Outlaw Star (in regards to an old post)

Question: why can’t we redesign this ship[?]
I mean the original ship was designed to infiltrate and capture enemy ships.
We can just create a new combat version that keeps 90% of the original design. Instead of the forward pop-up guns I can create normal forward facing guns either mounted inside the ship (like on modern fighter planes) or exterior (you can see the gun sticking out of the hull).

One thing that is giving me problems are the spherical turrets (not the lower one). When they will rotate there will appear some weird polygon overlaps. To get the idea make two identical low polygon spheres with the same pivot point and rotate one of them. You’ll see pieces of one of the spheres sticking out or the other. A solution would bee to scale one bigger than the other or to make it higher poly. This detail may look insignificant but I have an obsession for perfection (it’s just me). I can redesign those turrets to counteract this.

3Ds Max does not give me a poly restriction to a given model. I can go up to 500.000 ploys in a single mesh (in this case it can slow down your computer). I find it easier to make the entire ship and then breaking it up into separate sections.

From all I know in isn’t necessary for a turret body and the turret gun to have the same pivot point, is it? Anyway if it isn’t simply declare the ring as the turret body. Weird mounted guns or turrets are not new. Theoretically you can mount a gun anywhere you like. And don’t worry about the lateral missile pods. I’ve experimented launching missiles at enemies lateral and even behind you. It takes a little time for the missile to point at the target but it eventually hits it or missies by a few meters (in I-War that is close).

Also remember that the player will want to dock to a pod with out blocking any weapons. I think that two dock ports are in order (one behind the lower turret and one somewhere above the drill).

P.S. I have a couple of exams coming up so I won’t do anything new for the next 3-4 weeks. After that there will be clear skies all the way.



When a boss says “Go!� the leader says “Let’s move out!�

yeah I was thinking about that. I've been using lightwave to make a basic shell so that I can mess around with null point placements. As for the turret, I'll try setting one up that you might be usable. I know a way to keep that from happening, I just dont know how to animate it.



<hr noshade size="1">Smith - "12 docking turrets, 15 quadpack launchers, 6 antimatter pbc's, and 2 turret fighters, all mounted on a megafreighter."

Cal - "Ya think that'll be enough? I mean we're just going to the store."

Smith - "You know you're right, I'd better mount on some antimatter streams."

Heres what I've got so far for the basic shell, it's around 50% complete. It's not that bad considering that I have absolutely no artistic talent. I hope this helps out a bit with the basic dementions. Although the mid-section is a little longer than it should be, but as I said, I have artistic talent. I'm anxious to get this done but I too have finals.

newarzone.low-ping.com/user/3039 ... 20star.lwo

If we do tweek the original design a bit, I still would like the original weapons to be added as part of the skin. Or they could be removed and have the skin setup as if they were just retracted, that way I can add them in later when I get some skills with this stuff.

<hr noshade size="1">Smith - "12 docking turrets, 15 quadpack launchers, 6 antimatter pbc's, and 2 turret fighters, all mounted on a megafreighter."

Cal - "Ya think that'll be enough? I mean we're just going to the store."

Smith - "You know you're right, I'd better mount on some antimatter streams."

I forgot to inform you that 3Ds max dos not read lwo formats and vice-versa. The only format they can read is 3ds. All programs for modeling can export or import this kind of file.

When a boss says “Go!� the leader says “Let’s move out!�

Here's a screenshot, but it doesn't really give you an idea of the demensions. So to give you a idea of its size, the true overall size should be X=24m , Y=19m , and Z=75m. However, the demensions in the pic are X=24m, Y=24m, and Z=69m (I told you I'm not an artist.)

Although if you have limewire you can dl a copy of lightwave 7, it just wont have any of the extra content. But it's enough to view lightwave objects, and create basic shells like this.

<hr noshade size="1">Smith - "12 docking turrets, 15 quadpack launchers, 6 antimatter pbc's, and 2 turret fighters, all mounted on a megafreighter."

Cal - "Ya think that'll be enough? I mean we're just going to the store."

Smith - "You know you're right, I'd better mount on some antimatter streams."

Not bad for a first model.
What I’m doing is copying an existing design. Nothing special. We become artists when we add something new. Also remember that we can modify this ship to our own will. We can make it look cooler and more powerful than the original.

But now we’ve got finals to worry about. After this well have more than enough time to finish this mod.

EDIT
This is were I am
The smal cube is were the ship ends:
community.webshots.com/photo/282 ... 5635JztsHc
When a boss says “Go!� the leader says “Let’s move out!