Dylan's work

[Dee Bingo]

Sorry for being late to the party; lot's of events happening lately with the holidays and all. I will be also present on all weekly Skype calls starting next week; it's taken awhile to get my work and school schedule to work together.

Anyways, here is my 1st design for Agesipolis in its 4.35 mile long glory. I tried to incoporate all of the Aeran asethicets and components in the description. Funny, now that I look at it, it looks like a cross between an Independance Day fighter plane and Samus's plane from Metroid. Sigh...

[kohldude]

Nice concept but you, Reece, and myself need to get a more cohesive style since we're all doing the same race.

[dabu]

also, can't tell scale in this drawing...

[Dee Bingo]

For scale purposes: it is roughly the length of 2.58 golden gate bridges!

[Dee Bingo]

Here are some Nicander designs. This one was a tough one. I interpreted it in 2 different ways.

[Dee Bingo]

Here is a modular thruster design for smaller fighter craft. Just realized that I might have to implement radiators into it?

[Dee Bingo]

Lost the full version of this; trying to redo it quickly. Here's where I'm at. :(

[Dee Bingo]

So I must have left the redesign at school so I did it over from scratch, sigh. Kohl and I talked a little bit about getting some design cohesion together and we decided on implementing the "the rose thorn with tip cut off" type of shape for the extensions which I tried to do for the docking piers. I also thought that the hammer-head design for the nose of the ship which could house a number or sensors and/or weapons could be a theme in Aeran ship design.

I also made a more circular top down shape to help the mobile base aspect of it read more and tried to keep the smooth organic curves that would appear in the wood aesthetic. Hopefully this new design is on the right track? o.O;

[Dee Bingo]

Kohl and I were playing around with Aeran aesthetics trying to merge our styles together. Here is a quick paintover I did with his input on some silhouette changes to the Anaxander.

[Dee Bingo]

new Nicander and stuff

[Jack Sampson]

Here are some Nicander designs. This one was a tough one. I interpreted it in 2 different ways.

Sorry for the delays - style B was what I was intending to convey.

[Jack Sampson]

Here is a modular thruster design for smaller fighter craft. Just realized that I might have to implement radiators into it?

For modularity, I'd work with the engine module as the granularity to be modular at, and worry about pasting the radiators on post-facto, as a per-ship design decision. At the end of the day, the radiators are always on the outside, so they can always be tacked on or lopped off without much changing the other aspects of the design.

From an aesthetic perspective, I find this engine quite pleasing.

[Jack Sampson]

Kohl and I were playing around with Aeran aesthetics trying to merge our styles together. Here is a quick paintover I did with his input on some silhouette changes to the Anaxander.

You might want to consider some more docking piers / other docking resources on the bottom side as well. Top/bottom asymmetry is fine (and lends style to the ship) but it seems warranted to maintain some hints of top/bottom functional continuity on a ship this size and of this purpose (carrier/mobile base) - they'd want to maximize throughput, which would mean exploiting both top and bottom large-scale docking operations (perhaps just not to the same degree, or in the same configuration).

The current docking piers are much better than the old ones. I think continuing the work you've been doing toward merging the docking piers stylistically toward the major projections on the Anaxander will be a good thing.

[Dee Bingo]

With more piers and stuff. Even with the uni body construction I felt it was necessary to show where large sections may have been combined with plane changes and seams to help the scale read correctly. I imagine I haven't gone overboard here as I have deliberately have been avoiding surface greebles and what not. Let me know if this suitable. I think I need to rethink the thruster arrays, as per documentation it was mentioned that the front and rear thrusters were "massive" and that there was limited side-side maneuvering. I seem to have it gotten backwards as the rotating thruster arrays on either side are disproportionately larger than the mono directional ones. I will address this soon as I flush out the rest of the orthographics. Hoping I'm coming to a favorable conclusion on this design. :P

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg269/deebingo_photos/scale_agesipolis.jpg

[kohldude]

Ooh, Chris likes.

