Topic: U.S.S. Resurrection...again.....

[Centurus]

Decided to resume work, and mesh wise, roughly 98% done.  Thanks goes out to MeteoraFallen for helping with the impulse engine design, and Fallen_Warrior for helping me brainstorm the triangular impulse control crystal design.

[Chrystoff]

Lookin good as always! Would love to see you take a shot at a Reliant/Miranda.

[Centurus]

Lookin good as always! Would love to see you take a shot at a Reliant/Miranda.

Funny you should mention that, considering I've had a refit concept in mind for the past few years, but never could make it a reality cause half the parts didn't exist, and at the time I didn't have the skills to make them.  I believe now I do, and I will be making the attempt later on.

[Centurus]

Oh, P.S.

The poly count on this model is no where near SFC friendly.  I figure this ship will be mainly for eye candy purposes.  My eye candy.  :-D

[Dizzy]

Oh, P.S.

The poly count on this model is no where near SFC friendly.  I figure this ship will be mainly for eye candy purposes.  My eye candy.  :-D

Nice ship and thanks for telling us its high poly. I hate model makers who release super high poly models and dont warn us. Naive users DL them and then cause all sorts of PvP problems.

[Centurus]

Well I wasn't gonna let people think this was gonna be SFC friendly.  However, in the defense of some modelers these days, the old conventions that anything over 6k polys is too high is really outdated, and models ranging around the 9-10k area are perfectly fine for even systems 3 years old.

[Dizzy]

Not true. You arnt thinking about 3v3 with planets, sun, drones, mines, explosions, shuttles, fighters, PF's, seeking plasma and scatterpacks. Games that lag cause players to 'skip' where players 'think' they are and begin to 'jump' in range and arc around them. It creates a player that cant run missions on the frontline. And for what? So he can have pretty models?

Keep them under 6k please. No reason to go over that. The game engine cant scale beyond 16001200 resolution anyway, and at that resolution the ships are too tiny to see and without LOD's they KILL framerate.

[GotAFarmYet?]

The texture sizes and DPI are the primary killers, turn the file from BMP to PCX, or the BMP to the same settings as PCX, and you will see a vast improment. LODs if they use reduced textures for both size and resolution will help even more, if they are assigned the primary textures then they do not help much at all. This also is known the game doesn't show the true colours in a BMP it only renders in a 8-bit version, wasting computer cycles if it is over a 8-bit incoded file for textures.

Cent,
Can not say I am a fan of the impulse engine the two levels close together just don't look right to me. I would smooth out the rear section making it one plane and experiment with trapizods and a u shape to connec them to try to stay with a pattern that matches the triangle dome concept

[Centurus]

Na, I like the impulse engine design.  I went through several different looks and implementations, and I really like this design.  That's why I kept it.  However, with that said, once this ship is completed, and hopefully that'll be soon (I NEED A FREAKING MAPPER), I'll release the ship for rendering purposes in her current high poly form, and should someone want to do a poly chop to make her a bit more game friendly, they can also modify the impulse engine design as well, since I'm not opposed to seeing different concepts.  Just for me right now, I like the impulse engine design.

[Starfox1701]

Just how high is the poly count? The ship might be good for Legacy and BC as is.

[Centurus]

Not sure of the poly limit  for Legacy, but for BC, yeah this ship will work as is for BC.  I'm estimating that since I last checked the poly count, taking into consideration I've done quite a bit more, I'm estimating the ship is around the 20-22k poly range right now.

[Wicked Zombie]

And for what? So he can have pretty models?

Yup.

[Dizzy]

And for what? So he can have pretty models?

Yup.

I'm on ya'lls turf bitching. And who the hell am I to bitch at you guys on your forum? Right? I know you dont want to hear it o' model gods, but tis true that sfcop in game performance is impacted across multiplayer for higher poly models and users, being blinded by the beauty of your godlike ship making skillz stick them in their model folders, run a single player mission to see if they work and they usually do, then wonder why they lag and are causing 'skipping' in multiplayer.

So for the sake of my sanity and those that still play D2/3, please, for the love of the game, let players know if your models are poly friendly for an old game. That's all Im askin!

And so not to hijack this thread, this model's lack of a concave recessed surface on the bottom of the saucer makes it 'feel' too heavy, or seem too massive for the rest of the model, imo. Also, I dislike the triangles on the top of the impulse unit. Really hate it actually. The impulse exhausts are cool... The rest of the model really rocks. I like it overall, just those two issues for me.

[Centurus]

In my defense, I couldn't go with a concave recess in the bottom of the saucer, due to the fact that I wanted phaser arrays on the ship instead of phaser turrets.  I tried to design the saucer to be a little practical in that respect, thinking that there would be some internal space needed to house those phaser controls.  I know, a Connie without a concave recess does look really odd.  I feel the same way.

The triangles, I like.  I felt a Connie without something like an impulse control crystal dome would be naked, but I didn't want to just make a dome, so I remembered what WZ did on his Sorcerer, he made a unique shape and had them recessed.  So when F_W helped me brainstorm, I liked the results.

[Kreeargh]

Screw poly , the ship is damn sweet  !! If one needs game frendly they can make it on their own ,read tutes , go to school and or do homework . As they say do it yourself if you dont like the results.

[Dizzy]

In my defense, I couldn't go with a concave recess in the bottom of the saucer, due to the fact that I wanted phaser arrays on the ship instead of phaser turrets.  I tried to design the saucer to be a little practical in that respect, thinking that there would be some internal space needed to house those phaser controls.  I know, a Connie without a concave recess does look really odd.  I feel the same way.

Ok, fair nuff, but heres how I see it. What uve done is to make the saucer and even the neck pylon thicker stronger tougher lookin. Thats cool. But the warp pylons and the aft hull dont match. They are of the more spindly looking connie class. I'd recommend making the Hull wider... And mb making the warp pylons look stouter. Thats be more in line with what youve done to the rest of the ship, imo.

The triangles, I like.  I felt a Connie without something like an impulse control crystal dome would be naked, but I didn't want to just make a dome, so I remembered what WZ did on his Sorcerer, he made a unique shape and had them recessed.  So when F_W helped me brainstorm, I liked the results.

Well, I understand the need to do it differently, but I just dont yet see how that design aesthetically compliments the ship just yet. I'll refrain from making anymore disputatious comments on it till its got a coat of paint.

[Centurus]

I didn't want to change too much of the design of the class.  I've seen various TNG-era Connie concepts, and I felt that something that's a bit more mild was better than any drastic changes.  However, that's not to say that the changes I made aren't drastic in and of themselves.

I gotta post the images that MeteoraFallen had been playing with that shows the potential of the ship.  In fact, I'll do that in a bit.

[Centurus]

Ok, here are ortho images that MeteoraFallen was playing around with, cause he was curious to see what the ship might look like once the ship is finished, mapped, and textured.  Keep in mind, THESE ARE CONCEPT IMAGES.  Not renders of the ship with textures.  Also, because they're concept images, they don't have any aztec patterns, right now anyway.

[Fedman NCC-3758]

Fed likes.

   

[Centurus]

Ok, mesh wise, this model is done.  Nothing left to make on the model, at least nothing that can't easily be compensated with using textures.  I changed the mesh color to a light gray.  I was getting a little sick of the blue personally and wanted a change.

Now, the search for a mapper commences.