Ufo Design

[Kamikazee]

I hope this doesn't sound to critical...

Himmler i loved the first version it looked great, but the latest one is kinda lacking in my opinion. The flaps just make it look like some sorta demented pigeon or something!? could you not put the door onder the nose of the ship? other than that its gotta be one of my favs so far!

or at least make the flaps silver, That skulls just to cool to lose

[Guest drewid]

I like the skull shape. I think Breunor is right about making the flaps smaller though, any hatch is a weakspot, and a big hatch is a bigger weakspot. I think the aliens would avoid that.

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

It would also double or triple the interior space if the 'loading ramp' area (currently exposed when the lid is open) was enclosed. Maybe set it up as terrorist-alien holds, with stalls & food supplies on one side (for Rpators, Spawn, and Ventriculants) and a maintence bays on the other (for Terror Disks and Artopods).

 

-The Captain

[Himmler]

Heres a PRETTY picture of the Terror ship. {no changes yet been made, will do soon}

 

EDIT by Deimos: Reduced size to 800x600. Please keep images below this size, thanks.

Edited April 20, 2004 by Deimos

[[[Micah]]]

Wow Himmler, pretty indeed. Poor dialup users

[j'ordos]

If there's one comment I may add: I don't really like the 'giant door hinges' on the side doors, they don't match the rest of the UFO. Maybe if you made the roof follow the same contours as that hinge, or the other way round?

[red knight]

Looking good, May I ask a smaller picture from another angle???

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[Vaaish]

I agree the hinges on those doors don't look like the product of a highly advanced alien civilization. They look like moden human door hinges.

[fidel_]

I experimented some with the engine effects for my ufo. The animation is about 10 textures long (150x75 in size, but I can make it smaller if needed). Tell me what you think.

engine.zip

[Breunor]

That effect rocks Fidel, very cool looking. Is this model uploaded already? I don't have this one in the viewer yet. Coolio!

[fux0r666]

My one complaint about the model (if I was searching for one) is that the doors look very low tech and overly large. It sort of looks like it would be a cargo carrying design meant to load and unload vehicles or something.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Well, some of those large terror weapons are like light vehicles. Specifically the Artopod and Raptor.

[fux0r666]

Very true. I did not think about it that way.

 

The terror ships were quite large, though, if I recall correctly. Those doors would be gigantic.

[red knight]

I like very much the glow of the engine. Excelent work, I suggest put that in the main site.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[Puasonen]

Damn fidel! Those videos look great! Especially the one which shows the engines. It looks great on loop too!

 

Terror ship:

I agree with everyone here, the doors look a bit low tech but the size is ok. I don't have any suggestions how to make them better though. :Blush:

[Deimos]

Flashy light alert!

Oh Fidel that is purdy.

 

I like the almost marine influence you have going on with the engine glows. Top stuff.

 

How about as a challenge run up a small (30 sec) animation cycle of the ufo showing it taking off, buzzing around and landing. Pure eye candy stuff but it always generates a buzz. If you can get the landing zone and takeoff zone to be the same and then the vid will loop. Like RK says we should have this up on the main page.

[SupSuper]

Shazaam!

Wow fidel that's like awesome! Those UFO effects are beautiful

[red knight]

Always remember that I have a render farm of 2 machines if we need to render large things (I have mine contributing to Seti@Home but I can switch priorities of course).

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[Breunor]

I was going to suggest that ufo model might go nicely with Deimos' cityscape and XC-1 chase scene. Have the ufo path through the buildings, zig/zag like, as the jet tries to keep up, and at the end the jet times a shot that drops the ufo?

[[[Micah]]]

Always remember that I have a render farm of 2 machines if we need to render large things (I have mine contributing to Seti@Home but I can switch priorities of course).

 

Greetings

Red Knight

Mindstormmaster also recently reminded me that they have a fairly decent render farm set up at his school, too.

