3D Model Showroom

Hello folk. Jeff of Jeff’s Used Starships here on balmy Toledo. We’re so cold here a brass monkey from Planet Primus is still looking looking for what he froze off.

Got a hot deal here right from our customization shop.
A real one-off! For those who really want to make an impression! Come on down to friendly Omicron Minor and make me an offer.

(And if you find a couple of gold colored ball bearings give them to the monkey)

Edit: Hope ya know that’s a joke Mr. Hell.

Say I’m cleaning out my closet and running into interesting things I can had out to the Freelancer community. Most were from studio projects that never got off the ground like the big honker. When I say "studio grade that means the virtual camera can pull in just as tight as you please and the model will stand up. It’s set for textures in post-production by an art department, so I added stock shades of gray and blues for the fx panels self illumination panels. Usually these models are simply trashed after rejection. I don’t remember which shop this came out of or for what project it was meant for. The dates on the original file put it at 2002. Which figured because “Space Operas” were popping up and getting shot down with regularity back then.

Edit: So I’m submitting somebody elses work here, more like a bunch of people’s work. This model probably took a crew of modelers a to rap out in a weeks deadline. See what you can do with it considering the polygon counts involved. (Note this model in cut down form was passed around in the 3D trade mags, but this is the fully detailed model)

Here is the jpgs of it. Zip of .obj is 25mb and will submit for the download page when my internet is repaired (next month) and I’m off this flakey 4G.

OKAY FOLKS HERE’S THE. Dreadnaught is now in the Downloads section. For now look under new submissions. (Thanks guys for. Okaying the submission)

Here’s one from before Freelancer that can easy be made to fit the genre. 1999 and back then first developed on a Cray computer. I later cleaned it up (2002-3) when my desktop started to outmatch the Cray that was then called a “Supercomputer”. You’re desktop at home would laugh at it. Though since about 1000 manhours went into this design, I’ll say I only modeled it. Build it, drop it from the ionosphere and you might just land it. Just don’t ask Jefferson to co-pilot.

Here’s a model from an “open call for submissions” which is a casting call for art\design on movies\TV. They send an outline of what they want and it’s bare bones: Alien spaceship with X fx panels (Illum) and that’s it. Hence OC306 is Open call March 2006.

Going back and looking, when I render these it’s how submissions are sent out. They say what the want, but it’ s usually textured 180 gray and unlit with nothing but an High Dynamic Range Image
(HDRI) they send to set up a light sphere. Most all my ship illustrations on this page are set up and rendered that way because of the detail it shows. I’m planning on submitting 2, one for sheres and a “cross” for cubes to the downloads page in the future, but two small ones are 15mb zipped.

Render image size, view angles, etc are specified, but usually 1 oblique, front, back, top and bottom and min of 1500 x 1500 pixels. And sometimes (rarely) they ask for the model (sign supplied release form please).

I’m vamping while the renderer kicks out the views for the next models.

Edit: I queue them up and hit return.

Sometimes OC’s are a pain and I remember this one as more troulble than it was worth. Those mirrored balls on sticks you sometimes see people hold up in those “making of” reels are for the making of “probe” hdri’s. If you get a probe hdri it’s for light matching to a scene they have in mind. Measuring those back in 2008 was a pain. The two oblique shot request and the probe told me “This is for a short scene there the ship passes the camera and their sending it out because the production department is behind schedule”.

Edit: OC52508, It’s bare bones, parts still named “cube”.

Now back to models that I built for Freelancer back in my LancersReactor days where I used to drop models regularly. There was a hew and cry for a replacement Order VHF for the Anubis. Basically saying “It looks funky.” Ever look at an Anubis outside the engine? It’s downright pretty silver like Juni’s bird but had an ugly orange ambient lighting attached to it! Why? Don’t know. I was (Edit from Android going stupid) on the side of just finding that ambient and killing it. Anyway I was in the process of making this VHF I was going to call the Isis after the Egyptian goddess, wife (and sister) of Osirus. Since Isis (Gee guess why?) She’s being maligned I’m gong to call it The “Set” Set (or at the time of Alexander’s conquest called “Seth”) was sort of the Eqyptian version of of Diablo.

In the process of it’s making I in 2006 I got a job offer and and modding someone else’s game was looked down upon. I can tell how far I got becase only half the hardpoints are labled correctly. Okay, you’ll ask why 12 guns and turrets? First because gun placement is a matter of taste and and everybody back then had opinions. I was semi-famous for gun pylons. Lastly, I scripted my ships before Shipscripter came out. I had then and have now a great XML editor. So my philosophy is hang guns and turrets EVERYWHERE and let the individual modder just delete the bases and hardpoints they dont want and simply cut the eccess out of the script. That didn’t seem to have worked on that mod for WTS in the download section some of my 2005 models are in. So please, use with care for my philosophy. And if you want to clip off pylons too then you’re simply getting the point. Feel free.

Here’s one I REALLY wanted to submit on the old sites “back in the day”. She’s pretty but over 8k polys which was taboo back then. Yes I like wings. Inherited that from 20 years in the US Air Force. I was stuck for a name then looked up to my shelf and my short wave radio back then and saw the name and said, “That will do fine.”

So it’s not even got the UV’s setup and hp’s set up with my shortcuts but she has the weapons bases on and textured. And here’s The Zenith:

Now this ship was made for a mod…but NOT for Freelancer. Hence the naming system used in the parts seeming weird starting with numbers.

This was made for the game X3. Now if you think getting a model into Freelancer is hard, I’ve got news for you. Modeling for Freelancer is FUN. Modeling for X3 was as we say a “copper plated bitch!”.

Which is why I putting this one out. All the rest of my X3 models are in .bob or .cob formats and we never talked Mete into a Milkshape filter and someone developed import-export for 3DS Max. That was back in version 7 and I don’t have the plug ins anymore. If anybody does PLEASE send me a message in my inbox on the site so I can put those ships into the game. I still have the disks for 3DS max from v 5 to 2010. The Maya plug ins would be just as good too for that matter.

As for the name that’s because X3 had “taxi missions”.

So here’s the Airbus2500:

This is another Freelancer design I never finished to UV, texture, hp naming point, but the hps are set up. I used to have a script in my Ultra Edit that took my shortcuts and renamed them in the .obj and .mtl files before I exported them to whatever I was exporting them into .cmp and .mat with.

Edit: Rewriting an xml script that will rename the shortcuts into proper HP lingo. Will post when finished.

And I’m not in love with the names either. If you use them call them what you want.

The Meson:

I know this isn’t in the site’s genre, but we’re all space geeks or we wouldn’t be here.

This is a production model I did for a movie, but just as it was ready to go into production they changed directors. (Stuff happens). He wanted something different. Usually this would have been theirs, I made them sign it back to me or go into guild arbitration. So I’m willing to put this out in the public domain here, but it’s another hi poly monster and would have to go into the downloads page.

If there’s any interest I’ll submit it for download.

This took 200+ hours to complete.

Which movie? You should be able to guess, but I can’t say (That’s the rules).

HERE’S THE LINK FOLKS! DOWNLOAD YOUR TICKET TO THE RED PLANET HERE:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XiVKK1iIKM78SRj79RJeQA0Pe_jJOyXo/view?usp=drivesdk

Need a great big ship for that big gunboat\small battleship range?

Another model I did for the .bob format, but I found I’d kept the workfiles. From 2007 I was proud of myself for this one. We (took a crew to put something…anything into THIS game) we were going to have to replace an existing ship that shipped with the game. That meant in this game not going over that ship’s polygon count, but equal to or under. So this has good detail but is UNDER 2k polys.

Needs everything, UV, textures, hps:

Here’s something unique and alien and the production company that owned this “Space Critter” kindly allowed me to put the little creepy crawly out to the public because in 2007 I owned the company.

Zipped it’s over a megabyte so it’s another I’ll have to submit. Use it as a strange ship or a prop in your mods!

It was boned and rigged and aminated with a spider-like walk cycle so I just removed all that and and tested the .obj to see if it held up and it sure does.

So for you with an interest in something that shreeks
“I’m alien and you look tasty!” Here’s a critter for you!

Edit!: Darn sneaky critter done crawled to the DOWNLOADS! I think it it’s gnawing on a few things up there. Catch it in the Latest Listings.

Another entry into the slighty (Slightly?) unusual flying things is another ship I made for production that I’m handing out to the community.

This beauty had animated wings, landing gear and tail and was used in TV commercials. We’d do computer graphic of it flying in and landing and cut to a full sized set of the front and a live actor would open the canopy and make their pitch.

It’s another large one I’d have to submit but those that don’t care for the unusual that cockpit might be of use. Comes with textures. Not set up with hardpoints.

OKAY PEOPLE! STEP RIGHT UP! ….

Edit: This bird (?) is now in the DOWNLOADS!
Look for it in Latest Listings!

Finally a two in one that aren’t UV’d, textured or hardpointed for Freelancer, but might look strangely familiar.

From 2007-8 when sending in things to a company I liked and were nice to freelancers before they sold the franchise to people I’d walk a mile out of my way to avoid. (Big sign should be outside their gates NO Freelancers!)

I can tell by the number of hits on my models that I wasn’t wasting my or the website’s time here so I’m packing those big ones into zips, testing them to make sure the work and sending them for submission review.

I’m digging through MANY back up files from “ages past” to see what else I can dig up that you all might be interested in.

I just want to assure you all and the site that what I post is either mine to give or in cases like that huge Dreadnaught already released ( In that case on 3D World’s website and isn’t listed anymore or I could have just hotlinked to it. And it was in .max format and most of you don’t happen to have 3DSM to load it into. My copy I found only because I’d converted it to objaction (.obj) and used parts for other projects.)

A email I got asked "how do you get into the business? That an easy answer that’s not too easy in practicum. Join a guild, union, association in the arts. You’ll need a resume (or CV) and a portfolio. This doesn’t apply to some game companies, but at least in BAD old US of A the entertainment media does not “scab”.

So I can feel safe in posting what I have posted becase I have their “provanance” and the workfiles which is why I’m posting this. KEEP YOUR WORKFILES! BACK THEM UP AT LEAST TWICE!

You never know when they’ll come in handy to prove it was you that did something.

Or in the next things I’m posting correct some tragic mistakes made with you’re designs like what was done on the ships in that “Jefferson’s” mod in the dowload section. The results there we’re far from sterling. So I’m putting out the original models again so you all (if interested) can have the un-tragic models to “do with what you will”.

Here’s the original “Zulu” (From the USAF radio call like Bandit and Boogie)

It’s a lesson in exporting you models UVs so if the blow out when slicing a model for SUR files you can load them back.

This model was posted for anyones use back in 2005 on Lancer’s Reactor and I was working elsewhere when Anton and Crabtree but together that WTS mod.

EDIT: Sorry, scout of ancient posts says I DID know Anton. He developed FLModelTool! Yikes! He DID work with Crabtree on mod! Yikes again. That’s REAL housepower! So any loss of UVs in creation of SUR files was unintentional glitches. Sorry I doubted Anton. Mia Culpa.

It’s got all the textures and hardpoits set up, but their labeled in my shortcuts so you’ll have to relabel them before exportl into .cmp

And if you want to laugh, I used to get bashed for adding my own textures instead of using the games textures. Purists ruled back then.

Here’s another two ships in that mod that didn’t quite come out because they ended up having the same textures and are for all practical purposes the same ship when they are, but once with the right textures two different ships as you’ll see.

Another note. Other than exporting new .obj and .mtl. I didn’t mess with them. If they are filled upside down or have an odd scale that’s how the had to go into Milkshape back then. The exporter scaled and flipped them.

As for the story of why two different textures? To Mister George R.R. Martin. If you were playing Freelancer back in 2005 and and picked up on my rivalry between the Ice faction and the Fire faction and spun it into “The Song of Ice and Fire”? GOOD FOR YOU! I’m a fan of the screen version Game of Thrones. My backstory for these was from 2005. In the forums I put the models out on.

Here’s my song of the two sides: rivals to beat Corsairs vs Outcasts. Two planets one Ice like Toledo and another fiery and volcanic hance the factions that used to be from the same planet but split over religious differences. No bloody schism and/or war gets as bad as a religoius one. Present times included.

So here are the combatants in all their faded glory and again with my shortcuts for hardpoint names but in adhereance to my philosophy your going to cut the number of guns/turrets down to reason. Right? Right.

Here they are:

EDIT: Be careful trying to swap one ship’s texture on the other ship. Look at the right engine intakes and compare. There are subtile differences in the mesh and the UV’s might not line up from one to the other.

The last one I’m putting out from the old mod in pure form really had the UVs trashed and an odd name change in the .cmp where intead of Avatar it’s labeled “Pervatar” Which I think I know I know who did just to yank my chain. To which I’ll reply “Good one”.

Edit: Yep it was a jibe at my rants about Milkshape causing degenerate polygons. V 1.8. 5 and and exporter .3 and it still does! So if your model looks blocky in the engine import it again and you’ll find out most of the mesh is now a conglomeration of separate polygons and your CMP is twice to four times the size it should me. No workaround but to keep loading it in and exporting until it finally decides to work correctly. Setting smoothing groups doesn’t work either and what does work (sometimes) is the Model cleaner tool, but it will trash you’re UV’s. Which is what I’m afraid happened to these ships. What will REALLY cause degeneration in Milkshape export is setting LODs and no amount of exporting will help. That level 0 ship will be nothing but X number of single polys in the shape of your ship. Our slang for this was export perversion because the model became degenerate.

Same hardpoint shortcuts (lost that blasted script to label them into the obj and mat files.)

Here’s the Perva… Oops the Avatar:

Here’s the last from the old mod before I dig up more ones that have never seen Freelancer before. The last two were StarForger and Starfire. The StarForger had a gun platform all the way across the top, the Starfire doesn’t and thats the end of the difference. I decided to just post the Starfire here, I was never that in love with the StarForger version.

Like my Fury ship is now the Starfire was my favorite ride back in 2005 bacause some engineering design went into it eg: Gun Clearences. Since these were ready to pack up and into Mete’s Milkshape (Had that program before Freelancer. I used to mod Doom and Quake) And because of this it’s going to be upside down and probably backwards,but hey it’s a free model anyway. So look at the bottom. The gun bases are staggered in height too. Thats to keep guns on one row from firing through the ones in front of it. Might not matter in the engine, but real world your fire plinking you own guns would be in engineering parlance “fratricide” and anybody elses “A BAD THING”. So those bases avoid the issue no matter which rows you keep and which you toss. Just a neat design element you might puzzle over. Like that grill on the bottom. That was me asking myself “Where’s that landing force field coming from? Better give it an emitter.”

So here she is pilots,