[Jack Sampson]

That's looking really good now :)

Yes, on a ship of that size, there are clearly going to be _some_ visible seams. The "unibody aesthetic" is clearly still being preserved. When we start to see some other capital ships from other manufacturing groups, I think the differences among the manufacturers will be obvious, as will the similarities between this and other Aeran vessels - which is the key takeaway anyway. I'm really pleased with how this design has evolved.

Yes, the fore/aft thrusters were intended to be more provisioned than the side thrusters, but don't worry too much about any particular ratio beyond having the fore/aft larger than the side ones (i.e. how much larger is entirely up to you).

[Dee Bingo]

Orthos. So busy, sorry. Bigger pic here: http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg269/deebingo_photos/ages_orthos.jpg
And another pic with scale reference with the Anaxander:http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg269/deebingo_photos/scale_aeran.jpg
I havent defined a lot of the components just yet and have deliberately excluded the docking piers from the top-down view. Starting with the front view, I had quite the challenge imagining the other views and this is one I'd definately want to model myself as I know I havent translated everything in my head perfectly to these orthographics. Somethings can only be described/understood in 3/4 and other 3D views. Either way I feel like once the modular pieces have been finalized I can implement them into/onto this craft to put the finishing touches. I will work on modular engines and their arrays and sub-housing components as well as try to model out some 3D concepts for what some of the specific components of this ship will look like. :)

[Dee Bingo]

Here is a modular thruster design. I figure these would be the smallest of the thrusters that could be used on smaller fighter craft. I imagine they could be used in an array as well for the wee bit larger vessels. Kohl and I talked about how to retain the unibody aesthetic for the ship silhouette we would make the housing for the thusters be seamlessly part of the body and non modular. These thrusters would be recessed into the housing and duplicated accordingly. I will experiment more with another design as well as try and throw some sub-housing array constructs.

[kohldude]

This is the mockup he's referring to:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3350/engineexample.th.jpg (http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3350/engineexample.jpg)

-edit- DERP. Fixed the link.

[willieharper]

Love what I'm seeing here, it looks nice and fits with the Aeran aesthetic

[Rownyn]

looking good i like the shine it has good stuff :)

[Dee Bingo]

Here is an update: small, mid, and large modular thrusters. I imagine these can all be put into various arrays. I might have to dial back some of the details to accommodate the modular radiators that need to attach to them. Then again, the radiators might be able to be implemented onto the actual engine housing which will be non modular. I'm not sure what the best solution is at the moment; I imagine it will make more sense when the housing is actually built on a ship by ship case.

As for aesthetics, does this look Aeran enough? Too human maybe? Does it still feel like it fits the unibody aesthetic? (I imagine some of the components might have more details then overall surface of the ship as a whole)....?

[Rownyn]

wow looks great if i were you i would think about the different upgrade versions of each one unless these are the upgrades, and to give you my piece on the whole upgrade feature i would think that with every upgrade it should look cooler and more badass in some way, and i don't think you should have other modular pieces to then cause you will need upgrades of those pieces as well, not sure if that help or if that's even right but maybe it will help. :) but good work bro cant wait for the next passes of new parts.

[Jack Sampson]

Those are some nice looking thrusters - great work :) !

[Dee Bingo]

This week has not been good to me, wont have anything to post until later today, probably tonight. Currently redoing 4 hours of work....

[Dee Bingo]

Sorry I'm behind. Working on this ship. It's been quite the challenge. Very rough first pass, just laying down the foundation of forms.

[Dee Bingo]

Combining pieces and retopo. Sorry im so slow. Messy right now but this is the hardest part.
Been a tough few weeks with sickness and out of school stuff.

[Dee Bingo]

Some more shots with thruster housing and more retopo. It's getting to the shape I want.

[Dee Bingo]

My first version of the JackHammer.

[Jack Sampson]

One of the things that's going to make the jackhammer distinct from most of the other human produced lasers is the open-cycle cooling. I think we might want to make the coolant vents on the side opposite the mount point have a little bit of an exaggerated presence, and maybe add another angle to the set of sketches so that we can see them head on?

