Initially, I was going to recommend continuing the glowing vector style of Defcon one, but we've got a team of artists who could do so much more than that.
I want to approach JohnN to see if he would be interested in the concept art (ships and everything mechanical) for this. Creatively wise, he's more than capable of it (his style is very retro, sleek, and streamlined, however I'd prefer things a bit more chunkier and modern for this).
http://www.tsumea.com/journal/johnn/140608/starfighter-carrier-plus-fig…
http://www.tsumea.com/journal/johnn/060208/sci-fi-jumpjet
http://www.tsumea.com/journal/johnn/251106/ive-been-working-hard
http://www.tsumea.com/journal/johnn/270305/aircraft-concept
http://www.tsumea.com/journal/johnn/100904/spaceracer-concept-art
http://www.tsumea.com/journal/johnn/060104/quad-mech-concept-sketch
I was going to oversee the art direction to keep it coherent, and there are many and many space games to draw inspiration from. I'd recommend Eve Online as a big inspiration since it really is the most beautiful looking space game out there in terms of ship designs, the UI, and the vistas that you fly around in. I'd personally tone down the nebulas a bit though.
... personally, I think Sins of the Solar Empire has much better looking space scenes. Darker and just more appealing (although they do have a variety of space scenes with bright reds etc). Do a search for more screenshots as it looks great.
Other inspirations are Homeworld 1 and 2 (some awesome, awesome designs in there - do a search for the concept art for some of the ship designs, great stuff)
(This is linked off Doolwind's blog ;))
More Thumbnails - The Opposition
I decided to start some ideas on the opposing fleet. More angular and industrial in design. My intent is #1 a large scale artillery ship, #2 mid-sized troop or engineering ship and #3 as a fighter. I'll try to finish off a few more options for this fleet as my next task.
love it!
Absolutely love the work you're doing man, especially #1 and #3. They both have an awesome aesthetic and capture their purpose well. #2's silhouette I feel is too similar to #1 and may cause recognition issues.
Looking great
Hey John, your concepts are looking awesome.
However, we really need to get some momentum going, and we could do with some finished concepts done. Do you reckon you could finalise two concepts so we can pass them onto our modellers?
fleet 01 revisited
Next installment!
In an effort to finalise some designs I've revisited the first fleet of ships and refined the thumbnails to a set of four ships that i am really happy with. I've included a second angle and some basic silhouettes with how I imagine they all might relate in size too.
Now might be a good time to put dibs in on who models what for this fleet?
What level of finish and/or types of working drawings do the 3d modellers want? I'm guessing some people might be happiest interpreting from the loose sketches and some others might want front/side/top and cross-section plans?
(right click and 'view image' to see pic larger. I have these sketches at an even larger size too if people want a larger copy for reference.)
ok
Don't know what the other modellers think, but I'm happy to start working on them. I'll start modelling + texturing the small fighter, and will work on the others if required. Also don't know how many poly faces are required for each ship, but I can always reduce it. Sadly my monitor is down (meaning I can't work on them now), if it's still not working by next week - I'll buy another one. I'm on another computer typing this comment.
Down as well
Hey guys, I'm out of action for the time being also. My HD in my laptop has decided to give up over the weekend, and I'm in the process of sorting out a replacement. I've emailed Roger to see where he is, and hopefully he could chime in if he is around, but I guess something around 1500-2000 polygons would be suitable, what does everyone think?
superSw eet!
ahhhh super sweet dude!
Really excited to see the progress here!
I'm really happy with the look/feel and silhouttes of each model they suite each purpose brilliantly.
However, the scale of the first ship i think is far too large in comparison to the others. This will make for harder identification and scaling so I think we sh
~ mulletdulla
questions
The game engine that we’re using - Can it handle quadrangulate faces or just triangulate? Can it also handle ‘Combined Meshes’ but separated meaning it’s one mesh, but the vertices are not merged? Hope it makes sense. Apologies if this is stupid questions, I know nothing about game engines.
Thanks in advance.
Using triangles is a must to
Using triangles is a must to avoid any graphical errors that could make sections of your model look incorrect in game. The beauty of the triangle is that it will always be flat no matter how awkwardly you try and place three points you will always have a flat surface. Using four points you will find that it is possible to create a surface with kinks or curves in it, this can sometimes result in surfaces curving in ways that you don't want them to and rendering results can vary. To be on the safe side and avoid these problems meshes should be 100% triangles.
It is possible that all surfaces are triangulated during the export process from whatever 3D package you are using.
For all the engine related info and exporters for all major 3D modeling packages check out:
http://www.garagegames.com/documentation/artist
Just out of curiosity, what 3D packages are people using?
I use Maya
SmallFighter model complete. Hope it’s good enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9deYWoXNC0
Triangle Faces: 1997
texture files and size
I'm about to finish unwrapping UVs. How many texture files can each ship have? And what size?
Thanks in advance.
Some work in progress
Sooo... after a number of hassles and 5 or so installs of windows i finally got some time to myself to get some work done!
you can see a quick screen grab over on my blog:
http://www.tsumea.com/journal/briefcase/140809/tsumea-team-3-progress
Awesome work JohnN! I like #8 and #9 as artillery ships. In regards to your other designs – I would say #1, #2, and #4 are the ships that don’t relate to the others.
Awesome drawings!