WYRDYSM GAMES

Naturally, one of the first things I did with the ship creator was get right into building fanships. Of course, this led to a few problems; namely, how does one build a large ship (such as a Covenant carrier or an Ori warship) without it looking absolutely terrible? I understand that stretching sections is out of the equation, and I know how well tiling (especially using the ol' Stock 22) goes over. Do I need to use custom sections with no borders to get the seamless look that these ships need? Any help is greatly appreciated. (I know, as opposed to that unwelcome help, right?)

Practice, lots of practice. Start small, download some custom sprites (The kae_shiny and horsemonster sets are invaluable at the least), get used to the look of all the sprites and which ones fit nicely together and take inspiration from the forums (you may have to trawl through a lot of posts, but SWS's and STARSTRUCK's threads are where the majority of the best ships are found. Once you've got used to getting the sprites to look nice together then it's easier to transition to larger arrangements rather than trying straight away. Note that one section repeated endlessly looks bad, but a sequence of sprites that fit together can be repeated without looking quite so obvious and boring.

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There is no OP, there is only more boosters...

I experimented with seamless sprites for awhile... Obviously making the actual sprites seamless isn't practical because you would have to have six or seven versions of each sprite to get it right. I tried cover pieces that just hid one or two lines connecting sprites, which works well but is still time consuming. Best to do as Vidboi said and just practice getting sprites transition smoothly.

I usually find a good blueprint image of the ship i want to do and look for shapes that one or a combination of sprites will make. Then just build down from the top, getting the detailed bits like gun emplacements, reactors, or bridges to stand out from the rest of the ship. Still haven't managed an Ori ship without making a custom sprite but Arcanedude and Shamrocksoldier have both done some sexy Covenant ships, mostly with shiny sprites I believe...