(WIP) K-Type Airship

[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

[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 If anyone who knows how to attach the seperate nodes is willing to teach me it would be much appreciated

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

[Venatore]

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

[Woof1701]

Originally Posted by xxSWxxNinja

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

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

[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 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







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 . 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

[denis_469]

Originally Posted by xxSWxxNinja

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

You would be excellent moder for community SH III

[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]

Originally Posted by xxSWxxNinja

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

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

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by 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.

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!

[bigboywooly]

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