Just a question: Do you like what I did to the engines?

I thing the orginal color theme is bad, so I tried to alter it.
The map itself is easy to edit.
Currently it's ~25% done.

I like it.. But not in combination with the rest of the ship...

The problem with the Boanerges are many fold, yes the map sucks. But the model itself is ugly and the ship handles worse than a brick. The payload is decent but the ship can barely live long enough to deploy half of it.

On topic, it looks good DaB.

Yeah I know the ship is ugly... Can't do very much about this matter, but I'll do my best.

I'm trying to simulate a hull structure, so the ship will look less like just a brick.
Bumpmapping would be more effective though.


Here is a better shot of the engine part: Edit: The old map had an engine without any characteristic.

Edit: Just in case you wonder. I am using a test shinemap for my map.

The shinemap alone looks wonderful.

I think the color of the engines will have to be changed later on, to match better. But you are doing a wonderful job on it.

How do you create the scrathed metal texture?

Hmm...I'm thinking the engines really ought to look homogenous with the rest of the hull. That's pretty much the rule on Terran craft, and it makes sense because they're all under the same armor sheathe.

The shinemap alone looks wonderful.

I think the color of the engines will have to be changed later on, to match better. But you are doing a wonderful job on it.

How do you create the scrathed metal texture?

I got that one from gfx-inside (dead now) I think. I have a few hundred MB full of free textures, self-created textures and photo textures (most of them shot by me).

But I tend to modify/mix them when I use them for maps. (And I tend to have favourite textures . You'll see what I mean when I release the supportship map. )

Hmm...I'm thinking the engines really ought to look homogenous with the rest of the hull. That's pretty much the rule on Terran craft, and it makes sense because they're all under the same armor sheathe.

I can't argue with that one.
But from the optical point of view, it looks just boring if the whole ship looks the same. Some parts should look different.

Lets say the engine needs another kind of armor plate due to the high temperatures that are created. Or ... stuff.

There you are

Blend it in a little bit more with the normal textures, if you get what I mean.

Hmm...I'm thinking the engines really ought to look homogenous with the rest of the hull. That's pretty much the rule on Terran craft, and it makes sense because they're all under the same armor sheathe.

Generally, if you're flying a brick, you'd want to make sure that Brick's engines are armored enough that is doesn't ever stop.

From a strictly asthetic perspective, the Boanerges needs textures that do as little as possible to accentuate it's geometry. The thing already looks way too primitive, and anything that brings out the simpleness of the shape, such as those engine blocks, is generally bad practice. The technique is good and I like the result, I just think it needs to be much more uniform.

I'm with Stratcomm - the idea is sound, but the Boanerges is far from the ideal ship to try it on.

Singh: exactly. No weak seams where the armor changes.

The topic is continued here:
http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/ ... post557375

Hygeia release!
And WIP updates.

...woah. That is the bomb.