Ship design musings

[Gryphin]

As is my way,
Setting aside considerations of "Real"
Focusing on "Practical"

I am currently using the Toran ship set because:
My visual limitaitons, (Retinitis Pigmentosa)
They are easy to see, (the color and size)
They are estheticaly pleasing, Nice Smooth Welballenced Curves, (no I'm not talking about a woman)
I like the Racial Portrait, (Maybe I envy the 3 eyes)

The ship set I am designing will take a while to complete.
I am buying / using 1/2400 scalle ships
I am trying to find ways to fasten various hulls to each other to create larger sizes.
When I am fished I will take photos and make BMPs
Wish me luck.

[geoschmo]

Also keep in mind that a lot of the older shipsets were made before the proliferation on the forum of all these 3D "wizards", artists who can use the tools avaiable and make shipsets from scratch. Those of us that were around SEIV 18 months ago, and wanted to make a custom shipset were kind of limited. There were a couple guys that new how to do 3D art, but not enough to keep up with the demand. Basically you scrounged around the internet and found a half a dozen ship pics you liked, and then by resizing, rotating and otherwise changing the perspective, viola, a new shipset is born.

The shipsets being produced in the Last six months or so by all you artists out there are WAY better. The images usually follow a theme, but the number of reused images has decreased dramatically. But a lot of the old shipsets are still around, and that may be what you are seeing that has turned you off.

But I think it actually likely that ships of a certain race would follow a theme. People are people after all, and I expect engineers the universe over are pretty much the same. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" would I am sure have an equivalent in Phongese.

There is no reason to think they would radically alter a design philosophy that was proven, unless they were forced to by some external or internal considerations. Colony ships and transports would most likely not look like warships, that is true. But that is true of most of the shipsets I have seen as well. Warships would not neccesarily change radically in appearance just because they were bigger. More likely they would just make them bigger, or weld a couple smaller ships together. In a vacuum, you don't have to streamline, so you want more room? No problem, we'll just blowtorch the thing in half, and add a few more tons here, and a few more tons there... (Actually this is done in smaller scale today with commerical airliners.) Wan't to go faster? Sure, no problem, we'll just strap a couple more engine pods on the back here...

Geoschmo

[ July 23, 2002, 13:34: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Elowan]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Also keep in mind that a lot of the older shipsets were made before the proliferation on the forum of all these 3D "wizards", artists who can use the tools avaiable and make shipsets from scratch. Those of us that were around SEIV 18 months ago, and wanted to make a custom shipset were kind of limited. There were a couple guys that new how to do 3D art, but not enough to keep up with the demand. Basically you scrounged around the internet and found a half a dozen ship pics you liked, and then by resizing, rotating and otherwise changing the perspective, viola, a new shipset is born.

I understand the process well enough and in fact had considered that very thing at first. That is - until my wife *****-slapped me and said:

"Yo! Where's all that expensive 3d software s--t you just 'had to have!?'

She actually didn't say that ... well ... not exactly but this being a family forum and all ...

Anyway - I'm scrounging the internet for 3d models and putting the arm on some of my buds in the business.

BTW - anyone know who's hoarding 3D models and or meshes of the '2001 - Space Odyssey'? I like dem bulbs ... er ... spheres.