Viper Mk II - Take II - Part II

[D.M.J.]

THE STORY SO FAR...

I made a Viper Mk II mesh. Then I saw JeffrySG's Viper Mk II. I decided that I could no longer stand the abomination I had created so I rebuilt it in its entirety about a dozen times, each time coming closer in accuracy. JeffrySG and Al3d- gave me advice, references and in once case an entire decal, and my gratitude to them is boundless.

NOW READ ON...

Inspired by a white van parked in my parking space I got a bit carried away with filthy dirty textures and applied them all over the place. It was not the look I was going for, but it gave me an idea which I have explored with a brief (VERY brief, like raw primitives, 20 mins arrangement and placeholder textures) WIP for a prospective scene which I call "Awaiting Restoration". Yes, I know the textures on the walls and floor are abysmal, they're placeholders. Should I develop this scene?

I'm working on "proper" dirty textures but I haven't managed to get the dirt level right yet. In particular my "streaks" of dirt look a bit fake. But if I have one virtue, it is sheer relentless determination so it is only a matter of time (I hope).

[JeffrySG]

heheh love the pic....

...it's nice to see this thread back and up and running... if you need me to re-post any images just let me know! or if you need any ref. for the viper - I'll be willing to post what I have. It took me a LONG time to get my textures where I was happy - with a little al3d help along the way! So, take your time and keep plugging away!!!!!

looking forward to some cool texture updates....

[D.M.J.]

After watching the Hand of God battle sequence approximately fifty million trillion times (give or take a couple) to familiarise myself with the correct dirt on a Viper I have started to redo the textures.

The wings also have been completely redone, the large flat panels are now actually flat (not as easy as it sounds, if you don't get the shape right first time just pulling points around skews the surface). The wing doohickeys are closer to what they should be (even if they're not quite what they should be). I also re-did the belly and backside because the old one had the peculiar habit of vanishing whenever I performed a Boolean operation to carve in the ventral thrusters, which is why it is currently plain white in this picture, I haven't UV mapped this part again yet!

What do you think? Is this the correct level of dirtying-up?

[Parker Midwinter]

i like it... it looks dirt enough to be used, but clean enough for any self-respecting deck-gang, which is a hard look to get...


good job so far.

[D.M.J.]

Thanks Parker Midwinter, that's exactly what I was going for, its good to recieve a bit of feedback - especially when it agrees with me! (Joking! I need lots of constructive criticism!)

I've taken a little time out from texturing this baby to rig it for animation. I've got special effects (visible spotlights with a procedural fog pattern) rigged to each of the thrusters, now I just need a convenient way to activate them. I was thinking of using a driven key input wired to an invisible primitive's relative position and orientation and its output wired to groups of thrusters, but that would still involve a lot of hand animation of the dummy controller object. Ah - an idea just hit me, I could attach the Viper to the driving object by a Spring animation controller then animate the driving object instead of the Viper. Hmm. I don't know if that would give appropriate thruster firing but its worth a try. Otherwise I will have to get up to my eyeballs in MEL. Is anyone else working on anything similar who might be able to shed some light on this task?

[Nadesico]

would orthographic renders of the real CGI model help you refine it a bit?

http://shipschematics.net/bsg/images..._viper_mk2.jpg

I mean, it kicks ass, but i usually try to get my hands on as much material as possible (as accurate as possible too). the other day i found out that shipschematics.net updated their BSG section to include all the revived series orthos (all Zoic studio ortho renders too).

[D.M.J.]

I've got that set of ortho images, but I didn't know shipschematics.net had updated their BSG section! That's handy to know for when I branch out into other BSG models. Thanks for the information Nadesico.

As for areas to tweak, there are a few shameful areas of inaccuracy...

* The cockpit interior (particularly the seat, but that'll be covered by a pilot figure and if the dials are in the wrong place I'm not going to lose sleep so I'm not too bothered)

* The side engine covers should have a flat bottom instead of rounded (not a major alteration required there)

* And of course the wing doohickeys (my personal nemesises... or would that be nemeses? nemesi?). Everything else meets my exacting standards of accuracy.

If you notice anything else I should add to my List of Shame, say so and be rewarded with this shiny No
Prize -->

[Nadesico]

show us some ass view of it, maybe some underside views as well and we can give you a proper opinion. The topside looks pretty accurate except for the trouble areas you've already identified.

[D.M.J.]

You have but to speak, and I obey (eventually). As requested here is a collection of orthos. Note that the wings and engine covers are currently mirrored textures, I will do fresh textures for the right wing and engine cover. And I think I may have over-dirtied the belly part, but hey that should be fixable with a stiff brush and some soapy water, right?

Sharp-eyed people may spot that I've redone the wings again... the tips are much closer to the original now, a lot of careful examination of images revealed that the tips are curved in profile, not straight. You can't die of perfectionism. Please, tell me you can't!

Damn, I knew there was some bits I'd missed dirt-texturing... The landing gear pods under the wings and the white covering just behind the high engine are still shiny and spanky clean.

Oh and there should be three vertical ridges running up the middle of the grille in the nose, isn't it amazing how you can spend half an hour scrutinising for little things like that and not notice them? I've spent so long staring at this thing that I simply can't see it any more, so if anyone has even the nit-pickiest little comment then please let me know.

[D.M.J.]

Now that I'm finally happy with my Viper, the next step is the pilot. I happen to have a face which I built for another project, does anyone have some good references for the helmet? And also can anyone tell me what colour the flight suit should be? It seems to vary from greenish to bluish depending on light, which is annoying.