Thanks guys...

I thought this one turned out pretty good too.

Can you explain how you texture?

Very nice, doesn't have be beam weapon mounts, can be adornments, decorative. In either case of the pics you posted, better than any thing I've thought of creating  when I was playing RPG's back in high school and that was a long time ago....

The ship can function perfectly well with only side oriented weapon banks.  In the entity file, I think giving a high maxRollRate will make it turn quick to get weapons to bear, but don't quote me on that.

I'm not really that good, but make due with what I can.

I basically use a lot of layers in Gimp combined with a 3d paint program to view the results as I make changes. I try to get the uv-map symmetrical so I only have to worry about texturing one side basically.

There's quite a few videos on how to texture, but I'll be honest I've just suffered my way through with trial and error most the time.

They do. I also like the understated prow weaponry now that I get a good look at it.

Hmmm.... I don't know.  It looks ok, but something just doesn't seem to look right.  Can't put my finger on it....... 

Two of the Undead ships I showed earlier in the thread are finally ingame and actually functioning.

Now I LOVE the look of those!

I dunno. The black wash never gets me too excited. Hey, is there a vessel with a brown texture at the top of the first image?

That is one of the old models that never got "updated" to look like the rest of the Undead ships. Due to how desynced missile damage/graphics are I may not even keep that particular class in the game as it always deals its damage long after or before its map-wide missile hits.

I wish I could get the UD to look like they're supposed to but that's as close as I can get them without being able to write low-level shaders/materials. I can't even get them to look proper in 3ds max.

/e

And now the Tyranny is in, sounds particles and all. I need to model more UD ships to make more progress with them but I'll probably focus on getting my current unfinished Anahn ships into the game. My hands hurt too much to model for a while.

I give the Tyranny this much, the lights add more definition to the figure, making it more palatable. I assume that your ultimate goal would be to have a matte light reflection quality to the vessels, thus allowing the overlapping edges of the black to have some definition?

Edit: Keep in mind I'm not bashing your work. You know I like your models. It's just the solid black thing.

Have you seen Shadow Raiders before? I want the Undead to look somewhat akin to the Beast. A combination of depth, light-ignoring reflectivity of stars and darkness, and the aura/glow.

The most I have been able to get in games is the darkness and glow. Proper reflectivity, or at least a cubemap to fake the reflection of fake stars or abyss or such, has not really been possible. Reflectivity/cubemapping like that in sins in particular does not like co-existing with the bloom. I'm pretty sure I'd need a custom shader.

This is one I made in max but I can't even get this old material to work properly now since it's ancient. I would have liked the glow to be uniform, and no reflection of surface lighting... buut I am not really fluent in materials. I'll be trying it again when I get to the CGI portion of episode 1.

Yeah, I see what you want and the above pic works for me. More than anything, I just like seeing the depth and being able to tell what overlaps what. If you could get something like that, and I totally understand the limitations of Sins, it would be absolutely epic. It would be cool to see you given an engine with far more freedom.

I think the best you could do is give the pure black sections some value in the specular and reflection channels.  You'd have to play around with the respective values to get something close-ish to what you're going for but it would at least give the shape of the ship a little depth.  You could also play around with the "gloss" setting in the mesh... although I have yet to really see an example of what that will do.

I also think a very subtle, organic looking texture to give it a near black "skin" look would help.  Especially in conjunction with the above.

I know that these two things may not give you the look you're really after but, as you said, you are limitted by what the Sins engine can do.  You're models are fantastic but the in-game shots make them look somewhat... unfinished?  Like they are simply missing the textures.  And Draakjacht is right, currently you can see no depth on them.  A very dark skin would help you see overlaps and hull details.

Still, great work as always.  You make me jealous of your modelling skills and you've posted several shots that make me wish I had access to them for my own modding projects.

-dolynick

Quoted for truth.

I agree. It looks like you've maybe done something with the textures, just hard to tell.

Ok, this is more of a 3d pencil sketch of a model I'm texturing. More of a pre-cursor to adding actual color.

Model by: Lord_Set for Dawn of the Reapers

Here's what I ended up with...

Nice job ZombiesRus.  Interesting design and the texture works well.

-dolynick

It's a concept for a Turian cruiser from the Mass Effect univers. Their ships all kinda look like this though this is an extension of the modellers imagination based off Turian looks.

This was really my first honest attempt at manually laying out a uv-map and hand drawing details onto the texture. I was also able to generate a decent AO map using the uv I built

The humble beginnings of an Anahn carrier. The only Royal Family carrier class that will be added to the game. Carries Chimera MK2's of all available classes. It will also be very heavily loaded in anti-fighter-destroyer weaponry, and double as a command ship. It is, however, smaller than most Battlecruiser classes and thus very vulnerable to heavy anti-capital weaponry.

Royal Carriers of the Exarch class almost always operate in task forces independent of the main fleet to avoid the threat of extremely long-ranged battleship weaponry. Their fighters would enter jump points created by probes/drones to attack systems away.

Individual Exarchs don't service merely a few squadrons of fighters, but thousands of heavily armed multi-platform machines devoted to extended campaigns too difficult for large ships or artillery to reach.

I am gargling to make sure my voice is in mint condition for when I have to squee at the finished product.

Now with some powerguns & compressor cannons.

/edit

And now I am as far as I care to do.

Lol.  I would so steal that model if I could.   Nice work IskatuMesk.  As always.

-dolynick