Kilrathi interior designer needed

Aginor

Vice Admiral
Hi everybody!

As those of you who are also reading the HLP board may know I am in the process of doing my own little Saga mod at the moment.
It is going to be an easy to use modification for Wing Commander Saga that will allow the player to play the Kilrathi side. That means you will have a complete Kilrathi-style interface (which is almost finished already) and all Kilrathi ships and weapons will be usable by the player (already finished) + generic Kilrathi wingmen, including standard voiceovers.

Now there are a few small and one or two slightly bigger things missing, but that is not the topic of this thread.

Here's my request:
You know the main hall of the Hermes in WCS? I need one for the Kilrathi.
First step is a concept art. And this is where I need the help of my fellow wingnuts! I know some of you are talented artists, you know Kilrathi architecture, and all of you have access to examples that show how the Kilrathi build things to get inspired.
What we need now is a design for a Kilrathi main hall, including places where to set clickable hot spots for all needed functions (pilot screen, tech screen, campaign screen, settings screen, exit) and/or animations (animated doors on mouseover, rotating ship holo, a window where a Dralthi flies by etc.)
If you look at the two available Saga main halls (Prologue and DD campaign) you'll find everything that we need, we just need the Kilrathi version of it.

Try to be as precise as you can, but I'd be as happy if someone comes up with a good idea on a sloppy drawing with ball point pen on a McDonald's paper napkin.

Then we can talk about the drawings here and when we have found a main hall design that seems suitable I will search for a talented modeler to build it as a 3D model and render it (or a very skilled 2D artist that can draw it so it looks equally well).

So, anybody interested?
 
IIRC correctly, the WC3 manual and the midgame kilrathi cutscenes feature a viewscreen, the part where I believe thrakhath says "slaves we have no shortage of!"
 
That's correct, there are quite a few cutscenes in various WC games that show examles of Kilrathi interior design.
I think I'll start with a list of those which we could check out here:

In WC1 we see Kilrathi but we don't see them in Kilrathi architecture, all scenes play on planets that are occupied by the Kilrathi but don't show Kilrathi architecture, for example the Sivar Eshrad ceremony on Firekka.
IIRC it starts with WC2, we see Khasra and Thrakath on the bridge of the Hhaifra. I don't think there is much to see but it is a start.
Then of course there is WC3, we see the Emperor's throne room, we see a part of the bridge of the KDN, and also on the losing end when you eject and Blair is killed by Thrakath. In the winning path end sequence we also see this bridge when Melek surrenders.
Basically every scene with Thrakath or Melek in it shows parts of the Kilrathi architecture.
In WC4 there are no Kilrathi scenes AFAIK, at least I don't remember any.
In Prophecy we have the intro but there isn't much to see either except some old temple.

Sooo... that leaves the Arena (EDIT: Academy of course) animated series. I think I have to re-watch it. Do we see Kilrathi architecture there? I don't remember any scenes.


Besides what we see in the games we know a bit about Kilrathi architecture. We know they like high ceilings, red, orange or brownish colors with a bit of yellow/gold, and they also seem to like rooms that are not very brightly lit.
So basically the architecture looks a bit... klingon. Since they are a warrior culture I guess they will like trophies for decoration, for example the scorched wingtip of a Hellcat, otherwise they might decorate with weapons like jagged knives/swords or rifles, maybe they also have torn flags or other insignia of terrans or other Kilrathi clans on their walls. Maybe a human skull or something as well (ok this might actually be a bit far fetched but I think you get the point I guess).
They also seem to like columns and wall paintings with clan symbols and such things.

