[WIP] - Japanese Merchants for SH4 & SH3
 

I made a large British freighter the other day and I realized that if it was shrunk it could be used to make several generic Japanese freighters. Two of them are almost finished and I am planning a third that will look similar but will have the superstructures closer together. Ideally I would like them to be useable for both SH3 and SH4. These skins are early war but it will be easy to create grey and green camo skins for Spring 1942 - Summer 1945.

ONI-208-J and similar manuals are really useful for finding out ship shapes. Many of the merchant classes were very similar - it can be tough to make each one visually interesting on its own.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d5...ife/Mit1-1.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d5...ife/Mit2-1.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d5...melife/AL3.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d5...melife/AL1.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d5...life/Manu1.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d5...life/Manu2.jpg

Looks good, I have waited for you to make some better merchants for SH4 :up: knowing your nice work from SH3 modding forum :yep:

Yeah !! The Merchant-Master of SH3 is here ! Great :D

Woot!

tater

Oh yes iambecome, this is really great. :up:
You know, i love you ...........

Cant wait to get it !

Greets

Maddy

Those ships are beautiful. It would almost be a crying shame to put a torpedo into one of them! :up:

same thing! :D

I've been tempted to message you a few times and ask if you were planning to convert some applicable merchants from your work to SH4 - but I figured you had your hands full enough with the Merchat Fleet for SHIII...

REALLY glad you came over here and are working on this too :)

Really excellent work! I'm with Ducimus, it would be a pity to torpedo them, they look so good... But I could get over it! :up:

If you don't mind me asking, what are you using to model these in?

Step this way:lol:

Good, good, good!

You can never have too big a selection http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9...humbsuprw5.gif

Will you be able to add the caustic effects, the overlay and normal maps too..?

It would be nice if they had all the same effects as the existing ones so they don't look out of place.

Things I think are difficult...

1. Caustics - think this is just a dat file edition
2. Overlay - I have no idea how they are generated to look as they are, but the alpha is just the basic Texture file in greyscale.
3. Wakes etc, imported ships often have huge wakes - think this is an easy fix too... just dat editing and making nodes etc.
4. Reflections - ???
5. Interior damage model -????

They are all modeled in Wings3d.

I do not know how to add these things because I usually don't work on SH4 ships. Later on, I may browse the SH4 forums for any posts on the conversion process.

::rolls out the red carpet::
1 word... WOOT!

Once again...superb work and looking forward to some variety of surface skimmers to sink. :up: