Random acts of violence with Shipmaker

Silver Swordsman · Post by **Silver Swordsman** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 1:30 am

Hestia: It should be a lot lighter. The Imperial Dreadnought Mk1? Pure ownage. I love it. Your style IS different from Anna' but its nonetheless outstanding and in no way incompetent.

eXcellent work.

god froggy · Post by **god froggy** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:05 am

Yes. What sections did you use for the dreadnought? They don't look like SW.

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:55 am

http://filesmelt.com/downloader/Celesti ... archy1.zip

Ok, here is the updated download for the Celestial Hierarchy. The problem was not my fault, its a product of people making sub folders. I.e. Cheesy_SWAsec/weapons. When trying to use the export custom sprites function in shipmaker, this type of folder will fail and show up empty every time. Sorry about not catching that. I've manually fixed all the ones that I found, but if there are still some missing let me know.

On the subject of the doodad error, I re saved it but could you let me know what the error was or if it still occurs in the new download? I encounter no such error...

@Silver Swordsman: Thanks!

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 2:11 am

Ok this is a work in progress, meaning I've been working on it for all of twenty minutes. I know the mandibles and cockpit aren't right, but I wanted to get the basic design down. I'm going to have to go over the whole thing and replace some sections once I find a good reference picture. Any advice on areas that need work, details I'm forgetting, or suggested section replacements, would be greatly appreciated.

The whole ship will likely be shrunken to be more accurate scale for a freighter. I zoomed in a bit from default zoom because it was very much out of focus.

Kiltric · Post by **Kiltric** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:23 am

The rear, the engines need work. If I remember correctly, there are some small pointy bits over the exhaust on the Falcon. Also, right now it has an "under-bite", so to speak, which should be fixed.

AlphaDetisMegas · Post by **AlphaDetisMegas** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:28 am

like this?

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:57 am

ah thats awesome! I couldn't find a good topdown picture and so was going from memory and side shots. I'll fix the underbite.

Kazutek · Post by **Kazutek** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 4:18 am

Arcalane wrote:Stealth doesn't really work in space anyway because of all the heat your ship will be emitting, compared to the background temperature of space - which isn't freezing, but certainly low enough to make ships stand out. Any designer worth their salt is going to use thermal sensors.

Someone's been reading up

Also, @ OP, your Mil-Falcon is already looking pretty authentic to me

LactoseTolerant · Post by **LactoseTolerant** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 1:14 pm

Needs moar depth, especially to define the rear triangular section and the cockpit. Other than that, it looks fine, but the pie-sections you used to make it are somewhat too cluttered with shaded details compared to the Millennium Falcon.

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 5:12 pm

@lactoseTolerant: Thanks, I forgot about the rear quarter looking that way.

Droid wrote:Why don't you use the actual converted TSA-style stock sprites made by Verm?

To answer that one, my issue with tsa style is that when people do shading, they don't use consistent shades for low/medium/high. So when trying to layer them or arrange smaller sections to create a more complex shape with the impression of being 3d, the lowest points of the 'high'(white) pieces don't look the same as the highest points of the 'low'(dark gray) pieces. Which they should in my opinion if shading of each section is done to simulate no more than high medium low, three levels, three shades. Heck, with some sections I'll shade them to be white and they are still darker than others that are shaded very dark. Not blaming Verm, just don't care for the inconsistency of the various section packs. Or maybe I'm just not using them right, but I think its more the designer's interpretation of what part of the section was 'higher' than the rest. /end rant.

Tried lightening the classic style to match tsa style, but without the additional shading. I think the contrast between the shades is a bit strong, also tried a version with tsa but it feels like its not even shaded except where I manually increased the contrast. So maybe theres a happy medium inbetween.

<---example: The two ships are shaded the same way but on the tsa ship several sections of the same shade don't look the same, such as the 1s and 2s...

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:13 pm

Lol @ 100th post in this thread.
Some are still heavily wip, others are mostly done. Still working on shading on some. Many more in the works! No parts are stretched, and ss is at default zoom but their still somewhat blurry. All criticism welcome.

These last two I just started today.

LactoseTolerant · Post by **LactoseTolerant** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 8:26 am

I like these, very good use of Verm's SWA stock sections.

1st ship: Nothing spectacular here, but it's simplicity is actually quite pleasing. Very fitting if it's a "standard cruiser".

2nd ship: Other than the two side hangar bays, it's pretty good. again, good use of the SWA stock sprites.

3rd ship: The back two prongs kinda jut out in contrast of depth against the rest of the ship. Not too keen on the red glow there.

4th ship: Good all around, absolutely love the top of it. Neat use of a sprite for the center turret.

5th ship: The gem of the fleet. Feels like an ultra-modern Plethio. Back engines are perfectly proportionate.

6th ship: Station feels a bit vulnerable, especially where the diagonal "\" section joins up with the main body.

7th ship: Stubby. Make the outriggers larger/thicker?

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:42 am

Lol glad you like them. The designs are constrained by the fact that if you look closely, their all just beefed up versions of the stock ships, but built on the same frames. I've fixed most of the depth shading issues. I'm also about 90% done with the Athena, and moving on to Major Hong's ship. I'll try to get downloads out before i start school next week.

Question: I want them to be playable. Should I leave them stock, or balance to meta? Right now their all stock and are surprisingly balanced to their counterparts, though of course have an advantage because of having like 80 sections instead of 5-10.

Gottfried von Manhausen · Sat Jan 09, 2010 10:14 am

The Peitho looks good and the space station as well. I think you should keep them balanced to stock if possible, and maybe reduce hp/per section to make up for the number of sections?

LactoseTolerant · Post by **LactoseTolerant** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:42 pm

I'd say weapons up to meta standards, and HP kept as default for some lightning debris-confetti fun

. And I didn't notice those were originally stock ships at first. Nice work.