Design Competition: Star Wars Spring

[Warlord Zsinj]

One week down, two to go!

Looking forward to seeing the next iteration of your design, Cloudy

There's still plenty of time in the competition for others to join; I really think there are some great ideas floating around this forum, and I'd love to tap into that. This is such an important part of the design of the game that I need to make absolutely sure it's just right. Help me out

[scotty73]

Come on you lot, cant believe this is not getting loads of interest, if I thought I was capable of doing it I would be right in there!!!

[USS Mariner]

Spring is an incredible game. It's very worth the time to make Star Wars stuff for.

JDR, you know you want to.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Currently there is a week remaining on this competition. However, I'll be contacting all current entrants in the next few days and inquiring whether they would be happy if I was to extend it further. Partially because I don't think it is very fair to SFM, given the hosting issues you guys have been having, and partly because I am still waiting on refined submissions, and was hoping for more then just one entry from SFM...

[Warlord Zsinj]

The Deadline for this competition has been extended until Monday, the 7th of May.
This was decided so as to give people more chance to finalise their designs.

Jack, I'd love to see more of your design, I think you were headed in a really cool direction!

Here are a few more refined designs;
Dr. Zais over at moddb:

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9...asecopymz3.jpg

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/6...conceptfv8.jpg

http://img471.imageshack.us/img471/1...etecopyhg3.jpg

A solid design, I think, responding well to the model criteria. While it perhaps lacks a certain dramatic flair that other designs might have, it is extremely functional, and very doable from an in-game perspective.

Alantai Firestar over at the Spring forums has refined his designs:
Darkstars - Random images that dont fit
(the two subgalleries at the top)
I really like the landing mechanism which he has thought of, and the way the shards reference imperial Star Destroyers. However, I think that while it is important that the landing process informs the design, I think his landing progress has dominated the design a little, and so I think the final building is perhaps a little weaker, because it is less shaped by the functionalities of how the building would work generally in the game, but rather how it would work in the first few seconds of animation as it lands.

I'd still love to see some submissions from other SFM regulars. It just takes a boring lecture and a sketchbook to whip up some interesting ideas! We just need sketches and ideas really, and we will do the rest!

[Warlord Zsinj]

Time is ticking away guys! The other sites are putting out some great work, but I think the pool of talent at this website is far greater and far larger. Come on people!

Here are two more entries:

Runecrafter from the Spring forums:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/w/images/d/d2/SWSCom_001.jpg

http://spring.clan-sy.com/w/images/0/03/SWSCom_002.jpg

http://spring.clan-sy.com/w/images/1/13/SWSCom_003.jpg

http://spring.clan-sy.com/w/images/f/ff/SWSCom_004.jpg

How the loading bay opens up:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/w/images/e/e9/SWSCom_005.jpg
http://spring.clan-sy.com/w/images/f/fd/SWSCom_006.jpg
http://spring.clan-sy.com/w/images/4/4c/SWSCom_007.jpg

How it works "in-flight":
http://spring.clan-sy.com/w/images/2/23/SWSCom_008.jpg

A pretty cool design; I think it's major weakness is the subdued central form, where you sort of lose the feeling of it being a dominating HQ. All the focus seems to be at the periphery, so the centre of the design feels neglected.
Still an excellent design though.

Daan from the Spring Forums (these shots aren't all of the same model, but show a development of sorts):

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/base.png

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/base1.PNG

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/base2.PNG

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/base%20old.PNG

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/base%20new.png

Here is the criticism I offered on his design

He has worked a lot with the concept of modular areas that change as you upgrade the HQ. The idea is good, but I think he needs to focus more on the overall form on the building before looking into complex details like that.

-----------------

Come on guys, still plenty of time!

[jack cloudy]

Dang math test. Ok, that was the lousy excuse for not showing up.

Ahem, back to bussiness then.

I like Runecrafter's design. It looks like a big metal crab. I've been in love with giant crabs since I played Morrowind.
I like the design of dr. Zais as well. I assume that the turrets can hit both ground and air targets?


Now back to mine. I must say that I'm not all that happy with it. It looks fine from a possibility point of view but it seriously lacks in the intimidation factor. I'm up to about 1.5K now so that means 500 polies for greebling. (Actually I've got more but since Wings3D doesn't support animations, I made copies of everything that moved and put them in the various positions.)

Ah well, I'll just skip to the renders. First up is the usual general overview. I've added a flat plane to make it easier to judge what's above ground and what's below. The gears are now equiped with spokes as well to give them more presence.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...loudy/swc3.jpg

Next up is a close-up on one of the laser turrets, the rear one in this case. It looks a bit bland right now and lacks any ability to swivel up and down but I think it's not the worst gun I've ever made. It's fully focussed on hitting ground targets because with how it's hanging down from a ceiling, it wouldn't be able to swivel up anyway.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...aserturret.jpg

The radartower. Like with everything, it lacks intimidation. I think it needs some antenna on top and a more slender tower. The con to that is that any antenna wouldn't be able to fit under the dome without folding.
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...radartower.jpg

Last, the missile launchers. Right now they're simply two tubes that swing up to a 90 degrees angle before firing. I suppose it could be turned into a turret if I made a decent turretbase to go with it.
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...lelauncher.jpg

Oh, and here's a really last pic. Base while shielded. It looks rather plain but I think that's just fine with the big dome principle.
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...lelauncher.jpg

Ok, regarding landing. I personally think that a landing under its own power would be best. In that case, I'll have to model some engines or something to the underside. Now for the landing itself, it requires this arteficial crater to sink in. To get a crater of the right shape and the right size, there are several options.

