Ufo Design

[Whitewashed]

I like that overall shape of it, if you had not mentioned Metallica I doubt I'd have thought the purple part looks like a guitar. But the shape is very nice, I agree you could get 2 stories out of it fairly easily, even if you have to scale it a little thicker (but probably not). Is the main entrance under the "snout" in the front?

 

Very cool work, if you export it for me and zip it up, I can add it to the X-Net web viewer too.

hehe, I think the metallica reference refered to the skull-like shape of the UFO, not that the middle looks like a guitar

 

I hope you didn't get inspiration from St. Anger or we'll have to scrap your design Himmler

[Vaaish]

I think it looks pretty nice, but how about taking out some of those harsh edges where the front joins with the main body and smoothing out those humps on the rear a little bit.

 

Another aspect to maybe try is enlongating it a little so it is the same length but not as wide. this might not give the effect we want though and might be better used on the battleship or other attack craft.

 

Very nice work though.

 

/me leaves before he accidentally gets human tech looks into the design

[Himmler]

Here is a idea for the floorplan, i scaled it to size and made a block which will fit in, that will be the interior hull at the end of the day

[Himmler]

Now the block is inside the model.

[Himmler]

Now a top view with the possible floorplan. The arrows is where i thought the best entry points would be, and the circle is the lift to the top floor.

[Himmler]

Heres the .3ds file zipped.

terror1.zip

[mikker]

what about...

 

(bottom:doubledoor, sides; singledoor)

Edited March 19, 2004 by mikker

[mikker]

2nd

[Breunor]

Yeah, I'd keep floorplan discussion in that thread, so it's not split apart between threads. It's good to know how much interior space is available Himmler, cool. My suggestion would be to keep the side sections symmetrical in size and position for now. Also, we'll very likely go with a roundish-curved floor plan, but that can be resolved later on. So long as the outer shell is smooth and level, and the upper half of the shell can be smoothly removed due to groupings, we can weld the interior section in nicely. I'll try to get the ufo uploaded this weekend, it's looking nice!

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Remember, we want the big and mean UFOs to look more agressive and dangerous than the smaller ones. This one fits that bill perfectly.

[fidel_]

How about this? I felt like doing some ufo modeling again, maybe a small scout. What do you guys think? I haven't textured it yet properly. That would be the x-net model with extra smooooth lines.

 

Here's a pic.

[fidel_]

And here's another.

[Xer0]

Wow, I like these.

 

I like how the UFO chassis is taking more of an organic structuring. Definitely an alien-esque feel to it that way.

 

I think that we should also lose the landing struts and let the bottom of the UFO actually be on the ground.

[Vaaish]

I kinda like that one. But please remove the struts... they look a little odd.

[Deimos]

Nice, fidel. The shape is interstingly both asymetric and symetric at the same time.

 

I agree with losing the struts, they do make the ufo look considerably lower tech. We want to keep an air of mystery to the aliens and one sure fire way of wonderment is the no visible means of support aspect. Check out what I did in the Alien turn thread with the glowing bottom (something intrinsically linked with ufo's) but it floats a couple of feet unsupported of the ground.

 

I'm not sure about the red panels either, they do add an extra area of interest to the model but I'm not sure its the right colour. A more neutral blue grey would fit better I think.

[mikker]

indeed, a nice design.

 

what about the top? Would aliens be able to jump out through that xcomstartmovie-style?

Edited March 31, 2004 by mikker

[Breunor]

Yes, very nice design and look to it. I agree with the floating over the use of struts, so long as the exit is still useable in those instances where the power source is destroyed and the floating feature would not be in use. (unless the floating comes from a different source) Actually, the small scout didn't have a PS did it? So the floating could happen here anyway.

 

Nice manta ray feel to it, I like!

[mikker]

Yes, very nice design and look to it. I agree with the floating over the use of struts, so long as the exit is still useable in those instances where the power source is destroyed and the floating feature would not be in use. (unless the floating comes from a different source) Actually, the small scout didn't have a PS did it? So the floating could happen here anyway.

