KJCs Work

[kjc733]

Thank you all. I'm quite pleased so far considering it was never going to be a "proper" mesh. Have done a bit of extra detail work and some "grilling", but I'm not going to turn on the other machine to get screenshots as it'll take 20+ minutes to boot up!

Kjc my friend your well on you way to becoming a master shipwright

"Becoming!" lol, i've got about a dozen completed meshes awaiting texturing and release on ADSV, everything from subfighters to SSNs to Arsenal ships.

This is one I can post because it'll never get used (I just did it to see if my skills had progressed enough that I could actually build her).

Archangel DSV (the unbuilt sister of Atlantis and Aquarius)




However my skills are definately not on par with the Atlantis's original creator :

 

[Starfox1701]

Don't sell your self short lad thats **** close and would look just as good in the same skin

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
Those pics look amazing, specially the last two, with orthos pics always been very useful to get references (too bad that is not that as frequently as we would all like) ad that final pic looks no different than a render for a movie or big tv serie amazing.

 

[Adm_Z]

Nice! I almost looks like some kind of wrath ship.

 

[kjc733]

Just to be clear - the last two are not mine, they are just there for comparison.

 

[Majestic]

I think the model looks great, many modellers myself included can't do organic ships for the life of us.

 

[Avon]

Yeah, I think it's awesome

 

[kjc733]

Thanks all, if you like organic shapes I'll have to see if I can post a sneak peak at Arsenal - you'd love that!

Don't sell your self short lad thats **** close and would look just as good in the same skin

Thank you, but I know I'm not in the same league (yet!). That said, when I shared this with Archangel with JJ he had to ask if it were an original mesh or derrievd from his (it was scratch built, never had a copy of Atlantis). Anyway, let me show you why... (NOTE - These are Not mine!!!)

ad that final pic looks no different than a render for a movie or big tv serie amazing.

*coughs* actually, now that you mention it...
Building the Atlantis DSV on Vimeo

 

[Adm_Z]

wow, I love that frame one.

So you can't do that yet. I don't think any of us can(maybe TUN or RJB) but you pretty well matched the hull. Certainly better than most of us.

Don't sell your self short man, you do a fantastic job.

 

[kjc733]

Thank you. And I'm not selling myself short, JJ has been doing this longer than I have, and he did it at uni (whereas I'm self taught). I also know I'm relegated to a different class of hardware (my version of maya apparantly doesn't like 32-bit operating systems, so I'm stuck with using my old 6 year old laptop for the time being.) So for now I'm content to plug away at my intemediate poly count vessels (max 60k so far before the laptop creaks), which has proven fine thus far for my ships, boats and fighters.

That said, I've found a legitimate reason to get paintshop installed at work... so hopefully I'll be able to upgrade my skills on work time (assuming the install happens in my lifetime...).

As for the hull, the keen eye will notice a few significant differences between Archangel and Atlantis. Those are actually deliberate (honest ) because a.) as an engineer there's a few things about Atlantis' design that knawed at me and b.) I was trying to keep it in line with the boat built by another expert in our humble group.

EDIT - and yes, it's the mesh and writing work for this that keeps me from finishing HRM (and my gardening)

 

[Majestic]

I have Gardening and such to do, but it's raining again so scratch that.

You're doing very well with your meshes. High quality and looks very close to the original as far as I can see.

It just shows I really need to learn 3D Max or something other than Milkshape. I would love to go to tech and learn, but I have do do like 2-3 years of other courses to get there. It's stupid in my opinion but that how Australia is these days.

 

[kjc733]

It just shows I really need to learn 3D Max or something other than Milkshape. I would love to go to tech and learn, but I have do do like 2-3 years of other courses to get there. It's stupid in my opinion but that how Australia is these days.

It's the same here. My sister is halfway through a computer CGI arty movie type course (you can see how much attention I pay ) and had to redo some college courses to get there. But that said, I'm self taught - not one class in maya or cgi or mesh building. Even during my engineering degree the only design lessons were done the old fashioned way - pencil and paper (we were told we would get taught CATIA - but it never materialized ). Anyways, she'd admit that my mesh building skills are far superior to hers. On the flip side, she can do stuff with photshop and animation that I can't even dream about.

Anyways, back to my work
First up - as I have maya on for the Talon Hawk, the minor updates on the BSG-type ship.


And a close up of the favourite part of what I consider my best work - the engine section of the (unnamed) Arsenal ship. I won't post full pics because I haven't yet asked permission to do so (we have a "No Spoiler" policy at ADSV, and even I don't know the why I was asked to build this), but as it is my mesh I thought I'd compromise on my usual stance.

 

[Majestic]

I too am self taught with a but of assistance from Syf, he helped in teaching me the tricks of MS3D and how to reverse faces, do some tricky parts and generally how to get a model as low poly as possible while still looking good. Pretty much I was his part-time apprentice. I have installed at the moment 3D Max v5, 3D Max Design 2011, Messiah Studio, MS3D, Google Sketch Up 8 and uninstalled I have a version of Lightwave.
So I have the tools just not the known how to model with them. I would love to one day do away with MS3D one day as my modelling and hardpointing tool and move to 3D Max.

