(WIP) K-Type Airship

[xxSWxxNinja]

My first project for SH I figured I would make something that I thought was missing from the atlantic arsenal. The K class airships used by the Americans as escorts for atlantic convoys. Shouldnt take me too long to model here's some renders so far a few minutes work..

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/8749/kclasspp9.jpg

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/7845/kclassangleud1.jpg

And some history behind the K class use---

While Germany determined the airships were obsolete for military purposes in the coming war and concentrated on the development of airplanes, the United States pursued a program of military airship construction even though it had not developed a clear military doctrine for airship use. At the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 that brought the United States into World War II, it had 10 non-rigid airships:

* 4 K-class : K-2, K-3, K-4 and K-5 designed as a patrol ships built from 1938.
* 3 L-class : L-1, L-2 and L-3 as small training ships, produced from 1938.
* 1 G-class built in 1936 for training.
* 2 TC-class that were older patrol ships designed for land forces, build in 1933. The US Navy acquired them from Army in 1938.

Only K and TC class airships could be used for combat purposes and they were quickly pressed into service against Japanese and German submarines which at that time were sinking US shipping in visual range of US coast. US Navy command, remembering the airship anti-submarine success from WWI, immediately requested that new modern anti-submarine airship and on 2 January 1942 formed the ZP-12 patrol unit based in Lakehurst from the 4 K airship. The ZP-32 patrol unit was formed from 2 TC and 2 L airship a month later, based at US Navy (Moffet Field) in Sunnyvale in California. An airship training base was created there as well.

In the years 1942-1944, approximately 1400 airship pilots and 3000 support crew members were trained in the military airship crew training program and the airship military personnel grew from 430 to 12400. The US airships were produced by the Goodyear factory in Akron, Ohio. From 1942 till 1945, 154 airships were built for the US Navy (133 K-class, 10 L-class, 7 G-class, 4 M-class) and 5 L-class for civilian customers (serial number L-4 to L-8).

The primary airship tasks were patrol and escort of ships near the coastline. They also served as an organisation center for the convoys to direct ship movements and course, and were used during naval search and rescue operations. Rarer duties of the airships included aerophoto reconnaissance, naval minelaying and minesweeping, parachute unit transport and deployment, cargo and personnel transportation. They were deemed quite successful in their duties with the highest combat readiness factor in the entire US air force (87%). They were extremely successful in their primary goal of anti-submarine warfare as the below numbers illustrate:

* 1942: 454 ships sunk near the US coast, 4-13 airships in service
* 1943: 65 ships sunk near the US coast, 17-53 airships in service
* 1944: 8 ships sunk near the US coast, 56-68 airships in service
* 1945: 3 ships sunk near the US coast, 53-48 airships in service

Not a single ship from a convoy escorted by airships was sunk. Airships engaged the submarines with depth charges, or rarely from other onboard weapons. They were very successful since they could match the slow speed of the submarine and bomb it until its destruction. Additionally, submerged submarines had no means of detecting an airship approaching.

Only one airship was ever destroyed by U-boat: on the night of 18/19 July 1943 a K-class airship (K-74) from ZP-21 division was patrolling the coastline near Florida. Using radar, the airship located a surfaced German submarine. Due to the failure of the depth charge release mechanism, the airship was unable to release the bombs during the bombing run and the German returned fire. The (K-74) received serious damage and was forced to make a water landing. The crew was rescued by patrol boats in the morning, but one crewman died from a shark attack. The U-Boat responsible was sunk a few hours later.

[papa_smurf]

Looking good! Looking foward to the release of this mod:up:

[bigboywooly]

Nice
Watch this

http://rapidshare.com/files/52168964/wonderwhat.7z.html

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h22/bigboywooly/wmplayer2007-09-0218-47-39-84.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h22/bigboywooly/wmplayer2007-09-0218-47-48-39.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h22/bigboywooly/wmplayer2007-09-0218-47-50-82.jpg

[WilhelmSchulz.]

:roll:

[xxSWxxNinja]

oooo I didnt know it had been done already well I may aswell see it through to the end ive already begun it and as its my first SH mod it'll be a nice learner I was hoping to do everything myself AI, Coding ect :D

[Vader 1]

:up:

[Dowly]

oooo I didnt know it had been done already well I may aswell see it through to the end ive already begun it and as its my first SH mod it'll be a nice learner I was hoping to do everything myself AI, Coding ect :D That's the spirit! :up:

[Jimbuna]

@BBW

ROTFLMAO :rotfl:

[bigboywooly]

2 are better than none :up:

[TheDarkWraith]

@BBW

ROTFLMAO :rotfl:

I don't know what you all find so funny about this person striking out on his own and making something. There is nothing funny about it. The way BBW comes across is very arrogant like 'uh-huh, but see what I got' :nope: . This just torques me to no end. Do not put down creativity! :arrgh!:

EDIT:

I didn't see the post after from BBW saying two are better than none. I apologize. :o

[Dowly]

@BBW

ROTFLMAO :rotfl:
I don't know what you all find so funny about this person striking out on his own and making something. There is nothing funny about it. The way BBW comes across is very arrogant like 'uh-huh, but see what I got' :nope: . This just torques me to no end. Do not put down creativity! :arrgh!:

:roll:............................:damn: (Copyright 2007 Jimbuna)

[mr chris]

Racerboy,
Im sure BBW was not being arrogant at all its not his style. He was just giving the guy a heads up that was all. If you look at his post above yours you will notice that he says I qoute "2 ARE BETTER THAN NONE"
This is very far from puting down creativity as you acusse him of.

[TheDarkWraith]

Racerboy,
Im sure BBW was not being arrogant at all its not his style. He was just giving the guy a heads up that was all. If you look at his post above yours you will notice that he says I qoute "2 ARE BETTER THAN NONE"
This is very far from puting down creativity as you acusse him of.

Yeah, I caught that after submitting it. I edited my post to say I apologize for it. I was spun when I first read that though.

[mr chris]

No worries :up:

[Safe-Keeper]

'I told him we already have one!' :p

Seriously, though, go ahead and finish it. If it's not better than the 'original' one, you still gain experience.

[xxSWxxNinja]

Well after studying litterally hundreds of K type variants I figure the shape is far longer than the one already created so im going for a slight diffrent look. Just some questions I have for you seasoned modders to help me out

1. whats the recommended poly limit per model
2. How would I export it using 3D max 8
3. Do the moving parts like the proppellars and weapons need to be modeled seperatly and hardpointed in or animated and saved as one model.

Anyhelp would be much appreciated :D

[JU_88]

1) up to you but, keep it as low as you can, the player Uboats (i think) are about 50,000 polys in total - most of that is used on the conning towers. your average AI ship is about 10,000-ish polys (or faces in 3dmax)
For aircraft the devs recommended they are kept within 4,000, but they can be as high as ships with out causing any major problems. (so long as no one tries to re-create the battle of britain)

2) You would export it as a Wavefront *obj file from Max - and the skin must be in *TGA format. Also to import the Objs in to a DAt file you will need a free Java based program called Pack3d.

3) Propellers and weapons are added as seperate nodes (not my feild of expertise)
Propellers are just a single plane with animated TGA. You wont need to animate anything.

[xxSWxxNinja]

Why thank you very much that answered my questions nicely :D If anyone who knows how to attach the seperate nodes is willing to teach me it would be much appreciated :D

Id also like to know if its possible to code it into SH so that random textures can be used upon diffrent encounters. So that I can vary the textures slightly and give a few diffrent numbers to each maybe 5 seperate textures.

[xxSWxxNinja]

Ok bin a bit busy today but I got a bit done heres the progress so far any feedback would be appreciated :|\\

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6458/kclasslw6.jpg

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/1746/kclassanglefi5.jpg

[Venatore]

That looks bloody outstanding ! excellent work ! I just wish I knew how to do that ? instead of my little tiny mods :oops:

[Woof1701]

Ok bin a bit busy today but I got a bit done heres the progress so far any feedback would be appreciated :|\\

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6458/kclasslw6.jpg

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/1746/kclassanglefi5.jpg


Looks very nice. I especially like the details in the bow. When it comes to proportions the gondola looks a bit too massive. All real blimps and Zeppelin NT I've seen flying around had much smaller gondolas. But I know practically nothing about K-ships! Keep it up!

[xxSWxxNinja]

Yea I found a really nice closeup of the gondula section so im going to redo that part so far she's a tad over 7k polys so I reckon ill be well under the 10k mark which isnt bad for rounded surface. Still not sure how to add weapons and get them to work but im not upto that part yet..... baby steps :D

[xxSWxxNinja]

Well I went back and ive rebuilt her virtually from scratch after finding a nice goody bag of pictures of one sat in a musuem :D mainly left to do is figure out the gun configuration then texture im not sure how to include crew into the model. Do you use set crew models built into the game or model them from scratch??

