New Look For an Old Bird

[Knight26]

I have been working on retexturing my craft lately and decided it was about time to do some of my enemy fighters, give them a unique and believable texture. Up until now this particular fighter has been using a texture I found on the net years ago. It was fine for a long time, but looking around I finally stopped lying to myself that it is a terrible texture for a fighter, way too complex. I would appreciate any constructive comments about the texture job. Right now I am having just a little trouble with the cockpit side textures, working on how to fix that, may have to scrap those textures and redo them, its all due to the shape of the cockpit and the software. Yes I am still doing this in AUTOCAD, amazed the heck out of Super-O when he saw the work in progress yesterday. Well let me know what you think. The first pic is of the old version,

[Knight26]

Next the new verion, no weapons right now since I have yet to start the retexture on those. Also no squadron markings as yet, but they are on the way. Comments welcome and appreciated.

[Knight26]

In this pic you can clearly see the problems AUTOCAD is having with the textures, mostly around the edges of the saucer and the bottom of the cockpit. A reshape of the wing might fix that, but damn that would be a pain to fix. Hopefully the next version of ACAD will correct that problem, otherwise I may have to finally migrate over to 3DS.

[Tekkaman Blade]

If you add more dealies to the new version, I'm sure it will look as good as the new.

Great work

[Knight26]

Details, like what? This is a fighter it shouldn't be too busy. I may make it a little dirtier.

[Knight26]

Ok just reread Tekkamans comments, misread it this morning, oops. There are a number of things that will be added to the design. First and foremost the weapons packs. I am planning to do those in a light shade of grey, except for the guns, which I will redesign and darken considerably. I will also be adding visible thrusters to the wings, but these will be modeled on. I am debating whether or not they should have a Macross nod and be the circle-bar verniers. Any comments on the overall textures though, I tried to keep them from being too busy, I see a lot of sci-fi fighter textures that are just way too busy and plan to avoid that. As you can tell I've done a lot of maintenance work on fighter, planes and ships, which explains all the access panels, these bird is very maintenance friendly. I should have the weapons packs finished this weekend or next week provided nothing major comes up. Not bad I think overall. Learning how to use layers properly helped a great deal in making these textures.

[Nightbat]

Sure looks alot better, the first pictured craft would only be believeable if it was a HUGE ship (lots of plating) -and after shifting my focus from the texture to the complete image I realized it was just a tiny fighter

the second gives you a more "one-piece-construction" idea

much more realistic

[SuperOstrich]

I prefer the new version, with the cleaner paneling. However, I really liked the pattern the red panels followed in the original.

[Knight26]

Th weapons packs will likely have something similar to the old striping as well. The striping changes on the main wings were made to coincide with the new panelling, may chagne that in the future.

[Knight26]

Ok, first two drafts of the upper weapons packs, except the guns, redesigning those. Would like constructive comments. The colors on the striping came out a little different, can't figure how I did the originals now, so did it like I did the bottom, which was a little different. Even then I couldn't remember the exact sequence of events and messed it up a little. I may change the spacing between the stripes but I like the thickness of them overall. The first pic is has the much lighter weapons packs, came out a little too light really.

[Knight26]

Second version with the darker weapons packs, but still a little lighter in shade then the rest. Comments welcome, let me know what you think.

Edit- I am likely going to remove the bolts from the texture map, they stand out way too much, easy fix.

Edited September 6, 2003 by Knight26

[UN Spacy]

Nice! It reminds me of the Crab looking attack fighters from the Comet Empire season of Starblazers.

[Knight26]

Crab fighter? Hmm will have to look at that. Actually the original inspiration was the Dralthi from Wing Commander 1, just turned around with a super big engine and huge guns. Anyway here is teh new lower weapons packs. Those white parts are the rocket packs, Hive Pack, High Explosive Rockets, 70 per pack. Perfect weapon for ripping bombers to shreds. As always comments appreciated. Once the guns have been redesigned I will post more pics.

[Commander McBride]

I like the darker version of the packs much better. The light ones look like a candy cane.

What continium does this fighter exist within?

[Lightning]

What continium does this fighter exist within?

the series that K26 is writing soon.