You models are looking really good KJC, the BSG like ship is my favourite.

 

[kjc733]

To celebrate my freedom from the BSGHRM, I decided to bump something I've wanted to do to the top of my pile.
Hopefully it will be the first of a whole fleet. It's still in rough form but there should be enough detail there to identify the type and the variant (assuming you're as big a fan of the ol' gal as I am ).

 

[Adm_Z]

Do I spy a B-52 Stratofortress? Nice... My father worked on them for quite a while until he destroyed his back.("wrestling a 500lb bomb to the ground after it fell off a rack")

 

[kjc733]

Ouch!
But yes it is a H-model BUFF.

 

[Adm_Z]

Sweetness. I hope you plan to skin it.

 

[kjc733]

My grand plan is to skin them (hence the low poly nature - although they are more poly intensive than I expected), but for now I'm just relieving a bit of frustration by building.
Now for the next in the fleet:

 

[kjc733]

So that last was a B52-I or early model EB52. Here we have the third in the family, a late model EB52.

It seems engines are murder on the polycount! One more to go in this family (and I haven't yet decided how I'm going to do it ) before moving onto something far more complicated.

 

[Adm_Z]

Great job KJC. though I am not familar with those two designs, it sure is a nice model. I love the V style tail wings too.

 

[kjc733]

Not many people are. The EB52 Megafortress is a reoccuring aircraft in a series of fiction books by Dale Brown, who's an ex B52 and F111 naviguesser. The original aircraft (the Old Dog) is a test bed for stealth technology eventually used in the B2. His earlier books are definately worth a read, and also worth reading in chronological order. The original book book is (somewhat unimaginativly) titled "Flight of the Old Dog". After "Battle Born" they start going downhill a bit in my opinion and he seems to just be churning them out like Clancy does these days. I'd also suggest avoiding the Dreamland series that are loosely based on his books but actually written by someone else.

But "Flight of the Old Dog", "Day of the Cheetah", "Sky Masters", "Fatal Terrain", and "Battle Born" are definately favourites in my bookcase.

Edit - you obviously need to take the concept of a "stealthy" B52 with a pinch of salt though. But the rest is relatively sound.

 

[kjc733]

Unexpectedly, the AL52 Dragon was a rather simple modification. So, last but by no means least in this little family of BUFFs...

 

[kjc733]

Well, I got bitten by the modelling bug and decided that I needed to get it out of my system... it just didnt quite happen like that...

I was going to do aircraft, but the one I wanted to do proved very difficult without good reference material. But I have retrieved an old airfix model of it and will hopefully complete at some point.

In the mean time...

 

[Starfox1701]

What happened to the other 4 engines on the BUFFs?

 

[kjc733]

The BUFF is an old aeroplane, and even the turbofans they fitted to the H are inefficient by todays standards. The later model EB52s were fitted with CF6s (same as on the C5 if I recall), which produces more thrust (circa 40,000lbs if I recall) than the two BUFF engines combined, yet is more fuel efficient.

Whilst that is fictional, there have actually been experiments where they fitted a CF6 to an NB52 inner pylon in place of two engines - making it a 7-engined aircraft! The idea of replacing the existing engines is also one that keeps being rolled out every time people say BUFF upgrade - but it never happens.

 

[Starfox1701]

You out to look at the new GEs on the 767s They would definetly be powerful enough for a B52 and are more efficient still

 

[Majestic]

Some beautiful Stargate models, I myself have been thinking of moving over to Stargate rather than BSG. I love the Wraith ship, I can't do organic for the life of me.

 

[kjc733]

The stargate ships have actually proved to be a learning experience for me too. I started off on "intermediate" poly ships - circa 30k, when I started I did that the hard way, one slice at a time. Since then I've learned to build a base mesh and then use the auto-smooth function. This has its pros and cons, for organic shapes its great because it blends all the sharp edges with nice smooth curves. So I start off with a rough looking base mesh of usually around 3k polys and autosmooth it (taking it up to 12k-ish). The downside to this is that if I want sharp edges then I need to double-edge the corner, forcing the blend around the bend in tight confines. This allows me to do hybrid organic/artificial shapes like the arsenal ship.

However, for an A2 compatible ship this is unfeasable, especially as the polycount gets doubled in the milkshape conversion, which means I've been learning the art of the low poly model. The F302 is around 300polys (or 600 in milkshape terms), the BC304 is around 1500 - it's far more complex than it appears. The wraith cruiser is slightly higher because I ended up autosmoothing it to get the organic flow.

My intention is to finish off the tauri fleet with the obviously missing BC303 and one other, and also do a few more wraith ships. I'm then going to take a step back from mesh building and try to learn how to texture - I've been putting it off long enough. One of the reasons I haven't is because I hadn't learned paintshop/photoshop. Well, I've been using it at work for a few weeks now so that handicap has been removed.

As for engines, GE? Come on, Rolls Royce all the way!

 

[Majestic]

If you need some pointers for texturing let me know I am sure I could help you.

 

[thunderfoot]

Those BUFFs are beautiful! You simply have to finish and release them. I agree with you on the Dale Brown books. The first one was by far the best one.