1: Hope you get lucky and find the perfect crater. The galaxy is big and all, but this is a bit too ridiculous. C'mon, building a whole building and letting luck decide whether or not you can deploy it?

2: Send out drones first to dig the crater. Possible, but it's too slow in a warzone. Not to mention that anyone with half a brain cell will have some good artillery set up to give you a 'warm welcome' when you finally drop down out of orbit.

3: Engine backwash. Faster than option 2 and works. Probably not as precise though.

4:Buckle up and drop down, meteor style. My personal favourite though it has its problems. One, if that dome can withstand an orbital drop with only some athmospheric braking, no guy with a handheld pistol is going to put a dent in it. Two, I have no experience in real life, but I doubt you would get a perfect crater simply by dropping it from space. Three, the crew had better strapped themselves down with some damn good seatbelts. Or they should come in with a shuttle later.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Very nice jack
I was worried you'd disappeared on me!

In terms of polygons; don't be too worried about that. We will probably have to remodel elements anyway, because we know where we can save faces in Spring (for example, your guns are cool, but not very efficient from a game perspective; I could make them look almost exactly the same with about half the polies; I can see plenty of other areas to increase efficiency too). The limit is mostly there to stop people going crazy and designing super greebled things, or repeating ultra coplicated elements all over their models. I would say to aim for ~2500, but don't be concerned if you go over. This is a unit that is extremely rare (probably seen only once in every game), so it isn't pushing face counts. For a comparison, we often have infantry armies made up of 50+ guys. They are about 600 polies each. 50 guys on-screen at the same time is about 30,000 polies. Your commander's polycount will be fine

The thing I like most about your design is how it resembles a bunker; in particular, one of those concreted german bunkers from WWII.
I think that in certain areas the overall shape could use a bit more 'formwork'. For example, the bit that has those two hatches between the two guns looks a little too simple. I think it's general shape could be improved, but it could also do with some 'flair' elements like chamfered edges, embossed plates, and some greebling (which I realise you haven't done yet).

Otherwise, I think you yourself have already recognised the weak spots of your design; the radar bit at the top doesn't qutie fit with the theme (both the Imperial theme as a whole, and the design theme you have set with the lower part of the design).
You can always raise the central bit up from inside; if you use the babushka doll method to get yourself a lot more space; It could be consecutively smaller cylinders which are raised one out of the other in order to get yourself the height you need. Just make sure that the tower above 'speaks' to the bunker below; currently they look like two disparate parts which aren't really communicating with each other design-wise.

If you decide to do a turret for the AA weapon, make sure it won't shoot it's own tower when it fires at something behind it!

Regarding the landing; I wuoldn't be too concerned. We can use smoke and mirrors to make it look reasonable, so long as you decide with one method and stick with it. I don't think you need to have the crater be a perfect semi-sphere; as I was trying to point out with the moho metal maker, you can fit all the armour you need in a very small space, but just slide each armoured piece past the other, rather then having it all in the same 'plane' (not really the right word, but I hope you get what I mean), like a pill bug.

It could be cool if a big sphere drops from the sky and impacts itself in the ground. We could always make up some sort of jargon about how they use special impact resistant cribs inside to survive the impact.

I wouldn't worry about blasters not being able to touch the rolled up state; that's not really a big problem, (the point of the armoured state is to prevent easy assassinations) and it's not really your problem either; we'll sort out the balancing.

- Where do the units come out of? Seems like it needs a funky bunker-style entry.

Thanks for submitting Jack! Definitely a nice design

Other people on this forum are welcome to share their opinions of Jack's design!

[Warlord Zsinj]

I thought you might be interested in Daan's (from the Spring Forums) next iteration:

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/base%20imper2.png

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/base%20imper%201.png

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/opening.png

http://members.home.nl/daanbijkerk/opening.png

I'm not sure how well the legs work; many designs seem to have got it into their heads to put legs onto their models, which doesn't really make a heap of sense to me, though it works quite well in certain circumstances (runecrafter's design, for example).

Not sure what the weird spherical gun is either; I think it is just a placeholder for some sort of upgradeable weapon.

[jack cloudy]

The legs look a bit unwieldy to me, like the structure they support will be wobbling back and forth a lot. Either making them appear sturdier or adding some in the middle might work. As for the gun, the barrelplacement feels odd. You're never going to be able to point both barrels at the same target. The opening looks neat though.