StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Posted: **2003-01-26 03:36pm**

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:
Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:Thank you Einhander, here's another little update. Most of the hull panels are there now and the guns are taking shape. Hopefully I'll fionish the detailing sometime tomorrow and begin the final work of texturing and image maps for it. Once that's out the way, the cool animation follows

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/kenny7/Owing10.jpg
Very Nice! One thing I forgot to mention. How about small fins on the engine pods? Like about a meter in width with a 45-degree sweepback on the leading edge? Something for roll-control...

Well for in-atmosphere (the only place you need roll control) you have the repulsor lifts and vectored engines. HoweverI think the two long panels seen on the wing trailing edges could be additional roll control surfaces (raising and lowering to provide airflow changes).

Posted: **2003-01-26 04:21pm**

Well, to be honest I was thinking of maybe slapping on some small fins near the rear of the engines as Einhander suggested, at the moment the whole thing is a little too...compact for my liking. not much in the way of Fighterishness about it. However, that brings up the problem of landing gear again, so I'll have to come up with a solution we all like. When I start detailing the engines I'll see if I can come up with something.

I'll increase the size of the guns somewhat, I agree they look too puny, but then again they are backed up by a rapid fire missile launcher. I also intend to add a basic pilot and cockpit, enough to give the impression there really is someone in there. Even now the cockpit is not silvered, merely highly reflective to hide the fact there's nowt there. It's actually set to 40% transparency, which will be incresed to about 60-70% once it's populated.

By they way, anyone got any ideas for a rough paint job, marking and such? If it's popular I can stick it on it before weathering.

Posted: **2003-01-26 05:06pm**

Doesn't feel SW though, probably would fit in another universe. Andromedaverse maybe. Maybe a color change? And a weathered look. Maybe put this on the rebel side since imp fighter have that ball cockpit

Posted: **2003-01-26 05:09pm**

what the fuck am I talking about. OK these ARE rebel ships. Nevermind. A more weathered look and metalic grey would be better

Posted: **2003-01-26 07:20pm**

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:Well, to be honest I was thinking of maybe slapping on some small fins near the rear of the engines as Einhander suggested, at the moment the whole thing is a little too...compact for my liking. not much in the way of Fighterishness about it. However, that brings up the problem of landing gear again, so I'll have to come up with a solution we all like. When I start detailing the engines I'll see if I can come up with something.

I still like the idea of two modules inset on the side of the bottom engines where they meet the wing, with the landing gear in them. If you then have the forward landing gear under the cockpit with a slightly shorter leg yu have a ship that would sit slightly down at the nose to counteract the weaight of the rear (obviously not a huge downward angle, because that would just look stupid).

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:I'll increase the size of the guns somewhat, I agree they look too puny, but then again they are backed up by a rapid fire missile launcher. I also intend to add a basic pilot and cockpit, enough to give the impression there really is someone in there. Even now the cockpit is not silvered, merely highly reflective to hide the fact there's nowt there. It's actually set to 40% transparency, which will be incresed to about 60-70% once it's populated.

I like the effect of that transparency though, please don't set it too high afterall this ship is in space and so needs protection from the light and if you watch the films even the X-wing cockpits are smoked glass.

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:By they way, anyone got any ideas for a rough paint job, marking and such? If it's popular I can stick it on it before weathering.

I like the colouration as is, it's a mass market ighter so you would have different colour scheme's for each force that used it, this one looks great in the slight desert colours, but a reckon gun-metal grey would look good as well as a base. Add some red (rebel) markings and such and you're laughing. BTW, did you see Top Gear when they had Lotus convert that old Lada (who would have thought you could make a Lada look good)? I like the thought of the ship in Gloss black with twin silver lines down the engines and maybe some thin silver scroll work on the trailing edges of the wings and the canopy struts, plus discrete silver Rebel Insignia under the cockpit.

.

Posted: **2003-01-26 07:36pm**

Hmmm, interesting...

Here's another update, started the weathering and such and changed a couple of colours slightly. The guns are now way bigger and thicker, and I've mounted them on the correct sides this time.

Still not finished the modelling so I've just started texturing the basic stuff that's mostly finished anyway, the rest will have to wait until the modelling is done. As to landing gear, if I put a leg in the front it would have to be about 3 metres long to support the ship at all, never mind slightly nose down! I'm thinking we have 2 options here...

1. Tricycle undercarriage, but with the single leg at the rear and have it sit nose up.
2. ignore it and assume it just sits on the engines or repulsors keep it a few inches off the deck.

Colours could be interesting, I went with yellow markings so far as a change from the usual red colouration, so this is Gold 5 now.

I'll maybe try a grey colouration too, but I like the sandy version a lot. Anyway, here's the pic...

Oops, forgot to mention I ncked a pilot out of an X-wing until I make my own. Thank Dr Chang for the little guy.

Posted: **2003-01-26 10:08pm**

Hmm...I dunno why....but there's something about this that doesn't seem right...I dunno what it is....maybe it will go away when you re-texture it.

Posted: **2003-01-27 04:53am**

Well try and figure it out before I go much further, I'd hate to screw it up at this stage in the game. Maybe it's the fact it now looks very green in this picture, it's no longer a sand coloured vehicle? I'll try and add some traditional style red markings and lighten the colour up to see how it looks, and do a schematic layout so you can check where everything is. That might help to identify the problem.

Posted: **2003-01-27 06:43am**

The nose seems a bit fat and stubby. As for landing gear, I don't think a long front extension is out of the question; an X-Wing's front strut is considerably longer than the back IIRC.