[Deimos]

Yeah a renderfarm is going to be useful for the bigger jobs and believe me the cityscape is one of the bigger jobs.

 

Also anyone else that is interested in doing some animaiton work (hint hint Fidel ) all you'll need to do is set up the assets for the render, do lots of test renders to make sure it looks right and get in touch.

[Himmler]

K, im back, and i have changed the doors on the terror ship, have a look

[Himmler]

Doors open

[Himmler]

Animations showing the doors open

terror.zip

[Puasonen]

Okay, that's a lot better, I liked it! Good job Himmler and welcome back!

[red knight]

Very nice change but you should do some pictures in front of the door with the reference box and a character to know how big is it.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[Himmler]

The red tiny thing their is the scale block ...

[j'ordos]

These doors are much better

The only thing I'd like to see now is a smoother transition between door and hull, so it looks like the door is part of the hull instead of a separate piece, if possible

[Arky]

Okay... I've just read through all the 13 pages...

 

The terror ship looks really nice. The first draft made me think of the USS Defiant from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, but I'm surpised to say that you've done a terrific job with the model Himmler

 

However, what it would look like if it had 2 floors (like adding another floor module under it) ?

 

Also I liked the purple "sensor" line the medium scout had (was it?)... I think we should do the same on this model... it would make it bulkier (see image)

Edited May 27, 2004 by Arky

[Breunor]

The sliding doors look good. I bet they could be positioned very close to the hull and look flush to it like j'ordos said, and as part of the open animation they lift up a little then slide?

 

The one thing that makes me wonder, is due to the size of it the moveable part of the doors seems really large. If you look at the pics showing the rear quarter of the craft as the doors open, you'll see the light glare where the hull angle changes. IMO that's where the moving parts should stop, and the rest going back towards the center should be static hull pieces. That still gives a 10'x10' opening based on the scale block. This allows a little more interior space too, rather than requiring a hallway straight back.

[MagicAndy]

Actually, reminds me of the Stargate ships.

 

Good job though. What ever happened to the interior designs, did we decide or just decide to wait?

[fux0r666]

For gameplay purposes it would provide a much different tactical experience, especially after you get the flight suits, as you will be able to hover over the doors and shoot 3/4 the way into the ship.

[mikker]

For gameplay purposes it would provide a much different tactical experience, especially after you get the flight suits, as you will be able to hover over the doors and shoot 3/4 the way into the ship.

hmmm.....what if its made this way.

 

i know its a poor image, but you get the point. The doors lead up to the upper layer, where a lift takes you down to the lower. The upper is containment for terror units, the lower for navigators and the like. The other aliens are here and there. This way, you wont be able to shoot all the aliens. If theres room inside, it will be even better.

[Arky]

For gameplay purposes it would provide a much different tactical experience, especially after you get the flight suits, as you will be able to hover over the doors and shoot 3/4 the way into the ship.

hmmm.....what if its made this way.

 

i know its a poor image, but you get the point. The doors lead up to the upper layer, where a lift takes you down to the lower. The upper is containment for terror units, the lower for navigators and the like. The other aliens are here and there. This way, you wont be able to shoot all the aliens. If theres room inside, it will be even better.

That would come up to the colony supply ships in TFTD... not a bad idea... -_- (link to picture here)

 

(you get on the top floor first, after you get below.)

 

Could we make this a 3 floor ship?

Edited May 27, 2004 by Arky

[Breunor]

As to the interior designs, I think that was put on hold for now as it could be done at any time, yet discussion about what is a good tactical challenge versus tough to crack and thus frustrating still would be needed. So the idea was that interior and exterior could happen seperately, and the hull filler could bridge the two parts.