You can go even further with the plumbing aspect of additional coolant lines on the surface and/or designate where those might go for upgrade/variants.

Overall, it's a good looking piece - definitely evokes "laser beam" and I like the combination of hard angles and smooth curves.

[Dee Bingo]

i hope this better describes what you wanted. I imagine modifications plugging into the side. Mounts omitted to show case the main weapon better. Since it is line, spine mounted I figured the coolant ejects from the top so as to have space for it to escape?

[Jack Sampson]

Nailed it. That's exactly what I was looking for :)

[Jack Sampson]

Thinking about this a little more, what do you think of the following concept?
A multi-lens equivalent to a multi-barrel gun. Compensates for thermal lens stress by cycling through a set of lenses.
Or, we could make the final focusing lens bigger.

[Dee Bingo]

Ooooh that sounds really cool actually! :) I'll try a couple of versions; one with a very large lense and another with an almost "Gatling gun" style set up with multiple lenses that spin across the laser focusing point.

[Dee Bingo]

Here's my first take on the larger focusing lens. I also tried out some colors for the paint color palette for Highborn machinery. I'll give the multi-barrel lens idea a try in 3D; I think it will be easier to design that way.

[kohldude]

You know what might go good on a dark base color like those violets? An optical interference sheen. Although that might better suit an alien species instead of a human one to make their construction more foreign.

http://www.shawnolson.net/media/art_1_1368_4_green-shiny-beetle.jpg
http://ilovebacteria.com/Images/bubble.jpg
http://science.howstuffworks.com/light13.htm

[Jack Sampson]

Large lens version looks good.

If the multi-barrel turns out just as nicely, I think we should go with both of them as variant models.

[Dee Bingo]

Here is an idea for the rotating focus lens version. Im not entirely sure how it would be incorporated into the other design just yet but it feels like it might be an entirely different variant version of the JackHammer like you had mentioned. This would be just part of the weapon as a whole with all of the open cycle cooling elements somehow attaching to this apparatus in various ways. Maybe I'll do a paintover of what that might look like if you like where this is going...

[Jack Sampson]

Totally awesome!
I can certainly see it as an upgrade way out there on the price/performance curve :).

[Dee Bingo]

Hopefully I did this justice. I was a bit confused about the dimensions and made the assumption that with tanks the "7 meters" would be the overall length of the entire weapon. If I got this wrong (is it the width? do the tans come outwards horizontally?) let me know. I also wasn't sure how this would be mounted and with my insecurities of actual weapon scale and configuration as it stands now I opted to exclude the modular mounts. I'll add those later. Also, let me know if the spray nozzle should be larger or designed differently.

[Rownyn]

i loves it woot! awesome job

[Jack Sampson]

Hopefully I did this justice. I was a bit confused about the dimensions and made the assumption that with tanks the "7 meters" would be the overall length of the entire weapon. If I got this wrong (is it the width? do the tans come outwards horizontally?) let me know. I also wasn't sure how this would be mounted and with my insecurities of actual weapon scale and configuration as it stands now I opted to exclude the modular mounts. I'll add those later. Also, let me know if the spray nozzle should be larger or designed differently.

Oh, sorry about that, yes, 7 meters is the length. Weapon slots generally long& skinny -- height-width being fixed dimensions for internal slots whereas length is more fungible -- if the gun sticks out farther, it shouldn't hurt anything because the path out should be clear anyway (or how could it fire? :) )

Looks good :)

[Dee Bingo]

So here is the style guide I made for the Aeran craft and machinery. Please let me know what you like/don't like about it and I will make any necessary edits. I hope I touched on all points.

Download PDF: http://rapidshare.com/files/383628187/Aeran_style_guide.pdf.html

[Jack Sampson]

So here is the style guide I made for the Aeran craft and machinery. Please let me know what you like/don't like about it and I will make any necessary edits. I hope I touched on all points.

