A few spaceships - Need some tips

Greets,

I'm finally satisfied enough with progress on my little spaceships that I am prepared to share them. They are still not perfect, I expect to make changes to them, and the purpose of sharing them here is to garner some insights and tips from the community.

I have been looking for a way to "greeble" my low poly models while keeping them small and low poly, without the luxury of Max, Lightwave or Maya. They're all great packages, and I have had the pleasure of playing with them back in the day, but I'm budgetarily challenged... Anyone?

The ships range in complexity from 256 polys to a maximum of 1500 polys. The skins are 256x256 to 1024x1024. Many of the ships are modelled based on pictures and other works found on the internet (props to those interpid souls), but all are original, hand made, using the latest tools (MED!).

I will post a model or two as time permits. Please tell me what you like, what you hate, and how to better the model, and the modeller.

Cheers!
Mark

Ship number one is the first ship that a player would pilot in my unfinished space opera. It is not quick, but reliable, lightly armored and can carry few weapons.



The next ship is very similar, a little broader, and of course, a ligher skin. It's differences are performace based, so irrelevant in a aesthetics discussion.



The next one is a small skip, assuming the player gets blown to bits, this is the affordable alternative to those above. LOL Not much to look at, and not much to pilot, but it gets the job done.



LAst one for today. These are all very small ships, this one adds a second seat for a hired crew member. Similar performance and size as the second ship.



Cheers!
Mark

Hey, the ships are nice, simple and for low-poly very good, but you should do something about the skins. Because some parts of the ships do not allign with other parts. For example, in the first and second image the side and front does not allign with the top of the ship.

I would like to give me C&C about this but the images aren't visible here on the other side

Thanks in progress

Frazzle

I cant see them either

Hey Hey MadMark, Not sure if you remember me, but we worked on a project together a few years back.

Well, the ships do have a nice shape. But i'll have to agree with the others... The skins don't quite line-up as they should.

Hey DarkWhoppy, yep. I remember you.

Thanks for the comments guys. Bear in mind these are the oldest of the 100+ ships that I've done, and will probably need the most work. I hope so, anyway. I guess I need to get 'em back on the skinning mill. So, the question here is, what do you do to "line up your skins better"?

Mark

Okay, Yahoo is really limiting the amount of times an image can be displayed. Lame. I'm looking for a better host.

So I was going to post a few more of the early ships. Probably need to go about this in a better manner. Once I find a better host, I will post some snaps of the LATEST ships, and rework the old ones. Looking at the class 1's I can see that you are right, the skinning really doesn't suck so much as it bites.

Mark

Hey MadMark, for image hosting I always use this site: http://imageshack.us/

Thanks Molotov, I will check them out for future hosting.
In the meantime, I'm going to post the latest ship that I have worked on as an experiment, just to see if my Microsoft storage space will allow linking to the pics...

This one is a Class 8 ship, based on BattleStar Gallactica. Textures are VERY raw, and will need further massaging. I'm thinking that I am going to look at Blender again, and invest the time to get to know the interface. It has a greebling plug-in available that seems to possibly do what I need. Anyway, here she is. Again, the large (seems small against this behemoth) space station is included for size reference. I will take any suggestions for improvement.


With luck that will display.
Just for the sake of posting something more finished, here is a similar ship, also a class 8, based on BSG with a more finished skin. Suggestions as well.


Cheers!
Mark

Fiddled about with the first 2 ship skins. Looks a little better?


And the second one...


Mark

Here is a link to the album. Classes 1 through 8, players' ships.
[url=DELETED[/url]

Alien & NPC ships will be added later...

Mark

OY VAY! Doesn't like the IFRAME! Ya gotta love the internet...
SHIPS ALBUM

Mark

some parts somehow dont really fit dont know exactly why
but now I can see the pics they dont look bad

Hmmm, what parts don't fit exactly? Why?

The ships are very varied, that is for certain. They are meant to be diverse.
I have reworked some of the skins and overhauled a bunch as well. There are 89 pictures in the album at the moment, counting the 1 with 3 cargo pods.

Ships Album

Mark

It's not bad but the model's form is abit to straight, it doesn't give a real space ship look but the texture makes up for that abit Althought, the texture is also abit blurred/stretched out for these days standards but I'm sure you'll still need to improve it


Cheers

Frazzle

It looks good for low poly mods..

The ship has a cargo shuttle feel? Is this intended? Also the use of wings at the back give the sense that it has to land in an atmosphere. Thats just my view.

Yeah, the game that I was making these for was a typical collect the cargo, trade the cargo, buy the upgrades space opera. All of the early ships were meant to be very much cargo haulers.

Later ships were intended to add more complexity and militaristic capabilities, but most retained the basic hauler design at their core.

As for the wings, good point, but popular culture has put wings on spaceships, most SciFi flicks still puts wings on their smaller ships, I like wings, and if I didn't stick wings on the little ones, they would look like little shiny tubes... If I posted a cylinder titled "Spaceship 1", I'm pretty sure there would be a post or two asking why there were no wings or what brand of crack I'm smoking these days. LOL

I know that in space, there is no need for tail fins, stabalizers or flaps. Still, doesn't hurt when trtying to present a vehicle of flight. Windows aren't a necessity, but they make the ships more interesting, at least to me, and especially when the player boards one of the larger vessels and looks out.

Remember, in space, no one can hear you cuss, swear, and plot your revenge...

Mark