Some of those things mentioned above might not apply to space ships though, for example the high ceilings and the columns. But instead there are computers and such things. So how do they look like and how are they buildt into the walls?
We see some things in the Dralthi cockpit, this might be useful to design the content on Kilrathi screens or for wall designs:
http://xover.htu.tuwien.ac.at/~cohe...kpits/dralthi-cockpit.cpt/dralthi-cockpit.png
http://xover.htu.tuwien.ac.at/~cohe.../dralthi-cockpit.cpt/dralthi-cockpit-back.png
http://xover.htu.tuwien.ac.at/~cohe...dralthi-cockpit.cpt/dralthi-cockpit-right.png
http://www.mobygames.com/images/sho...r-armada-dos-screenshot-dralthi-cockpit-s.png

so this might be a start.

If anybody knows further pictures available on the internet please post them so the artists can look at them.
 
Sooo... that leaves the Arena animated series. I think I have to re-watch it. Do we see Kilrathi architecture there? I don't remember any scenes.

Assuming you mean the Academy series, there are a couple of scenes aboard Agon ra Sivar and I think one or two on the Academy version of Ras Nik'hra, but that's about it and it's no different from what we've already seen (slightly more "starship generic", actually).
 
Argh, yes of course. Arena, Academy... just too similar, starting with the same letter^^
Thanks for the hint!

btw: If anyone has ideas for Kilrathi rank insignia and/or medals, feel free to post them. I'll need those too somewhere in the future.
 
In WC1, there is one very short scene with Kilrathi architecture - at the end of SM1, when Admiral Gilkarg is executed.
 
Yeah, I just noticed that one when I looked through the images at Wedge's site, but there isn't much to see unfortunately. It is very dark and we only see a small part of a big throne room that looks round and quite empty.

EDIT: Concerning medals and stuff: Are there any in the CCG maybe? I once did some terran medals for Saga based on the CCG but I don't know if there are Kilrathi ones.
 
Thanks!
I'm a bit disappointed by how they look though, somehow I expected... more details? something different? I don't know.
Whatever, at least they won't be that hard to implement once I have installed my old Photoshop again (as soon as I find the CD...)
 
Since you have some visuals in WC3, you might want look into the series bible for Academy, should be some profile inthere for their character trades and backdrops? The trophy decoration would not just link to the Klingon's in Star Trek, but also to the Hirogen, Kazon, but also the predator, or any other "warrior race" (IIRC, the hirogen had a skull of geiger's alien hanging between it's trophy's)
 
That's correct, "Warrior" and "Hunter" races are quite common throughout the history of science fiction. I think you named almost all of Star Trek that are relatively well known except Jem'Hadar. But actually Cardassians and Romulans also fit to a certain degree, and concerning architecture I even think Vulcans are worth a look!

In Star Wars we have Wookies and Tusken Raiders(ok, those both maybe too primitive), Khaleesh, and Mandalorians.
Babylon 5 has the Narn which are very Kilrathi-like (and the more civilized Minbari Warrior Caste which doesn't fit that good).

And don't even get me started on Flash Gordon, where basically every race he meets fits to a certain degree. :D

If there were Orcs in space they were some sort of Kilrathi (yes there are Orcs in space, in an awful D&D spawn named Spelljammer. Oh no I named it.....)

The X-Universe has the Split.
Starcraft's Protoss are maybe a bit too far developed technically.
Mass Effect surely has some sort of proud warrior race guys, too. I never played it.

I always found the Hirogen from ST funny because they seemed to be almost a complete copy of a race described in Marion Zimmer Bradley's book "Hunters of the Red Moon".
btw: The Predator in "Predator 2" also has a Giger alien's skull as a trophy in his ship.

Ok, I got carried away a bit... :D

I think the sources of inspiration are clear now. What I need next is someone that is actually skilled at drawing so we can have a concept art. Unfortunately my drawing skills end at the level of XKCD style.
 
If there were Orcs in space they were some sort of Kilrathi (yes there are Orcs in space, in an awful D&D spawn named Spelljammer. Oh no I named it.....)
Hey, I loved Spelljammer, back in the days before I knew what a good game actually is :p. Never played the pen & paper version, only the terrible, bug-ridden PC game (which I actually finished). For all its flaws, I loved the general vision of the world (err, universe) and the ship designs. To this day, I regret losing the photocopy of the game manual (yes, I admit it - I only had a pirated version), because the ships were ugly in the game itself, but the manual had awesome WC1-style line art for them.
 