Download PDF: http://rapidshare.com/files/383628187/Aeran_style_guide.pdf.html

So, I'd phrase the relationship between functionality and aesthetics differently: In Aeran design, functionality and aesthetics are both first-order constraints, but functionality is still prime, in that a device must function as specified. However, performance and other features beyond desired functionality can certainly play subordinate roles when conflicting with the sense of beauty of the part. I imagine it as something of a craftsman-like sense of pride - a piece that does its job but fails aesthetically does not do its job, because there are aesthetic duties as well.

I'd started to sketch out a parts-oriented style guide - the nascent version of which can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AWzzC2bo-2FxZGd6cnJ3cl84Z3p6cHB2ZjU&hl=en

The current selection of parts is based on the parts vs. groups spreadsheet (also a WIP):
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmTg764gUBiTdFNoYnBldXNHYVBwLTJ1dl84Zk1XY 1E&hl=en


Your guide provides a very good overview. I think we can merge this with a set of parts-oriented sections (expanding as needed as the categories of the parts list mature) and then we'll have a really, really complete package.
Google claims those links should be edit-allowing (haven't tested yet). So we should be able to do rapid prototyping of the style guide directly on the G-doc, and then we can pretty it up as it stops moving around.
Other than the aforementioned note on functionality (which is really just a question of emphasis -- the Aerans really do try to make things look good even when it costs them a bit, but they'd never make anything that looked good and didn't _work_ (only the Uln Royalty would do that ;-) ) ) I think you've basically layed out an overview section that would be the best place to start a guide with before moving on to the Aeran entries for both the common set of part categories and the Aeran specific set (the latter overlapping somewhat with what you already have).

[Dee Bingo]

Yes, I totally agree with your sentiments. I guess I felt a bit unsure as to where I would start with a style guide so I gathered the material we've created so far and tried to outline very basic aesthetic key points for the Aerans and put it into a preliminary guide to start from.

As for aesthetics vs functionality and its emphasis, I had a feeling the wording I chose was insufficient but left it in there for the sake of having an extra section, really. :P I took from this passage: "Given a choice between a something that works and something that works in an aesthetically pleasing manner, they will prefer the latter, but happily use the former if it is available." I think if we can create a 1-2 sentence summation of this statement that is immediately understood by the new artist then we have succeeded. Then again maybe it is necessary to outline this key point in a different way. I hope I haven't misrepresented your vision in any way as this was a very basic, "alpha" version of an outline of what I imagine would be a much more comprehensive guide.

I do feel, however, that if we can create a "plug n' play" version of a more extensive guide (supplementary of course, not a replacement) that this may benefit the more visually oriented artist and help speed up the development of assets. :)

[kohldude]

The mechanical style guide does not appear to have edit permissions.

The ship parts spreadsheet does.

[Jack Sampson]

The mechanical style guide does not appear to have edit permissions.

The ship parts spreadsheet does.

Doh. Should be fixed now. Please test and let me know if it stuck this time :-P

[Dee Bingo]

Here's a more comprehensive style guide template than my last one. Incorporate's John's zoom-ins and has descriptions. Made a few edits here and there. Blame Kohl on the radiator section. :P

http://rapidshare.com/files/388955009/Aeran_style_guide2.pdf

[Jack Sampson]

Here's a more comprehensive style guide template than my last one. Incorporate's John's zoom-ins and has descriptions. Made a few edits here and there. Blame Kohl on the radiator section. :P

http://rapidshare.com/files/388955009/Aeran_style_guide2.pdf

This is great stuff!

Quick question - how hard is it to upload these to the 2.7kelvin website instead of rapidshare? If it takes more effort than the 30 seconds I wait to download them from RS, don't bother with it :)

[Dee Bingo]

also im working on a better painting of the JackHammer at the moment. Here's progress with basecoat.

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg269/deebingo_photos/new_JackHammer_wip01.jpg

[Dee Bingo]

Here's a go at a rendering. I think the most important thing to take from this is where the contrast is going and how the colors feel. I'm going to try this again but with a less toon like approach in the next few days if I have time.