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:29am**

The nose was reshaped to suit the designer (Rob) so I have no say there, but I can tell you the front landing gear would be nearly twice the length of an X-Wings front gear. I would have to cut one helluva slot for it, or make it fold up in a very compact way. If I was to stick fins on the thing to make it look better that would exacerbate the problem.

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:36am**

Nose: Ah, never mind then.

Landing gear: I suppose a repulsorlift-based front would work...if I'm right in assuming that repulsorlifts are low-power devices.

Posted: **2003-01-27 09:08am**

I believe so, although it may be possible to fit 4 landing pads to the bottom 2 engines anyway, it should look balanced enough without need for landing gear further forward. I'll have to experiment when I get the chance.

Posted: **2003-01-27 12:10pm**

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:I believe so, although it may be possible to fit 4 landing pads to the bottom 2 engines anyway, it should look balanced enough without need for landing gear further forward. I'll have to experiment when I get the chance.

It looks good, though I never realised how wide the end of the nose was - would it be possible to have a slight taper to the nose or at least have it start to narrow after the front of the cockpit? As to the landing gear, you could have two struts in each wing gear module. They could be stored like this (plan view - hinged at the ends without the landing claws)

[----------
-----------]

and open out like this (side view).

Code: Select all

   ------------------
   //              \\
  //                \\
_//_                _\\_

Giving you the stability on the ground for minimal storage space and clutter.

Posted: **2003-01-27 12:33pm**

Use the "code" tags for ASCII art. It forces the bb to use a fixed-width font.

Posted: **2003-01-27 01:06pm**

Crayz9000 wrote:Use the "code" tags for ASCII art. It forces the bb to use a fixed-width font.

Changed, thanks John.

Posted: **2003-01-27 06:44pm**

OK whiners, this more Star Wars for yah!

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/kenny7/Owingschem.jpg

Let me know if I should keep the colour scheme and markings, or if there's some change you want. I've also tapered the cockpit quite a bit and slghtly repositioned the guns as well. The lack of weathering and details is now more apparent with the new colour scheme, you should be able to see clearly the bits still to do. Also note how long a front gear strut would have to be to reach the ground once you put any kind of foot out from the lower engine pods. I think we'll have to go with Robs idea, it seems the best so far. Comments and crits welcome...

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:20pm**

Not bad, Kenny.

As for the landing gear problem... there is no problem. Just have a strut extend forward, from the lower part of the ring, about a meter... like this (forgive the low quality... I whipped that up in about two minutes). Remember, this sucker's gonna be aft heavy... you don't need a whole lot of support for the cockpit.

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:21pm**

Well, now that I see it from several angles, it seems considerably back-heavy. Perhaps a front strut isn't necessary, and it can be repositioned near the front of the ring.

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:23pm**

Great minds think alike, Dalton.

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:23pm**

SPOOFE wrote:Not bad, Kenny.

As for the landing gear problem... there is no problem. Just have a strut extend forward, from the lower part of the ring, about a meter... like this (forgive the low quality... I whipped that up in about two minutes). Remember, this sucker's gonna be aft heavy... you don't need a whole lot of support for the cockpit.

Hah! You read my mind.

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:23pm**

SPOOFE wrote:Great minds think alike, Dalton.

LOL, indeed.

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:36pm**

COOL! The paint job and re-texturing makes it look MUCH nicer. Now to mess it all up and make chipped paint jobs to make it have that authentic Star Wars "used galaxy" feel to it.

Just one more thing...I think if you put two mounted Y-Wing type cannons in the nose it'd be even more badass. But I dunno, do you think it's too much? And it's not really my design...so...yeah.

EDIT: After studying it more closely, I see some good open grey areas to put in some black/brown scorch marks and some dents in the textures to give it the "used galaxy" feel.

Posted: **2003-01-27 07:54pm**

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:OK whiners, this more Star Wars for yah!

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/kenny7/Owingschem.jpg

Let me know if I should keep the colour scheme and markings, or if there's some change you want. I've also tapered the cockpit quite a bit and slghtly repositioned the guns as well. The lack of weathering and details is now more apparent with the new colour scheme, you should be able to see clearly the bits still to do. Also note how long a front gear strut would have to be to reach the ground once you put any kind of foot out from the lower engine pods. I think we'll have to go with Robs idea, it seems the best so far. Comments and crits welcome...

Looks good. I can't wait to see the finished deal, with the weathering and details.

Posted: **2003-01-27 08:01pm**

IRG CommandoJoe wrote:COOL! The paint job and re-texturing makes it look MUCH nicer. Now to mess it all up and make chipped paint jobs to make it have that authentic Star Wars "used galaxy" feel to it.

Just one more thing...I think if you put two mounted Y-Wing type cannons in the nose it'd be even more badass. But I dunno, do you think it's too much? And it's not really my design...so...yeah.

Placing guns in the nose means putting their working parts in the cockpit, I think the pilot might object.

It has too big ass guns on the wings and two ion blasters mounted above those, with a Proton Torp launcher and a rear mounted gun as well. I think for a small fighter it's got enough weapons. That power plant has to power all the weapons, the engines, the sensors, the shields and the hyperdrive (no wonder she's a big bottomed girl

), I seriously don't think she could support much more.

You're right though, on a bigger ship it does add that certain something.

Posted: **2003-01-27 08:35pm**

I might place some detail at the front, but the guns would be excessive right enough, maybe discreet sensors instead. Now, it would be remiss of me not to post this for the lads as it incorporates a couple of ideas they mooted and that I also quite like. As much as I love the stumpy O-Wing, I like the longer, sleeker, wingier O-Wing even more.

I realise it's not your vision and I'll dump it right away if you wish, it's just more the direction I would have gone, and it can't hurt to let you see it.

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