 

Nice manta ray feel to it, I like!

I belive the xenium rectors should vary for each craft. And for anti-grav, we could simply not make it float, sitting on the ground. As long as the entrence is NOT in the bottom, that is.

[Himmler]

Great looking model my friend. I agrre with the struts and the red shade, grey/blue will look better. Try and make something work wih it standing on the ground with an exit somewhere.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

For me, it seems a bit too dark and dangerous looking to be a small scout. Although a more neutral grey texture like on Himmler's scouts would fix that right up. Other than that, it looks pretty good.

 

Edit: I'm not sure about the "beak" though. That sort of makes it look like a bird. It is too prevalent (imo).

Edited March 31, 2004 by Cpl. Facehugger

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

I think the 'beak' is actually the tail of the craft, rather than the nose (correct me if I'm wrong). The light blue triangle is a viewport of some sort.

 

-The Captain

[Breunor]

That was my understanding too, the small blue window is facing forward.

[fidel_]

That is true, the beak is actually a tail of the ship. I didn't realize it before but it does look like a manta ray, now if I would just add a long tail for it...

 

Ok, the struts are gone. The entrance to the ship as I originally planned was in the back of the ship (the yellow panel), but I guess it could be done with the antigrav elevator system too. Which one would be better?

 

I'll try to do some texturing next.

[Otterboy]

Aye that is really good, agree with the struts looking a little low tech, but they do seem to add an insect feel to me, like it is resting or something. Maybe a more organic looking strut would solve the problems of the craft hovering whilst keeping an alien, insect style feel to the craft.

 

And i also agree with the red, far to aggressive a colour, maybe there should be coloured panels on all the ships to introduce a new colou into the ship and have that change on class.

 

So whilst scout would be a neutral unaggressive grey/blue the battleship would have the red shown above to give it a more aggressive feel.

Just an idea.

[Guest drewid]

no struts good.

red panel to blue glow?

[Breunor]

What about an animated texture for the panels that cycles through various colors? It could either represent the power drive, or even some type of attempt to cloak the ufo a little, since it is a recon scout and needs to blend in.

[j'ordos]

Do you mean different RANDOM colors? If not, we could make it use some colors associated with different terrain types: for example, it has landed in a forest, and those panel colors cycle through several green/brown colors, in the arctic it would be mainly white/blueish colors, and so on.

[fidel_]

Animated texture might be nice, it would fit well in those places I currently have that blue organic texture (bottom of the ship). Making the whole ship animated might be a bit difficult though, at least with the current texturing I've done. The gloving panels for the sides of the ship might be interesting too, I'll give it a try. Different colour variations for different climates should be pretty easy to do if needed.

 

Here's some further textured pics. This is the low poly model (1180 polys). Sorry for the textures being a bit dark.

 

edit: forgot the pic

Edited April 1, 2004 by fidel_

[mikker]

incredibly nice skinning job you got there. But how does it look with the sheen? Edited April 1, 2004 by mikker

[Breunor]

If you've seen Deimos' video clips of the avenger with its sheen effect, that will be similar here. The main texture you see predominates, but the viewer would also see the irridescent sheen over it all, just not overpowering.

 

Yeah, my thought was for just the panels under the wings and along the side would have the animated texture. It wouldn't be all colors like a rainbow, just variations of the base color used.

[Himmler]

Now that looks much better my friend, love the dark textures, looks brilliant.

 

As for my Terror ship, im busy making the interior{bloody difficult }

 

Heres a few pics let me know what you think.

[Himmler]

number 2

[Himmler]

number 3

[Himmler]

last one

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

Is the red bit the size/scale block? That thing is huge! It would sure scare the bejeezus out of me to walk my guys into that thing.

 

-The Captain

[Himmler]

Yeah the red block is the scale block, its meant to scare you though

[[[Micah]]]

It's looking really good, Himmler. I can imagine the two hatches openning and the alien terrorists pouring out.