Lol, too bad there are no examples of ST's Caitian technology and culture, and they seem a bit too friendly overall too....
 
@Quarto: What? There was a Spelljammer PC game?
HOLY SH**!! I didn't know that.

Spelljammer is... special. I have some kind of trauma from it, It is really awful. It is like "everything is better... IN SPACE". I think it was designed by people on LSD playing D&D and suddenly somebody says: "wouldn't it be cool if my wizard could make the ship go through, like SPACE??!!" and everybody is high and they all say "YAY, rhino people in space are the evil ones, and there are elves on giant space trees and giant space hamsters!!" unfortunately the "Giant Space Hamster" is NOT a joke, I am NOT exaggerating. It is in the monster manual.
Over at the HLP forums I said roughly the same things a few years ago and this is also the reason why Tolwyn gave me "Spelljammer" as a custom title :D
It is just plain ridiculous. Good times... :D
 
@Quarto: What? There was a Spelljammer PC game?
HOLY SH**!! I didn't know that.
Yeah, there was - and for all its flaws (really, it's a bad game that should have spent at least a few more months in development), I enjoyed it, and didn't see any of the silliness you mention here. The setting was actually very polished and very interesting, the problems were all in the gameplay, which was too simple in some ways, and too complex in others.

The great thing about AD&D games on the PC is that they generally did a lot of filtering, that's why the PC game probably had a better setting than the pen & paper Spelljammer - I mean, giant space hamsters aren't the only bit of nonsense in AD&D. You don't need to even look at any of the expansion pack settings to see such nonsense - dumb things like gelatinous cubes (though I admit: Eye of the Beholder 2 somehow managed to make those pretty cool and scary) were in there all along. I reckon about a third of all the AD&D monsters were written by people on LSD or other drugs :).
 
That... is at once hilarious, frightening, and sad :D. To be fair, I think a lot of the really crazy monsters were basically jokes (many only understandable to their creators, I guess), and nobody actually seriously thought about using these in a playing session. Still... the guy is right, there is something really remarkable about how many laundry monsters there are :D.
 
Yeah, its weird.
...and to somehow build some kind of a bridge back to my original topic:
When Quarto talked about laundry monsters and stuff here I wondered whether the colors that seem to be uncommon on Kilrathi designs have any significance. We hardly see any blue on Kilrathi, except on Thrakath's cloak. Why? Is it some "royal blue" or something?
Should this play a role when designing the main hall and/or other Kilrathi stuff?
 
@Quarto: What? There was a Spelljammer PC game?
HOLY SH**!! I didn't know that.

Yes, there was. Moreover, you can find it for download on the 'net (if you're one of those people who is okay with the notion of abandonware). http://www.spelljammer.org/ has links.

I myself missed out on Spelljammer when it came out (wasn't that much into RPGs at the time and D&D was being espoused by my church at the time as being particularly evil); I've been looking for more info on the pnp Spelljammer lately, mainly out of a sense of morbid curiosity. That, and I tried playing the PC game and didn't have a clue what the crap I was supposed to be doing.
 
Oh god, this is so painful!
There are still people who actually want to play this!? They're joking.... right? They must be!
This is like a bad dream, please wake me up (before you go go)
...
ok, now where did THAT come from all of a sudden? WHY IS THIS IN MY HEAD?
...I think my mind is blown. This must be this Woodstock mommy and daddy talk about all the time....

*breath*

Ok back to normal. Please stop mentioning Spelljammer, you are ruining 5 years of therapy.
(No, seriously. Stop)

Now where were we? Thrakath's cloak. Colors. Kilrathi Architecture. I am still searching for a cool artist who is able to show me some nice sketch. Where is NinjaLA? (he is awesome, I bet he could come up with something nice).
 
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