Phaser

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Glempius wrote:

Phaser wrote: Rivets haven't been used in aircraft in a long time. We have welding, now. Plus, rivets add a lot of drag Last time I checked space didn't possess this mystical thing known as air resistance and drag. The fact that rivets aren't used in modern aircraft is largely irrelevent as this fighter is being used for a universe set several thousand years in the future where humanity has pretty much lost all records of the past and have ahd to start again from scratch. But that's just me nit-picking

Try reading Armondikov's posts. They tend to be insightful when it comes to his works.

Armondikov wrote:

...Anyway, did a little more. Firstly, for a space based figher craft, this is going to look remarkably like a normal jet fighter. I have several reasons for this... 3) You have a fighter in space, odds are, at some point you may have to engage in a minute amount of atmospheric flight. Whether you're skimming through the clouds of a gas giant (which doesn't happen in Ea due to the magnetospheres) or ditching on a habitable planet. Well, that's my official excuse anyway, as much as it holds up.

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The use as a atmosphereic fighter is largely a secondary use and who ever sadi the whole thing had to be entirely acurate?

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nobody...I man, as if we were on SFM here...hehe

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Right, several things have popped up in my absence.

A) Rivets: its just mainly shameless detail to make it look better. I think i may get rid of them as the textures aren't high res enough to do them justice and modelling them on will be a pain. Plus, the point about welding is pretty valid, it's probably a superior method. Or the rivets could be internal, keeping the panels on without exposing too much and could have some fancy mechanism to relase them for quick parts replacement.


B) HDRI.(quick explaination for the uninitiated) In movies, this is done on set. The technique can be seen on The Matrix Reloaded: Revistied disc. They have a massive chrome sphere on the allyway set where the burly brawl takes place so they can light the CG actors correctly. Essentially, by taking a picture of a chrome ball, you get a record of the surroundings which you can apply to your background. Then use a radiosity effect to light your characters and models. This is done because lighting with actual lights produces sharper shadows and increases rendering times dramatically if you're using radiosity effects. Its more useful in professional work as it is used to decrease rendering times of shots that will later be composited.

B2) In my version, I used a very high polygon (ie smooth) ball (it had a subpatch level of 8 or something) with a full chromed surface (100% relection, 100% diffuse and nothing else). I then put this in the hanger that was fully lit with point lights and took a picture of it, exactly as you'd do on a movie set. This is then set as a background and used as a light source.

C) Decals. I'm going to try and do larger resolution decals and apply them as a serparate layer which I can move around. This allows me to have hi res decals without massive images devoted to colouring the thing grey. It also means I could move them about and exchange them in Lighwave as opposed to going back and forward between textures. The results of that experiment will come in a moment.

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Tried it. Can only really do text by burning it on. Works okay for that though. Also, did a simple texture over the engines at the top. The engines at the back are going to be much more complicated.

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I like the burnings.. it keeps coming better and better.

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You haven't seen the main engines yet. They're looking so good I thought I'd HAVE to increase the radiosity to get a high quality shot as opposed to a grainy one! Its still going, give me a minute.

EDIT. Just uploaded the image. I've only done two maps, ideally I need another two on the back end.

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I hope you realise that I'll be wanting a 1600x1200 wallpaper when you finnish all the burn marks on the ship and in the background a space battle scene over a planet.

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Get in line. If I can knock out a decent scene, I'm rendering a huge one and taking it to reprotech so I can get it blown up to an A0 poster.

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I can't say anything to that but: "Nice".

I could say: "Great!", "Superb", "Outstanding" but I can't quite phantom it, so I say: "Nice".

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This shot I'm currently rendering better be worth it. Its almost finished the first section and it feels like its been going for hours*.

*May in fact, just be 20 minutes or so.

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Done. I need to light them properly though.

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SWEET!

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Great detail and texture work. I really like how you've given it a weathered look. Makes it much more realistic.

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Well, the weathering is just for details sake. If you look on real fighter craft, they tend to be much cleaner.

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Fixing the flares and trying to get the textures to match.

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Extremely impressive Armonds. Fine contribution to Ea

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OMFG thats one sweet fighter

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Adrian Smith wrote:

Extremely impressive Armonds. Fine contribution to Ea

I'm not sure. I'm pretty certain either RC or Senator would veto it on account of it not looking like a box with engines on it that would be 100% effective in space.

But who cares, I can justify most things on it. For instance, the engines on the top and bottom are used for turning, not pitch. The thing will bank, and then fire the top/bottom turning engines. That way, the g forces are kept vertical (prefferably positive) and not lateral. The wings are to give it limited atmospheric capability for high atmospheric and sub orbital flight. The big engines on the back are obviously so it can fire forward with a higher accelleration. The rest is just a lineage to modern fighter craft. I can come up with far more unusual designs, I just fancied this one.

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As far as the weathering goes, I suppose it depends on what kind of conditions the machine is operating in. For example, an F-15E Eagle in the US Air Force is probably a pretty clean looking piece of machinery, while a BSG fighter or a Rebel X-Wing is in a situation where maintenance is scarce.

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Well, if its on a small carrier, it will be about 3 months into deep space without a full maintainance kit.

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The weathering adds personality to the ship.

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And imo any good fighter or bomber needs random nick-knacks drawn on the side as happened in WW2. This is the best sort of example I could find right now, but I'm sure it gets the idea across

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Yes, naming has to be done. Kind of like naming your rifle

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Wow. This looks amazing, Armondikov!!

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id love to fly that thing if i had the chance

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Adrian Smith wrote:

Yes, naming has to be done. Kind of like naming your rifle

I picked up on that. Nicely done.

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http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=fighter%20emblems&sa=N&tab=wi

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Done an emblem.

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I can't quite make it out, but is that a snake wearing a hat wrapped round a leg bone?

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