Oolite Bulletins

Playing around in Blender a bit, I decided I try to see what I could whip up.


This render shows my first ship, I made this a while back, and I'm sort of happy with it. It's alright, I guess, but it seems totally out of scale to me. I'm gonna be changing some of the proportions around a bit.

Working on this one today. Not happy with this one, as it started out as a weird sort of WWII fighter thing, went through a brief phase I thought looked good (but had many disconnected faces/objects) and now it's a generic Naboo fighter that looks rather plain.

Well, in any case, I'm learning, so I'll post new stuff periodically. What do you guys think? Comments and Criticism welcome, and any tips you oculd drop would be nice.

They look rather good! I like the top one more - probably because of the slightly unbalanced look gives it more of a personality! The second one looks like a space version of the F4U Corsair WW2 fighter, so it's an instand win to me.

Keep it up!

Nice, the conventional plane style is pretty rare these days, keep em coming.

Nice work. Always save at stages of happiness. Blender saves uniquely everytime, if I recall, so add an 'h'for happiness and then experiment. Render often to see if you have face over lap (looks like static).

If you want to design something unique, try to look around your house for different things. Collect funny shaped pieces of trash you find in the street (just look confident and arty! ) Don't be afraid to download other models to see if there is something about the basic shape you like, or could adapt, even if its a toaster or a houselamp.

Sketch rough drawings on paper. Don't have to be works of art, because the model program will take care of straight lines and perspective and stuff.

Also, don't panic if it looks a little like something else. Its a rare thing that is truly unique and the human eye is trained to look for familiarity.

Particulary experiment with smoothing. Things that look plain blocky can look amazing with one or two (face and vertice limit notwithstanding) levels of smoothing. Remember you can usually smooth parts of the ship if you like angular areas of you design, for example the wings of your top craft.

Good idea. We could also do with a 'modeller's cove' thread like the scripters have.

We could just call 'em the Shipyards or something.

The Drydocks?

Shipwright's Station?

I think it'd be great if we had some place where we could just talk about ship design, whether it be in a "what looks best" or a "what actually works" manner. I want to see what the main designers think, and emulate it.

I'll start a thread and see if I can get it stickied.

Amen Brick wrote:

don't panic

That's my line... . I'll kill you! . just joking.


Any way, nice models. I hope A nice ship comes out!

Don't Panic: FSOneblin

Stromboli wrote:

This reminds me a bit of these:

From Space: Above and Beyond. Image from Wolf's Shipyard/Other Genres/Misc/SA-43 Hammerhead http://wolfsshipyard.mystarship.com/

Captain Hesperus

Well, after some work in Wings 3D, I came up with this little feller.

Still working on some textures, but the body work should be done. I'm curious as to how you guys go about texturing.

As you can see, right now all it's got is the good old flat gray paint job, with no surface details or greebles at all.

A slight revision in the above ship made for some easier texturing.


Front view...


Another view...

I'm pleased with how it turned out, I'm still trying to learn how to make some good jet booster/engine drawing thing, but otherwise it should be complete. Luckily for me, I've made the texture easy to modify cleanly. Any suggestions for more details/color choices on the texture?

And what do you all think? This is my first textured model so far.

Oh, and it's still working in a bmp and only in a bmp format. Wings looks for a texture with a bmp extension and won't find anything else.

Wings defaults to a BMP file when you export the texture. On the Save File interface it does have a drop down box to select the file type, and lists BMP, PNG, TGA and JPG. Normally we use PNGs!

Stromboli wrote:

A slight revision in the above ship made for some easier texturing.


Front view...


Another view...

I'm pleased with how it turned out, I'm still trying to learn how to make some good jet booster/engine drawing thing, but otherwise it should be complete. Luckily for me, I've made the texture easy to modify cleanly. Any suggestions for more details/color choices on the texture?

And what do you all think? This is my first textured model so far.

That's very good! It's kind of a shuttle craft sort of size? One small thing, purely asthetics. the nose, have you considered a cut off air intake at a backward facing 45 degree angle? Instead of tapering to a point?

You've got me thinking where to look for good ship design. Then it hit me lego. It's angular and a serious sculpting medium, you don't have to rip it off brick for brick and half the planet has put up a picture on brickshelf or one of the 500 other lego sites.

for example:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/peloq ... v_0801.jpg
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3271754
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3256811
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3246395

Those are awesome!

Yeah, actually, the one I'm working on now has a sort of "snub" nose design. I'm intending to model some kind of grill on the front. I'll post some screens of it when it's close to ready.