Merchant Fleet Mod Progress Thread

[iambecomelife]

This thread will feature regular updates on the progress of the Merchant Fleet Mod for Silent Hunter III. I am aiming for biweekly posts that will contain details on which merchant vessels are being included, historical information on typical WWII-era cargo ships, and screenshots of the modeling/skinning process, when appropriate.

EDIT: A beta version of the mod has been released:

Latest version:

http://files.filefront.com/13794822

Skins:

http://files.filefront.com/MFM+Skin+.../fileinfo.html

[iambecomelife]

Update #1 - Merchant M12B

I spent much of yesterday afternoon creating skins for M12B - a modern merchant with a long bridge deck. This style of merchant was designed with a midships island that extended beyond the superstructure. It was often used for high volume, low density cargoes like grain, cotton, and coal, as the increased hull space was a major asset. Most were purpose-built but a few were converted from traditional merchant ships. They were fairly common in the British, Dutch, Greek, and Japanese merchant navies - to my knowledge they were very rare in the US fleet.
The design became obsolete after the war, due to the increased number of purpose-built bulk carriers available to shippers.



I have made at least four types of this ship since 2006. I'd like it more if I could imitate the "swayback" look that a lot of them had in real life, but that often causes texturing problems and increases the poly count.







This model was inspired by the "SS Hartlebury", built in 1934. Before the war broke out she and her fleetmates connected Liverpool and London with ports in the Americas and East Africa. By 1942 she had been armed with antisubmarine guns on the bow and stern, along with several light AA weapons. In late June of 1942 she joined Convoy PQ-17, bound for the Soviet Union. She escaped the initial Luftwaffe attacks undamaged but was forced to make for Archangel at her best speed after the convoy was ordered to scatter. She was intercepted by U-335 on 7 July and sunk with heavy loss of life. Despite assistance from U-335's crew only 20 men survived. 38 crewmembers were killed, including the master, who died of head injuries about a year after the incident.


(from uboat.net)


http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/1903.html

[iambecomelife]

Update #2 - Merchant M15B

This ship represents medium-sized, modern motorships. It's loosely based on the composite superstructure version of the Doxford Motorship - a standard design produced by England and available in both composite and split deckhouse versions. They were popular replacements for the slow, coal-burning merchantmen that dominated the post-WWI British merchant navy. Several were built for foreign buyers, including Portugal and the Philippines.




The model took only about an hour to make; it was pieced together from a modern split superstructure cargo ship that I am also working on (designation M14B). These ships in turn also share parts with the British-style medium tanker I posted screenshots of several months ago.



BTW, I highly recommend using S3ditor for ship modeling - it is wonderful to be able to move nodes & components with a visual reference, instead of using guesswork. S3ditor also never corrupts data files like Pack3d sometimes does. The one major advantage of Pack3d is that it's good for importing obj files with multiple subparts - for this reason, I switch back and forth between pack3d and s3ditor depending on what I'm doing.

[bert8for3]

Looking forward to it

[Task Force]

Sounds cool.

[Alex]

[Reece]

Sounds good to me!! I want a new fleet now!

[onelifecrisis]

IABL man you're like a woman - endless bloody foreplay! I want my wargasm already!

[nikbear]

Can't wait to see these baby'sas long as this isn't a teaser and then nothingyour ships look so beautiful and really do put the rest of the merchie's to shame but......the waiting's an absolute killerhopefully this is a sign of the greatness to soon come

[Hitman]

The good part of this is that no matter how long it took to have them in SH3, porting them to SH4 (If IABL sees fit) will be a much easier job

[Jimbuna]

@Alex and OLC.......


Looking forward to it IABL

[geosub1978]

We have already a first taste of the merchants from the NYGM pack and it is obvious that a lot of workinghours have been spent on them. Nevertheless, I noticded that liners and transports are missing. Have a look for example:

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/1854.html
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/721.html
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/2953.html
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/532.html
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/406.html
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/348.html
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/739.html
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/1030.html

[Letum]

I don't understand this thread.
Why make a empty post to edit later when you can make a full post at the right time?

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by Hitman

The good part of this is that no matter how long it took to have them in SH3, porting them to SH4 (If IABL sees fit) will be a much easier job

:rotfl:

Placing themm into SH4 is simple
Porting them properly so they look the same as the SH4 ships is a whole different ballgame

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

This thread will feature regular updates on the progress of the Merchant Fleet Mod for Silent Hunter III. I am aiming for biweekly posts that will contain details on which merchant vessels are being included, historical information on typical WWII-era cargo ships, and screenshots of the modeling/skinning process, when appropriate.

Ah SH3
What a quant ole game that was
Now as we await the release of SH6.6 Neptunes revenge how nice it is to see ppl still working on the old games


Less threads more releases
Crack on mate

:rotfl:

J\k
Now release them already