Nephilim Remodels

[Whistler]

Can't wait to blow them up!

 

[Quarto]

Skate, Skate T, Skate B, Skate M. Bonus: Alien Torpedo.

Excellent work! But... the middle cluster is the Skate B? That one's nose looks kinda wrong, compared to the original. In your version, it looks almost like a cockpit window, whereas in the original, it's a big gun.

 

[Dark Sentinel]

WIth all due respect, in the case of Skate B I decided to follow the concept, not the actual ingame model.
Maybe it wasn't the best idea after all.

 

[Lt.Overload]

I actually like the cockpit one, as it's own standalone version though. Skate C or something. C for Concept or C for Cockpit or C for Capshipkillergoddangitnotagain, your choice.

But I do really like your Neph remodels and I would like to see your take on the front of the actual B version, given its not just another glowing tip, but something more elaborate.

 

[Dark Sentinel]

The concept of Skate C I had in mind once was like "Capship missile", three Skates that bring a torpedo in the fight very much like Skate T, juswt with that slight difference that now torpedo is Capship Missile.
Also "fine, as popular request, Skate B2."

 

[DefianceIndustries]

if you wanted to do a cap ship missile version it wouldn't be too hard to do, it wouldn't appear in the stock missions but could be made available for any future mods.

 

[Dark Sentinel]

With all due respect, Skate C is pointless, Capship Missiles are self-sufficient. And I believe, any fighter out there is able to kill the cluster and kill the missile before it reaches full speed. And maybe even after. I sorta don't remember what's cruise speed of it and what are afterburner speed values for fighters though.
/me thinks
Skate A with Afterburners, for more speed.
Skate B aka Bomber, with big gun.
Skate C with Capship Missile attached.
Skate K, now in dull reddish gray with red markings.
Skate M with Mines.
Skate R with Remoras.
Skate S with Swarmer Missile Pod. Punch ten (twenty, thirty) missiles in enemies, discard pod, continue as interceptors.
Skate T with Torpedo.
Skate W for sWacs, 'cause S is used already.

I guess I'm out of ideas.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

what you really need is an IROC Skate with T-tops and leather seats.

 

[Dark Sentinel]

I know I probably should remodel ships, but since I had Manta done and had some research into GLSL for HWRM... I only needed to combine the two.
Question: identify the ship. Gray Manta, the heavy fighter. But... wait, maybe it's Green Manta, the... er, whatever.
(I just hope animated gifs are okay for the forum and it makes it through)

Oh yeah, I know a certain someone around these forums who may be interested.
Or actually, if you manage to make WCPSO use GLSL somehow.

 

[Dark Sentinel]

Fighters: destroyed.
Bombers: destroyed.
Plunkett: destroyed.
Murphy: destroyed.
Pelicans: destroyed.
Midway: destroyed.
Cerberus: destroyed.
Communications: destroyed.
Humanity: destroyed. okay, this going too far.
YOU. HAVE. BEEN. DESTROYED.

Fully modelled, UVed and textured within nine hours. To hell with sleep, let the sleep deprivation rule the design.
Stingray texture is cheating on very many levels though. Also some new tricks... and well, that doesn't help, texture is darkened too much, I guess.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

nicely done, and sleep is totally overrated anyway.

 

[Iceblade]

What pretty lights to hide such death and doom.

No craft is deadlier than a threesome of stingrays. An orgy of hot plasma.

 

[Dark Sentinel]

@DefianceIndustries and me discussed my next step in private and after some thinking I decided to go for capships, Orca in this case.
So, having the proper level of details I wanted for this ship is gonna be a challenge certainly.

Do you like what you see? Trust me, it looks awful enough up close, at the melee range (when you go for turrets, for example) and that's 55554 polies already.
(/me is fighting the wish to add one more triangle just for the sake of it)
Probably I can go for 100k, but that's undesireable, even if the engine can handle it. Besides... the cutouts are needed only when you go into said melee range (ugly) and they won't be really visible when you are dogfighting somewhere away (pointless).
Hell if I know what to do.
Ideas?

 

[gr1mre4per]

@DefianceIndustries and me discussed my next step in private and after some thinking I decided to go for capships, Orca in this case.
So, having the proper level of details I wanted for this ship is gonna be a challenge certainly.

Do you like what you see? Trust me, it looks awful enough up close, at the melee range (when you go for turrets, for example) and that's 55554 polies already.
(/me is fighting the wish to add one more triangle just for the sake of it)
Probably I can go for 100k, but that's undesireable, even if the engine can handle it. Besides... the cutouts are needed only when you go into said melee range (ugly) and they won't be really visible when you are dogfighting somewhere away (pointless).
Hell if I know what to do.
Ideas?

She's a beaut so far. Very detailed. If I might be so bold I had imagined the detail to be more like skin wrapping around bone and muscle rather than sharp cut outs. That's not a crit though, just my thoughts.

Regarding the number of poly's, it's no longer a case of the engine handling it but people's computers. Given the fixed function render pipeline it would still be good to keep the poly's trimmed and (ugh) texture some detail in.

Keep up the great work.

 

[Dark Sentinel]

Well, I'd go for actual skin on bones look (I agree, it does look that way), but I don't have skills for that, and besides that I'd expect that to require some unhealthy polycounts.
So, most probably I'll keep the mesh flat, that would result in Orca being within 15k polies, give or take, maybe 20k, but not 100k.
Maybe I can use that to bake the details, but again, it's a prototype, so I'll have to look what's easier/what gives best results within reasonable timeframe. Yes (shame on me), I'm okay with results that are not best but still look god and fast/easy to make, because cutting out all that details was pain and I'd wish to avoid doing that again.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

I like it. Normally here's where we could employ simple geometry and some good bump maps. But we don't have that option sadly. Really you can't go wrong as either will be an improvement over the existing models. From experience I can say that on the whole where you can use geometry in vision gives you better results up close since you're limited to 1024x1024 textures. But it has its downside, especially when creating destroyed objects. Extra layers of geometry make the transparency texture useless, and as you said, alot of that detail is only visible at very close range.

I might suggest that you find a middle ground, maybe punch in some of the bigger details and bake the others. Just my two cents. But if go for a full bake because it keeps you sane, I'm fine there too.

 

[skymaster]

With all due respect, Skate C is pointless, Capship Missiles are self-sufficient. And I believe, any fighter out there is able to kill the cluster and kill the missile before it reaches full speed. And maybe even after. I sorta don't remember what's cruise speed of it and what are afterburner speed values for fighters though.
/me thinks
Skate A with Afterburners, for more speed.
Skate B aka Bomber, with big gun.
Skate C with Capship Missile attached.
Skate K, now in dull reddish gray with red markings.
Skate M with Mines.
Skate R with Remoras.
Skate S with Swarmer Missile Pod. Punch ten (twenty, thirty) missiles in enemies, discard pod, continue as interceptors.
Skate T with Torpedo.
Skate W for sWacs, 'cause S is used already.

I guess I'm out of ideas.

The Skate B is an anti-bomber group, carrying one Mirv which splits into 3 FF missiles. A Skate group with a rapid fire plasma gun would be a formidable foe. The idea of a SWACS pod for skates is brilliant. The R version does not seem right. IMO, a Red RAY with 2 or 4 torps would be great. Maybe they could carry a CAPMIS with a bio-waepon (" A very smart disease").

 

[Dark Sentinel]

No Plunketts allowed!

Well, to hell with cutouts for now.
Given enough texture resolution and terrible tricks described in forbidden books,the details can probably be imitated in, er, texture.
And well, even if I wanted to cut more details... 35654 polies so far. That's a big amount, y'know. I sorta expect it to hit 40k when I finish adding more spikes and refining the smoothed shapes, but I don't think it's gonna be more than 40k.
Definetely not those 100...120k.

Oh yeah. Texture. It's a prototype, done in terrible UV in 1024x1024. The hull may be like 3000 pixels long when properly UVed and cut, which is not that bad and looks acceptable in melee range.

C&C please?

 

[DefianceIndustries]

No Plunketts allowed!

Well, to hell with cutouts for now.
Given enough texture resolution and terrible tricks described in forbidden books,the details can probably be imitated in, er, texture.
And well, even if I wanted to cut more details... 35654 polies so far. That's a big amount, y'know. I sorta expect it to hit 40k when I finish adding more spikes and refining the smoothed shapes, but I don't think it's gonna be more than 40k.
Definetely not those 100...120k.

Oh yeah. Texture. It's a prototype, done in terrible UV in 1024x1024. The hull may be like 3000 pixels long when properly UVed and cut, which is not that bad and looks acceptable in melee range.

C&C please?

pah! These are child's play for a Plunkett.

looks good.

 

[FekLeyrTarg]

These are a huge improvement over the original meshes.
I'm looking forward to see them in the improved Vision Engine.

(Am I the only one who always thinks that the producers of "Prophecy" had possibly watched "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" when designing the Nephilim ships? These have a striking resemblance to V'Ger's exterior.)