[Knight26]

Actually I am actively writing it, the first book is currently under review for pulbication. Thanks for the comments. Here are the two latest additions, or really 18, the six heavy Mass Drivers and 2 Heavy Plasers plus their mounts. I will work on several color schemes for this fighter, including a low vis. But first I have to do the other set of upper weapons packs. They use differenet missiles and are smaller. Well here she is in all her glory the SOLAAR MK1 anti-bomber interceptor.

[Knight26]

And a close up on those big guns. Twelve 120mm MDCs, and two 240mm Heavy PLASER Cannons. These Weapons are designed to be used in conjunction to bring down a bomber's shields and tear it's hull to pieces in a single pass. In fact they are all fire linked firing in a cyclic pattern. If I weren't so burnt out from my games easrlier I would explian more, but later. Anyway here are those big guns.

[Knight26]

Guess what more updates. First the secondary weapons packs on the upper surface. The larger weapons packs each hold three of the triple cluster missles. These smaller ones are for the longer range missiles, which are larger then the smaller cluster type, but still smaller than the three stacked type. Mk1 Solaars typically carry the cluster missiles, while MK2s usually carry the more standard missiles. The packs are interchangable though, so that can change.

[Knight26]

Ok, now for your typical Mk2 configured Solaar. The primary alteration to the Mk2 is the replacement of the lower triple 120mm MDC pack with a three barrelled 60mm gatling MDC. The gatlings were added to give the Solaar an anti-fighter capability, the slower refire rate of the big guns made them hard to bring to bear against fighters.

[Knight26]

A lightened close up of the galtings under the wing.

[Knight26]

Bugger forgot th picture. That's all for the MK1/2 except for squadron sigils to be added and more color schemes. Next up the Mark3 which is a major redesign retaining only the cockpit and fuselage, everything else is new, wings, engines, weapons, etc...

[Lightning]

for a sec i thought the gatlings were missles. man, what can i say? wow, this thing is lookin very nice.

[Knight26]

Wait for the Mark-3, six PLASER cannons on flex mounts, eight missile tubes, for long range or clusters, and dual thrasher cannons, basically a giant shotgun. Plus four engines spaced away from centerline for increased manueverabilty. I won't even go into details on the merlin yet, but she's even more viscous.

[Knight26]

Time for the major upgrade. The Solaar Mk-3 more of a fighter killer this time, I am still hedging whether or not I should replace the textures on the Thrasher Cannons (the two flanking the cockpit) and the engines. Anyway here a couple pics of her. Bonus points to whoever can ID the markings, as I actually put a squadron sigil on this one.

[Knight26]

Next shot, here you can kind of see the ventral missile packs, only missile armament, no rocket packs this time. Remember htis one is a pure fighter, not an anti-bomber intereceptor. Still getting that buggering sticking problem on the leading and trailing edges though, dang.

[Lightning]

looks cool, but i know the emblem is from a navy squadron, imho, the cannons and engines could use a redoing on the outside..

[Knight26]

OH Bugger, I just realized I forgot to add an AMMO hatch for the Thrashers, ok, will work that into the redesign then.

[EXO]

Hey, late to the party... looks good. A lot of improvements since your last design. YOu gotta get someone to animate these for you so we can see them in action...

Great job, Sean.

[Knight26]

Ok, unless specific questions come up this will be my final post in this thread. Here are the three Solaar Variants together, the Tharsher Cannons on the MK-3 have been redesigned, they kind of look like shotguns now, cool IMHO. I recolored the MK-2 to give it a more distinct appearance, as well as colored the glass of the canopies the same as the squadron markings. That may or may not change, but it actually looks ok from inside the cockpits. After rendering I realized I should have altered which fighter has which color scheme, but decided to stay with the ones here. I guess you could say these are Skull Squadron Solaars, but then Mk2 and Mk3 should have their colors flipped, or the Mk2 should have a green scheme. Hmm, maybe when I do the Merlin I will put it in skull leader colors and the Mk-2 in green or brown Kakazaki. Anyway here are the pics.

[Knight26]

Close up of the three cockpits.