Anyways here she is so far comments welcome

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/3435/kclassnewgondulast8.jpg

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/3416/kclassnewgondula2sx7.jpg

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8854/kclassnewgondula3ql3.jpg

I was also wondering if anyone has created a sonar bouy dropping mod as the K3 types and onwards all had MAD and Sonar bouy equipment aswell as the best radar equipment of the war. I wanna try and encorporate all that into it.

[TheDarkWraith]

where did you learn how to do this? That's awesome work :o :eek: :rock: . It took me DAYS just to make the pennants and halyard for my mod. What program are you using to do this 3D model?

[xxSWxxNinja]

3D max 8 matey and im studying game development at university so its where i learnt most of it :know:

[denis_469]

3D max 8 matey and im studying game development at university so its where i learnt most of it :know:

You would be excellent moder for community SH III:up:

[gsc67]

That is very fine work my friend ! Please... keep it going. Someone wrote earlier in the post about copwrite protection of something... I would like to know what he was trying to refer to? I would suspect he was talking about the Air Ballon that was made already and the mod created... but not someone else making a new ship with a different design pattern of his own making.

[Spruence M]

3D max 8 matey and im studying game development at university so its where i learnt most of it :know:

You the man. :up: Looks nice, never really realized that they were used in WWII.

[JU_88]

That is very fine work my friend ! Please... keep it going. Someone wrote earlier in the post about copwrite protection of something... I would like to know what he was trying to refer to? I would suspect he was talking about the Air Ballon that was made already and the mod created... but not someone else making a new ship with a different design pattern of his own making.

Copywrite? who said that??, either they were kidding or talking crap. You cant copyrwite a mod.
If it was reference to the one in GWX 1.04 that certainly is NOT 'copywrited' theres pleanty of room in the game for more than one K-ship, and Ninjas one is looking great!
:rock:

[bigboywooly]

IIRC twas Racerboy who said he added some form of copy protection to his mods
Exhaust smoke again IIRC

[Woof1701]

Very nice model. Keep it up!!!! :rock:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

That is very fine work my friend ! Please... keep it going. Someone wrote earlier in the post about copwrite protection of something... I would like to know what he was trying to refer to? I would suspect he was talking about the Air Ballon that was made already and the mod created... but not someone else making a new ship with a different design pattern of his own making.

Copywrite? who said that??, either they were kidding or talking crap. You cant copyrwite a mod.
If it was reference to the one in GWX 1.04 that certainly is NOT 'copywrited' theres pleanty of room in the game for more than one K-ship, and Ninjas one is looking great!
:rock:

Actually, original / intellectual property such as the K-ship model that will be in GWX version 1.04 can indeed be copyrighted.

Technically, Ninja could do the same with his as long as it is original material.

It wasn't in SH3 to begin with.

[gimpy117]

now make if for flight sim 2004!!!

[JU_88]

That is very fine work my friend ! Please... keep it going. Someone wrote earlier in the post about copwrite protection of something... I would like to know what he was trying to refer to? I would suspect he was talking about the Air Ballon that was made already and the mod created... but not someone else making a new ship with a different design pattern of his own making.

Copywrite? who said that??, either they were kidding or talking crap. You cant copyrwite a mod.
If it was reference to the one in GWX 1.04 that certainly is NOT 'copywrited' theres pleanty of room in the game for more than one K-ship, and Ninjas one is looking great!
:rock:

Actually, original / intellectual property such as the K-ship model that will be in GWX version 1.04 can indeed be copyrighted.

Technically, Ninja could do the same with his as long as it is original material.

It wasn't in SH3 to begin with.

Well.... I guess you could copywrite the 3d model - that is orginal material in its own right (out side of SH3).

[xxSWxxNinja]

woooo ahhh sorry about the long winded wait fella's untill update but i just started back at Uni :know:after the summer hols and it was a tad hectic anyways progress report... I finally got round to texturing the airship trying to keep texture stretch to a minimum while giving a high quality finish, 2046 x 2046 textures soo she's hi res. Ill also include lower res textures for Lower end machines cos im nice :D

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/106/kshipsiderender1zp2.jpg

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/157/kshipsiderender2vp0.jpg

[xxSWxxNinja]

Ok last update before i go to bed here is how she stands mainly just the airframe to texture then figure out the turrets and the characters :D

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/9282/kshipsiderender1rm9.jpg

[JScones]

Nice attention to detail. :up: :rock:

[Kaleu. Jochen Mohr]

now i am supprized if we will ever see the "Hindenburg" in SH3 :hmm:

looking verry nice btw

[xxSWxxNinja]

well the hindenburg was destroyed before WW2 kicked off in 1937 and the graf zeppelin was retired in 1938 after completing over 1 million miles and the graf zeppelin II which launched in 1938 was scrapped in 1940. Suppose if I it was really requested I could make it right after this one :smug:

[danlisa]

Very, very nice.:up::up:

Question: What's the polycount?

