Discovery Gaming Community

Finished Phantom Dreadnought and Phantom Dreadnought/Battleship turrets.

EDIT: Phantom members are free to send their comments/suggestions via PM.

UPDATE 2:

Here is the new one.

Changes:
-Remodeled engine; five crystal structures pointed towards the central effect, with blue crystal line around the effect
-Added blue crystal line around the ship
-Added glowing blue crystal, yellow bridge and grey "Hellbound" lettering textures
-Lightning reduced 50%
-Added new effects for generator
-Added new effect for engine

All in all, it looks a lot better.

Theatrical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g774XjbJ-fk

Images:







I'll have 4 days free this week so i'll get to work on the Phantom Osiris.



UPDATE 5:

Finished battleship and turret models:

Changes:

Battleship - added wireframe for scanner window.
Turrets - Changed base/Scaled down a bit/Added glowing textures/Full turret manuverability added/Wireframe added.






Here is one comparrison picture from 2k, one from 9k, and one just ship from 9k. Also here is the video of effects overview.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo8vwjVurUo





Ill make some custom effect for weapons, similar to current Gallic BS turret effect.

Special thanks to:

Yuri - Thank you for all the help with texturing and modding MAT files.
Doom - Thank you for all the help with modding turret CMP files and making wireframes.

eh?

looks neat, like a ghost ship.

mind to post a real model instead.

black is not always scary. - sometimes... black is just black - and people are not scared at all, cause they try hard to see any details.

whats scary is the lightning enviroment - and maybe the background sound. - whats NOT scary is the ship though.... .

darkness only becomes darkness when there is also light. - take a look at homeworld 2 ships. - they have rather bright colours and all... but they have those hangars and intakes that let you take a look at their insides. - their insides are bathed in brightest light in white / blue. - that gives the colourful hulls substance.

it makes the ship appear "real" - if they hadn t have those, they d look comical and dull.

then take a look at the huntress. - it is mostly black. but it has those blue parts that appear to be glowing and shining upon the hull. - it is only those parts that give the whole ship a real "texture" - without them, the ship would be nothing but a rather shapeless wannebe bat in space.




for your model i suggest you make some custom textures that show internals of the ship and add a glow map. - if placed well, they ll make the ship appear to be MUCH scarier than when its just black.

or do you think the ravens claw looks scary?

So far, there's no ships looking really scary out there tbh.
To make a ship look scary, for me anyway, we need something of a zombie texture. In this approach, the slave liner is probably the closest there is to that, but its indefinite, rectangular shape reminds more of a broken, battered old cargo than a really, terrifying infested and immortal war machine from hell. Well, you get the idea.

To re-iterate what Jinx said, black is just that - black.
I think the ship itself isn't at all scary simply because you can barely make out it's shape.
Give it some form of definition or substance as Jinx said and it could become truely scary.

I do love the effect in the middle of the ship though and I presume that electrical field around the ship is also part of the ship?

The ship is not entirely black, it has a custom black metal plates texture. The video was just darkened.

Also Linkus both the middle glow and lightening are part of the ship and will go where ever the ship goes.

Also i might change the middle effect to something better, if i find appropriate effect..

And by the size, the model is longer, wider and taller then the Juggernaut.

uhh - if its for the phantoms, i d rather go with something the lines of the osiris ( sizewise ) - cause a juggernaut, impressive as it might be - becomes a real laughing matter for a pair of bombers ( they can hit it totally drunk AND blindfolded )

about the lightning -

thats how it should NOT look like from afar:
- like a sphere
- like some "alien" bubble that moves unconvincingly with the ship

how it SHOULD look like
- maybe like a dark cloud ( like the shadow death cloud in bablyon 5 )
- no sharp edges on the cloud - but a really smooth nebula, so that it looks like "part" of the system
- when you "enter" it - it should split up and reveal the "core" that is flashing like this - with the ship inside ( think of it like an eggshell, - you penetrate the shell to get to the core


the disadvantages - the one that is MOST hindered by that nice effect is the player of the warship.... - cause his own view is like nil.


so - i d recommend such an effect / ship only as a BASE - but not as a playership. - besides... freelancer has very strong ambient light. - a black cloud in alpha might look creepy. - in delta however with its purple light, it might just look.... well.... silly.

Mostly it is not the object which is scary. Its the use of the object. A dagger is a simple dagger, but when used in a dark mass, the dagger becomes a scary tool.
If the Huntress would be a cruise liner, it would be much less scary.
And if skeletons and zombies would be nice guys to talk to and making fun, telling the children nice mare's, they would be not scary as well.

AoM

Can we see the actual ship in a non-theatrical setting please?