Original Lightwave Models: Federation Puma and Eagle Cruiser

[cliffski]

Ok, just to see if there is any mileage in this, here is the original Puma lightwave model used to render the sprites used in the game:

http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/downloads/GSB%20Federation%20Puma%20Frigate.zip

You need to unzip it first, then open it in lightwave modeller, like so:



The model is in lightwave format (http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/) which isn't cheap, but you can get a free trial of it. You can also export it to other formats, although AFAIK the textures screw up badly when you try that. I am NOT the modeller who made this, and I am not very familiar with lightwave, so it's no good asking me how to do stuff :D.

License:
Don't go passing this file off as your own work, because it's not. It's an original spaceship design by Charles Oines, for the game Gratuitous Space Battles, and you may not use it in any commercial product or freeware game. It's being released here purely to help out the modding community for GSB. The copyright with that file is still very much with Positech Games. Play nice :D

My thinking is that anyone who is good at 3D modelling might be able to to add a few extra bits, or rearrange a few bits, and change some textures and render out a new puma variant ship for the game. Maybe. I dunno :D

[eRe4s3r]

Well i played around with it ;)

The render below is entirely new textures (they were indeed broken on import) and split-mesh (So that cel shader works properly), GI/AO/Cel Outline - Re-rendered in C4D R11, so ehm, model is also slightly changed not much;)

JPG for preview - zip includes psd file (with alpha map)

I also converted the lwo format into c4D and obj with properly split mesh without textures but the sizes (2mb) are too large to attach it here.

Guess the files attached can be considered a "re-donation" because.. i just did this for fun. ^^

Also.. as usual GI killed the feeling of this.. so rerender 4 is without GI .. looks much better too (weird, i never thought of placing the light that way before.. ah well)

The texture shaders are entirely made by me ^^

[cliffski]

Wow, that actually looks very very nice indeed. Good work!

[DeadlyPeanut]

that looks amazing :) very good work makes the old ships look like junk :P

[eRe4s3r]

Thanks ;P Well thats what i do ^^ Make nice clean ships grungy (I also make ships ,p)

Just attaching rr4 jpg version because that is a substantial improvement... (3 attachments are the limit apparently)

Though modifications are problematic.. Lightwave pretty much messed up how the mesh is linked together due to the way it uses texture tags and polygon selections. So the only way to actually render it with "better" textures outside of Lightwave was to entirely delete any textures and split all meshes apart and redo the textures .. ah well ;)

Still Cinema 4D could open the lwo file and at least got the COLORS right ... i'd say thats good.. if not entirely unhelpful ;p
Anyhow, enough of silly brabbling from me ;) I had my fun with this ^^

[Hybrinoid]

i dont think i would agree with the idea of putting the new puma in the game. it would stand out too much from the other fed ships.

[eRe4s3r]

Well the federation might have an elite brigade (Black Lancers!) ;p (Or why not allow buying (via honor) of an alternate skin?) (The nose cone could fit a Black Lancers BADGE nicely ,p) (The image doesn't 100% align to the original though)

That said.. i didn't do this for mods.. just to play around, i am tinkerer.. and its nice to test how my own shaders/light setups and render settings work on other models. ;)

Not sure what the point of my rerenders is apart from looking nice. ^^
Since these models are so detailed adding drastically new geometry was way out of scope for "tinkering" though

[Hybrinoid]

ah. ok. but, the "Black Lancers" idea is pretty cool too. i like the colors, but again, i just don't think it would fit. oh well. :D

[cliffski]

I think it would be awesome to have a number of different textured versions of the same ships to choose from. This was something I thought about ages ago, but the workload just got ridiculous, because it also means re-applying all the damage and hulk stuff...
However I definitely like the idea, even though it also means a lot more to download. I need to scratch my ehad and work out a way to make this stuff easier to mod...

[eRe4s3r]

Indeed - I was stunned when i saw how much detail that ship has... Must have been expensive, and taken a lot of time, probably months to model them all.

Can't really say much beyond that... complex sprites usually don't lend themselves to extensive modding. They are complex to create (the 3d-models) and there are different styles to render them (as apparent above). And when 2 different people lay their hands on a model you will get 2 entirely different results. (everyone has their own personal favorite render-styles/settings/tools/shaders ;P)

I don't think its possible to make such fundamental changes to GSB now that its near final, if this was now the first alpha stage i'd suggest making the hull fully modular (meaning not 1 large sprite but the sprite is actually many small hull pieces layered and attached to each other) that would be the only way to do radically different styles quickly (if all the sprite parts were in one "pack" file it could basically all be rendered with 1 button press, and changing texture/shader would be easy as changing the 1 or 2 shaders in the 3d-app itself).

But tis as it is ;)

[Irrational]

Actually, it was a pretty tight schedule. I was running about a day per ship for most of the job, so I did most of the detail work in the meshes and used the same textures across multiple ships.

I do wish I'd thought of that cel-shader trick to bring out the edge detail more. That's pretty neat :)

[eRe4s3r]

Wow a single day per ship! ... reminds me how slow i am ^^

Yep ;) Cel-Shader is certainly nifty.. use it for basically everything spacy/techy nowadays - not to mention it saves you polygons (because you just can cut a mesh and the cel shader draws a outline there ,p) Though in Cinema 4D its a Post-Effect, not an *actual* shader ;/ (That has many implications for how it blends over glow effects ~.~)

[cliffski]

Here is the eagle cruiser:

http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspa ... ruiser.zip



Same rules and conditions apply :D

[Retro]

It would be great if someone (I myself don't know a thing about this 3d business) could take these models and could compose some more wallpapers - some textured, some wiremesh.. maybe a bit like the loading screens..

[snowdrift]

if someone clever gets it shoehorned into one of the free(er) renderers, could they post the modified mesh/textures so's others can stand on their shoulders?