[Kaleu. Jochen Mohr]

well the hindenburg was destroyed before WW2 kicked off in 1937 and the graf zeppelin was retired in 1938 after completing over 1 million miles and the graf zeppelin II which launched in 1938 was scrapped in 1940. Suppose if I it was really requested I could make it right after this one :smug:

plz do :D :rock:

[xxSWxxNinja]

Very, very nice.:up::up:

Question: What's the polycount?
well modeling is complete as is so its 8917 polys Im gonna trim some fat from the airframe part before texturing so that'll fall some more. Its below my target of 10,000 though as I dont plan on having more than 1 on screen at any time as they flew in single squads throughout the war.

Hindenburg is next on my list ;)

And heres a update the control car is now completed!!:D

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/9585/kshipsiderender1uo4.jpg

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/6677/kshipsiderender2ta6.jpg

***Incase your wondering what that black triangle is I have no idea ive checked the render and the model it doesnt show up untill I save the file to JPEG every other format shows nothing so erm I dunno shouldnt be anything causing it model wise but ill investigate >_>***

[Jimbuna]

Coming along really nicely :up:

[Schöneboom]

Hey, I am impressed! The more, the merrier! Bring on ze Blimps!!!

BTW, a key element, which I'm sure you've thought of, is the airship's ability to call for air or DD reinforcements. That teamwork is what I believe makes them truly dangerous!

Carry On! :up:

[Jimbuna]

As far as I know the AI should be the same for every Allied unit :hmm:

[xxSWxxNinja]

An idea that was offered to me by alex and which ive been playing with is to have the envelope deflate once the airship is destroyed. Kinda like how the ships break in the middle Id like to model the envelope sagging and upon impact with the ocean produce a drifting fabric debris. But as im new to SH3 and GWX modding not sure how to best go about it or if its even possible still not sure on the crew models that seem to be used by the general modelers, is it a set crew thats available in SH3 or just general release somewhere.

Any help or comments as always are appreciated :up:

[Safe-Keeper]

That exhaust pipe on the engine looks amazing. As a matter of fact, the whole thing does.

Zeppelins are in GWX, right?

[xxSWxxNinja]

That exhaust pipe on the engine looks amazing. As a matter of fact, the whole thing does.

Zeppelins are in GWX, right?

The exhaust pipe is just textured believe it or not its completely flat I hae degrees in both modeling and photoshop I just cant code anything so I reckon im gonna need some help getting her in the game unless someone is willing to teach me :hmm:

[danlisa]

I'm really impressed with the current Max renderings and at the relatively low poly count. I think (at the moment) you are on par with some of the larger ships, so not to shabby.:up:

I'm sure that you are aware of this but obviously once this is in game the games rendering engine takes over and things will look a little different.;) I really look forward to the first ingame shots.

Keep up the good work.:rock:

[xxSWxxNinja]

Yep I know Ive done all these renders with only basic lighting and render engine so to try and give as close as possible view of the finished ingame piece so im hoping it will look better ingame. Still need to get hold of a plugin for max to allow me to export the models correctly for SH3.

[Hawk U-375]

:huh: Incrediable stuff!

[ReallyDedPoet]

That is very impressive :yep:


RDP

[xxSWxxNinja]

Thank you for the comments itss nice to know im on the right track currently at Uni at min on my break but ill update later with hopefully the envelope fully textured :know:

[Jimbuna]

That exhaust pipe on the engine looks amazing. As a matter of fact, the whole thing does.

Zeppelins are in GWX, right?

Not as far as I'm aware :nope:



http://files.filefront.com/Airship2avi/;8437453;/fileinfo.html

[Safe-Keeper]

I meant in the upcoming release. Or maybe that's what you meant.

[Safe-Keeper]

As for them deflating when you destroy them, this might be possible if you have the deflated balloon be the actual model, and then have it carry the intact balloon model around that as cargo, the way cargo ships carry containers. So when it's destroyed, the 'cargo' explodes, and you see the deflated form as it goes down. I hope you know what I mean.

Again, this may not be possible, but it's an idea.

[Jimbuna]

I know what you mean but the avi is the only early view Kpt. is allowing to be released and as such......it'll be ready when it's ready ;) :up: