he has some pretty good close range detail in there, the mid and long range detail is not good. That is the most important for rts games.

He is quite good, but sometimes he has this problem, and then the texture looks good, but when you zoom out it looks like a blob.

[Saktoth]

He is quite good, but sometimes he has this problem, and then the texture looks good, but when you zoom out it looks like a blob.

A blob of awesome, you say? Yes i agree.

As long as you can tell what team it is on (check) and what unit it is (which can be addressed as it arised, drastically if needed) then its fine. Its a very awesome, unique design at a distance, with this sort of spereated dual hull thing and the tower with the very bright eye-stripes, makes it quite distinctive.

If you can tell these dudes apart:

Crems ships shouldnt be too much of a problem (I know the spherebots need a little more differentiation work though).

I appreciate the comments though because they mirror my own concerns (Playability of the models is paramount to me). But that can be handled, really.

do you want to have a go at making ships out of my legos?

I would like to have a go at making ships out of Cremuss's sexy hot models but i would also like to know what you are talking about if you would tell me. D: Your legos dont seem to include ships (they're very cool but).

[Argh]

If you can tell these dudes apart

I can't, at least not at a glance. Had to look twice to see the differences in sizes, missing bitz, etc.- they're too similar. Meh, you guys have heard that one before, not going there again.

do you want to have a go at making ships out of my legos?

Make ship-bitz and some bits for Big Turrets, and hell yeah, I'm up for that.

[Saktoth]

If you can tell these dudes apart

I can't, at least not at a glance. Had to look twice to see the differences in sizes, missing bitz, etc.- they're too similar. Meh, you guys have heard that one before, not going there again.

This is one of the most popular factories and players play with it all the time with minimal problems. Its not something people have big issues with (nothing like EE got, so i assume when players have a problem with this they speak up!). Though i do intend on doing some more work on them (probably mixing up which parts are dark/light/teamcolour some more).

[KaiserJ]

i occured to me a while back, as i unwrapped the zillionth wheel for evo units, that IRL vehicles and buildings are constructed out of small, individual generic parts, rather than being constructed as a single part... why should what i do be any different? ships are made of small metal plates and bits and pieces, not cut as a single chunk on a lathe.

so i made and textured a bunch of generic parts to see what it would be like to create units for spring like that... so far its been good, i can now assemble pretty cool looking units in about 15 minutes. obviously i dont have the same style or skills as cremuss, but in terms of having a get-shit-done attitude, i cant think of a faster way.

roll back a page and you can see a small car i made with the parts, as well as a shot of them overall. im planning on making more "kits" like this.

heres a nuke bomber or fighter or some type. took about 15 mins to make.

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/7664/planeexample2.jpg

also the spherebot is a good example of what sort of got me onto this train of thought... re-using and changing art rather than going from scratch every time... so you are partly to blame

* * * edit :

Make ship-bitz and some bits for Big Turrets, and hell yeah, I'm up for that.

next futuristic set for sure will have elements better suited to things like that (as well as proper robot legs and joints); although with the proof-of-concept one you can hack together big parts out of the small ones fairly easily

i currently have a different kit in the works of a medieval/monstrous theme in order to aid our medieval modding friends... that will probably be next.

[Hoi]

Sakoth I probably know more about this as you. Maybe you can get away with this but if you make 2 other ships from the same parts that look just a little bit different it will be nearly impossible to see what is what from a normal viewing range.

Maybe you can edit the texture. Changing the teamcolor so it's not 50 small stripes everywhere but 10 big blocks will already help a lot, and that's an easy job.

[KaiserJ]

who gives a shit if you know more than him?

lol make your own ship if its going to be so much better.

also, on the topic of unit differentiation, i remember taking IQ tests when i was younger, and part of it was identifying patterns and stuff like that. regardless of how obvious you make differences, you're still going to get people who are unable to tell them apart. no matter how much you work on a unit or a texture, you're unable to change the fact that someone stupid will eventually look at them.

people can't even tell the difference between "push" and "pull" on a door.

[Hoi]

I could make a better ship (and I'm sure he can too now), but I have no time for that. What I'm just trying to do is help, and it's up to sakoth what to do with it.

[Argh]

I'm not sure I agree with the "it's impossible to avoid pattern recognition problems" issue.

I mean, if your guys are just teeny, then that's going to be a problem regardless of how skilled you are, but even there, colors can really help- "it's a little red guy, guess he's carrying that rocket launcher"- people's visual systems glom onto color and contrasts really strongly, well before we recognize shapes- in fact, we largely build shapes and our sense of the "3D-ness" of an object based on contrasts.

And Hoi, you really can't make statements like that around here, when we haven't seen any of your work for over a year. That's a big no-no, in my book- like certain other people here, you seem to think it's all right to dish out what you apparently can't take.

I have no doubt you've improved a lot, but Saktoth doesn't suck, and none of my comments were meant to start that kind of petty flamebaiting, I'm just concerned that he's going to spend a lot of time on the skin and then it won't be satisfactory.

[KaiserJ]

i can turn lead into gold, but since i havent had time as of late, you'll have to take my word

[Hoi]

I have no doubt you've improved a lot, but Saktoth doesn't suck, and none of my comments were meant to start that kind of petty flamebaiting, I'm just concerned that he's going to spend a lot of time on the skin and then it won't be satisfactory.

I'm not saying that he sucks, but it's a shame that (imo) he's so obsessed with replacing all ota content that he's going for quantity instead of quality. I don't think it's possible to make a whole fleet out of one boat, it will just look the same.

[Saktoth]

Sakoth I probably know more about this as you.

Yeah, what do i know, i've never played spring.

I'm not saying that he sucks, but it's a shame that (imo) he's so obsessed with replacing all ota content that he's going for quantity instead of quality. I don't think it's possible to make a whole fleet out of one boat, it will just look the same.

The model i posted is one of Crems originals. Its not a cut-up job (Though i did shorten it a bit because long ships=clipping). Its a new, completely origional model, otherwise i'd just reused the texture like i did on the conship and save myself the trouble. Cremuss made 4 ships origionally, the AA ship being one, this one being another. And if you want to compare modelling e-peen, i dont think there are many people around here who can beat Cremuss.

Take another look at the model. Its abundantly obvious that not a scrap of geometry is being reused.

[Otherside]

i can tell those dudes apart way more than the mechs in PURE with different weapon load outs.