Solutions that have already provided, if you’ve been paying attention.

Freelancer handles high resolution meshes just fine. Source: This runs just fine.

And then there’s the problem of getting the various artists who are left to settle on a style. We’re all of varying levels of skill, background, training, and experience. Agreeing on an Art Director to set the tone would be a hellacious experience, I suspect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YAPV0f4yak

Yeah, it’s nothing like STO’s F2P model. It’s based on the popularity of large ‘horde’ style nulsec groups from the last big war. Lots of low experience players in T1 Cruisers lead by extremely experienced battle lines. So now their horde players don’t even have to pay to do what they love doing: derping around in cruisers and killing stuff.

Meanwhile they get to watch the big boys do battleship lines and capital hot drops, and drool over the ability to do that someday - if they sub.

Pretty genius if you ask me.

Yeah, they’re definitely referring to the specular highlights being too diffuse. I suppose you’re generating that on the fly or using just a fixed value for the spec power.

It wouldn’t be too hard to generate basic spec maps from the textures themselves, at least manually.

Still a work in progress, we’re knocking down elements of it as we can get to it. The collisions themselves still need a bit more work, but they’re far more consistent now and we can reliably determine who gets damaged and how much. Ramming is a legit strategy now.

It’s like M$ who don’t want to release the FL source code.

And with this you demonstrate just how much you don’t know.

Kuze wrote:
@Sizer: Mon Calamari porn man… Great job. Moar please.

Ok

Gallery

MC80a carrier variant

Since we’re doing posts again.

What’s your potential account name/email address, I’ll see if I can reset it.

Dromedary wrote:
I think as a trailer it fails miserably.

D’oh.

The name’s actually from the film Merlin, an inscription on Merlin’s Charm of Making.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q23j7tJTgg0

Other than those unnecessary cuts on the blue pieces, it looks pretty clean. My advice would be to bulk up the outer edges of the solar panels. Having an acute angle on a border edge always looks unnatural.

It’s also a very large object - you can afford to spend a whole lot more budget on establishing the silhouette. You can make the core round pieces a lot smoother with more splits.

I’d also have to take a closer look a the round bits at the end of the pylons. It MAY just be that the resolution is making them look higher res than they are, but the non-wireframe image suggests otherwise. Try to keep your polygon density uniform.

Can’t really critique without seeing the topology. Wireframe overlay plox.

I use CS6 Extended.

Groups should be creatable by selecting the layers you want to group and then hitting either the folder icon in the bottom of the layer tray or CRTL+G

I’ll record a demo video, maybe tonight when I get back from class on what I know about texture tricks for PS. I might do a series on using dDo and nDo to create really nice diffuse textures.

PSD For Reference

Well, it’s a little more than that. What I did was pull out some of the blacks using Curves/Levels. I didn’t have the base PSD, so I had to just use a blunt force method, but with the layers intact, there are easier ways to do it.

As for the edges, use a 1px hard brush with a white+basecolor for edge highlights. And again, look at your big panels. The lightsource isnt matching up. Instead of using the layer style Bevel, hand paint the panels using two layers. The upper layer should be Light and the lower layer should be Shadow. Paint with a white+basecolor broad hard brush for your highlighted edges, and dark grey brush for your shadow edges. Always use one lightsource - I usually use upper left corner @ 45 degrees. That way on every panel, if the panel is raised, the top edge and left edge are highlighted, and the bottom edge and lower edge are shadow. If the panel is inset, the reverse is true. You’ll get a more clear reading that way.

Also, using a Diff Cloud is a good way to make a base texture, but also try combining it via an Overlay layer using a texture from www.cgtextures.com. They’re royalty free and usually pretty decent quality. Find a decent metal texture to use as a base, most of them are pre-tiled, so no worries there.

I have a really good test texture I built laying around somewhere. I’ll try to find it and post it here so you can see what I mean.

Disclaimer: The following is artistic criticism, not any sort of negative mindless hate.

You’ve not taken it far enough. The diff cloud is a little obvious, I’d pull it back some. Take some of the blacks out, they’re too heavy.

Your shapes are good, but they’re too uniform. Spend some time damaging the panels instead of letting the Diff cloud do the work. Also, if you’re gonna put in lighting (the panels dark v light edges) keep the light source uniform.

Manually put metallic highlights on your hard edges, right now it reads as plastic, not metal. And add some fake ambient occlusion to overlapping pieces. Another 2-3 hrs of work and this could be a nice piece.

Attached is a quick once over I’ve done on a small piece of the texture. Now, I can’t compensate for your Diff clouds, I’m just painting over what you’ve got, but see the difference in how much less flat you can make it in just a few minutes? Really easy tricks.

By no means is this my little doodle representative of finished level quality. But you’ve got the resolution, so use it! Also, this is a choice thing, but I’d refrain from using a ‘stamp’ pattern like that metal plating backdrop. You can do so much better with just your own work.