 

If a terror ship always have floater/satyrians, then having the hatch open up to 2 levels at once might make sense. You let the wild terror units out on ground level while the floaters stay safely in the air. But that doesn't fit with how I remember the aliens behaving IIRC. Having a ramp lead to the upper level first would be novel, but would it make good use of space and/or make sense from a design standpoint? Perhaps one side has a ramp up, and the other leads directly to the lower level, and there is a lift or two inside connecting them? This can probably be worked out as part of the interior setup though. Whichever way you went on the inside though, a smaller entry hatch would still work I think. But if everybody like the current setup that's fine too.

[mikker]

i also have a thing on the proportions of the terror craft. Are those things made to land in small confined areas? If so, a pancake design isn't the smartest. But if its just ment to hover above the ground, it doesn't matter.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

IIRC in the Xcom intro, the terrorship dropped 'paramutons', it never landed. Perhaps it only lands when it gets shot down?

 

But I must say that the current design is great! I especially love the big doors, they have a kind of otherworldly feel to them, that you know that hunams didn't build it.

[mikker]

Yeah, that sounds right. But it does depend on the alien tactics. If they DO parachute (kanonballize) the aliens out, the craft could take off again without any problem.

 

BTW, how many stories is it? 2, or only 1?

Edited May 28, 2004 by mikker

[fux0r666]

If that ship was 3 floors high in the shape it is now, it would be hundreds of yards across (in my rough, unmathmatical estimation). Edited May 29, 2004 by fux0r666

[Himmler]

Yeah, i think 3 stories will fit easilly

[mikker]

Yeah, i think 3 stories will fit easilly

how big is that ship? It should be roughly the size in x-com. This seem to be 100 times bigger.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I don't know, Mikker. The Terrorship in Xcom1 was pretty big.

 

For that matter, why does it matter? A bigger terrorship would make more sense, I always thought they were cramped (you couldn't fit twelve sectopods in one of those things back in the day!)

[Breunor]

Well we want to battleship to be the largest, so long as the scale isn't way out there we're ok. You just don't want somthing the size of Sri Lanka to assault...

 

Could a copy of the models be uploaded along with textures please? I'd like to update to X-Net viewer with these, thanks!

[Himmler]

The current model has been uploaded to the ftp under /data/models/ufocrafts/terror.3ds

 

Im also gonna upload the hollow Medium scout as the viewer still has the solid one loaded. Thus /data/models/ufocrafts/mscouthollow.3ds

[mikker]

The current model has been uploaded to the ftp under /data/models/ufocrafts/terror.3ds

 

Im also gonna upload the hollow Medium scout as the viewer still has the solid one loaded. Thus /data/models/ufocrafts/mscouthollow.3ds

how do i access the ftp?

[[[Micah]]]

The current model has been uploaded to the ftp under /data/models/ufocrafts/terror.3ds

 

Im also gonna upload the hollow Medium scout as the viewer still has the solid one loaded. Thus /data/models/ufocrafts/mscouthollow.3ds

how do i access the ftp?

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3655

[Breunor]

Thanks, got the 3ds files. I guess splitting the model and texture isn't the best idea, I'd suggest just uploading a zip with both for anything made. I looked around and couldn't find the texture parts.

[Breunor]

As a follow-up on those, the medium scout still has the issue of the outer hull and inner flooring faces overlapping, and the same effect appears to be in the top of the outer hull, above the outer hatch. Just grab the offending verts and drag them out of each others way to resolve that.

 

On the terror ship, when removing the top hull/roof, there are some exposed backfaces around the perimeter of the room. This can be taken care of when making interior floor plans, but I would either seal off those spots or move the interior walls out as far as they can go to leave room for the interior sections.

[Himmler]

k, i uploaded the textures to that same folder, and i have redone the medium scout, see if it works please. About the Terror-ship, please upload it to the viewer as is for time being. I will fix the holes as i tweak the model.

 

For those interested i have made small .avi file movie of my scout, from a FPS view. It looks kinda cool, check it out.

mediumscout.zip

[FabGuy]

I definately like it!

 

Maybe a little bit of a glow in the pinkish section of the ship would make it more earie...