[Breunor]

That's a very cool looking ufo Himmler. I would suggest moving the swinging door further out towards the edge, rather than having the whole thing swing up, just a smaller section towards the end would allow more interior space.

[Deimos]

Yes, yes and thrice yes. Those ufo's are starting to look amazing. Fidel I love the texturing work you've done on yours and Himmler one scary looking 'FO' Just as a brainfart of an idea how about modelling some big donkey plasma cannons on the edges of both doors. That way it could double up as a 'gunship' as well as terror ship.

 

How tall is the terror ship, just out of interest?

 

Oh and nice idea to include the scale block in the craft, it gives us all a clear idea of what the size of the ship would look like. I'm all excited to see what the battleship's gonna look like if the ufo's we have now are a judgement of quality.

[Himmler]

Thanx guys for the good words, i was wondering if i cant get the model of the plasma cannons somewhere. Is it on the FTP?

 

Yeah Breunor, i was actually thinking of doing that this afternoon, cause it would give more enclosed areas of entry, but those big doors really give a extremelly fearsom atmosphere, and i think we might loose that with the smaller doors.

 

Do you think i should still make it like that just to see how it looks?

[mikker]

Thanx guys for the good words, i was wondering if i cant get the model of the plasma cannons somewhere. Is it on the FTP?

Still have a way to go before being near a final.

 

It's not on top of my "to-do" list.

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

We probably shouldn't use the hybrid-technology plasma cannons on the alien ships anyways....of course, that would mean coming up with something else. Maybe just sufficiantly ominous looking tubes poking out. Since (unlike the X-Corps version) the'll never be seen seperate from the UFO, we probably get away with it.

 

-The Captain

[Breunor]

Hey Himmler, there's a copy of the plasma cannon in ms3d format in the http://www.projectxenocide.com/artassets/models/ folder, you can use IE or whatever to browse there and download. I agree with not worrying about showing external weapons on the ufo, and going more with internal systems that just poke out a little bit or have "holes of doom" where the weapons fire from.

[Tiskaite]

amazing work guys =)

[mikker]

We probably shouldn't use the hybrid-technology plasma cannons on the alien ships anyways....of course, that would mean coming up with something else.  Maybe just sufficiantly ominous looking tubes poking out.  Since (unlike the X-Corps version) the'll never be seen seperate from the UFO, we probably get away with it.

 

-The Captain

oh yeah. Thats true...

[Himmler]

Can we plz update the web-viewer? I wanna see the terror ship and the small scout on their.

[Deimos]

Can we plz update the web-viewer? I wanna see the terror ship and the small scout on their.

The ufo's will get added when they're finished, right now they are still at concept stage. Though I'll be the first to say they look good, they still need work before we can call them complete.

 

We need the interior space designed and modelled and they need to be finalised before we can set the hulls in stone for use in game.

 

For those interested we do need the designs playtested before we commit to an interior shape, so if you guys want to see these ufo's in game get testing

[Breunor]

Also, I can put current concepts up their as placeholders so long as I know where to find the model. For those making ufo models, you can post an attachment of the model file along with your concept pictures if you like, just make sure your specular settings for materials aren't maxed out, that's a common item I fix when importing to the viewer.

 

Please point me to the uploaded model files, and I'll add them to the 3D viewer at least as placeholders for now. Thanks!

[Himmler]

How can i get testing ? Really would like to see themworking in the engine.

[Breunor]

If you mean testing in the 3D web viewer, it requires your model be in ms3d format. So after saving the model with Milkshape in the same folder as the texture (required), open the web viewer page and right-click in the viewing window. "Open File" is an option in the pop-up menu, browse to your ms3d file. It will load, and you can choose what settings you like from the right-click menu. Once you have the settings you like, right-click and choose "Create Model". This will make a compressed file that includes the texture and has a msz extension.