[kohldude]

Ooh shiny.

[Jack Sampson]

That is one stunning piece of death-dealing machinery.

[Rownyn]

nice bro i likes good stuff

[Dee Bingo]

did a bit of work on the modeling and played with some materials. :) Got a lot to do to finish it however.

[Dee Bingo]

here's an AO shot.

[kohldude]

That's Hawt.

[Jack Sampson]

Totally awesome looking.

- tangent -
One thing to mention going forward - for the fighter-scale weapons, we should ration our attention-to-detail (or, put differently be cautious in how much we prioritize depth over breadth)l, and avoid letting "better" become the enemy of "good enough".
We need good looking models for the weapons, but, outside of the upgrade screen, or the player inspecting their own vessel, they'll often not be occupying large amounts of screen real-estate.
For capital-scale weapons, this isn't as big a concern, because they're really big and we will be seeing a lot of them :).

[Dee Bingo]

Continued to work on the Jack Hammer model. As for level of detail, I think it would be great to have some sort of document or passage describing the limitations of the engine, use of the asset in game, screen size, resolution and so forth. :) Either way, I feel like this is just a concept anyways, and can be down-rezed appropriately and still retain the same level of detail (baked through normal maps, AO maps). Even if we are limited to just basic specular and diffuse maps a model like this can still serve as reference to model a low poly version off of, and/or provide information to use in the color map.

[Dee Bingo]

Did a bit more work; included large focusing lens and parabolic dish. Will incorporate rotating lens apparatus and pump upgrades as well as mounts next.

[Jack Sampson]

Continued to work on the Jack Hammer model. As for level of detail, I think it would be great to have some sort of document or passage describing the limitations of the engine, use of the asset in game, screen size, resolution and so forth. :) Either way, I feel like this is just a concept anyways, and can be down-rezed appropriately and still retain the same level of detail (baked through normal maps, AO maps). Even if we are limited to just basic specular and diffuse maps a model like this can still serve as reference to model a low poly version off of, and/or provide information to use in the color map.

A document with exactly that sort of information is one of my top priorities once I'm done with my current MICRO submission on the 11th. :)

I guess I emphasized the wrong points a bit too -- I'm not overly concerned about poly count and LOD generation, as it's a lot easier to go down than up -- in some sense, it should always be the case that a model is designed with as many polys as it needs to look good, and then the (LO)details are hashed out whenever they get hashed out :).

What I was meaning to convey was that, for certain classes of items, including small weapons, the iterative portion of the review can truncate earlier: Once there's a general consensus that the concept and approach is sound, you A) won't need to worry about things from a perfectionism angle with respect to me - whenever you think it's done, it's done, and B) (here I project a bit, which probably got me in trouble with the previous comment) while there may be a desire to continue tinkering indefinitely (I am rarely fully satisfied with, for example, code that I wrote under deadline pressure, and muse somewhat frequently about going back and making it cleaner) if you reach a point where you think it _might_ be done, whether or not you're actually done working on it (sometimes, I do go back and clean up old code) it's probably done _enough_.
Hopefully that was a little more clear. If not, I'll blame the lack of clarity on having slept in my office last night :-P

Of course, having the document you mentioned fleshed out is going to help a heck of a lot in making these sorts of judgment calls easier, and I really will up the priority on getting that worked on as soon as we wander past this next deadline of mine.

[Dee Bingo]

Gotcha. I wanted to do at least one refined design this quarter so I chose to do that with the JackHammer. My intention was to model and detail as much as i could in high poly so I could try out a x normal bake to low poly that would become an in game asset. Until we know the exact specs on that I think I should practice this pipeline nonetheless.

Created mounting mechanism for rotating lens upgrade, added some more pipes onto main laser. Will try and model main mounts and possibly some tubing/extra coolant tanks for next week.

[Jack Sampson]

I think your approach to modeling pre-specs is spot-on. Full agreement.

Also, those are two good-looking variants :)

[Dee Bingo]

Moar stuff. Coolant pumps and what not. Tired. ;P