I'm making a unit for Roman Legion (and any other Sci-Fi fans).
RL has taken more criticism then just about anyone else on the board. And after the last batch, he responded by offering to help others build wonder graphics. This ability to turn the other cheek impressed me enough that I decided to make my first rendered unit one that he had been begging for.

So, this unit is still in semi-rough shape. As I am fairly new to rendering.

Please give me some feedback on this unit, as I know very little about it. I've watched the show a bit, but I'm no expert.
First, and most important. Where does this thing fire from?
I've made a guess, and circled what seemed the two most likely locations.

http://img247.echo.cx/img247/784/game3lh.gif
Are the guns recessed? Pop-up? or??
Are the weapons rapid fire (pulsed), heavy beam, other?
My base inclination is to make the rear firing positions be like cannons and the forward ones more rapid fire.

Which "run" animation do you prefer? The rise up or the constant height?
http://img247.echo.cx/img247/9858/nwrun0gt.gif
http://img247.echo.cx/img247/7698/nerun3oe.gif
Please note that the green shows up in game only as a very light shadow. I figured this unit flys quite high and should not cast much of a shadow... just make really big holes in things on the ground.

First post!

I think it is fantastic. This is a great way to do a little good for RL that will benefit many, many people also. Thanks!

I like the run that rises first best. Cannot say where the ship fires from (have not watched SG-1 enough), but I would think that the pods on each side, near the engines, would be a cool place to put torpedoes of some sort. You might also consider some turret (AA) fire as a #2 or #3 attack from the rear bridge-like structure. If you have a lot of talent and extra time, something that would add personality would be a fidget or fortify anim that has a little shuttle craft exiting the ship, circling, and flying off. Wyrmshadow did this with some of his naval vessels with helicopters, and it is one of my favorite effects.

I perfer the bottom one and about the layouts ill post one in a little bit it tells about where it fires from and ETC. thank's again

The weapons are missiles, and it is eqipped with asguard shields I also like the rough shape.

Missles are super easy. Any idea where they should fire from?
Should I also add some beam weapons?
Any idea on the asguard shield works/looks? I wonder if it can be modeled.

First post!

I think it is fantastic. This is a great way to do a little good for RL that will benefit many, many people also. Thanks!

I like the run that rises first best. Cannot say where the ship fires from (have not watched SG-1 enough), but I would think that the pods on each side, near the engines, would be a cool place to put torpedoes of some sort. You might also consider some turret (AA) fire as a #2 or #3 attack from the rear bridge-like structure. If you have a lot of talent and extra time, something that would add personality would be a fidget or fortify anim that has a little shuttle craft exiting the ship, circling, and flying off. Wyrmshadow did this with some of his naval vessels with helicopters, and it is one of my favorite effects.

Thanks Camber (btw you have a PM).
Makeing turrets that popup and swing around should be possible. I don't have truespace and some of the fancy tools that Wyrmshadow does (nor 4 yrs of experiance with rendering), but I've been working on it. I don't intend to make well over a hundred units like he has. I just enjoy giving back the community that I got so many cool things from over the years.

If I can figure out what can move I will add movement there. As is, all I had to work with was a photo from Roman Legion. That and a vaque memory from a show I saw a very long time ago.

You could make an alternate flc file as a beam weapon and let the people decide when your finished which one or both of them they want to use. for the asgaurd sheild whitish blue sheild die easily on the show I have seen every epesode and eagerly awaitng the new season to begin. and when you asked if I wanted to take it over I can't because of two factors. 1.no animation shop program. 2.even if I did I don;t know how to make units.

one problem wyrmshadow has is with his aircraft alot of them dont have bomb animations. and the ju-87's iron cross on the wing glitches.

You could make an alternate flc file as a beam weapon and let the people decide when your finished which one or both of them they want to use. for the asgaurd sheild whitish blue sheild die easily on the show I have seen every epesode and eagerly awaitng the new season to begin. and when you asked if I wanted to take it over I can't because of two factors. 1.no animation shop program. 2.even if I did I don;t know how to make units.

Ok, I will see if I can come up with a shield. I believe it will be easy to add a glowing shield. The hard part is that the there is no way to detect when the bad-guy is firing... so the shield would have to be up constantly. It might work to have it up only during the attack animation, but I don't know if this means it would also display when the unit is being attacked (perhaps one of the more experianced unit creators can help here).
As for who finishes the file, I don't mind. I offered to let you to be nice. It is your baby, and if you wanted complete control I wanted to let you have it.
But, I'll finish it, no problem. Only limitation is my time. I'm married, have 3 very young kids and a very demanding job... so I don't have as much time as some other people to make stuff.. I just have to work as fast as I can when I have the a few moments.

Putting some sort of beam attack in an attackB is a good idea. I think I'll do that.

I have made a new tech just no time like you, to add things it's hyper-drive and yes I tested it and it works when ever I get a chance we can post it on the same page as this unit. I dont have time right now to post it because im working on that lottery.
Hey you should have posted something I try my best to get it to high graphics and I think ive just about got it.

one problem wyrmshadow has is with his aircraft alot of them dont have bomb animations. and the ju-87's iron cross on the wing glitches.
I haven't seen many problems with his units, especially the newer ones. Personality issues aside, the only thing he and I really disagree on is the size units should be. I prefer units that fit in with Civ standard scale and he perfers his own larger scale. The advantage of the larger scale is it allows for more detail to show.... speaking of which, how large should the x303 be?
I currently have it as VERY large...
Here it is compared to a standard battleship
http://img215.echo.cx/img215/33/x303battleship0yo.gif
I can make it as small as you want.

it's perfect I like big ships and huge explosions

I agree with camber it would be cool for an x302 to fly around for fidget. (x302 basically looks like a death glider).

I like it alot :) I can donate my 302 if you wanted it for the fidget or something :goodjob:

Looks very good. And I like the size, too. It looks like it could be that big.

I agree with everyone on the size. Here is an example of shields:

Railship by Neomega: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=114432

The shields are the geometric-ish shell that appears in the attack/defense anim.

I like it alot :) I can donate my 302 if you wanted it for the fidget or something :goodjob:

Hey thanks, that would save me alot of time. I might even have the x302 be an attackB.

I agree with everyone on the size. Here is an example of shields:

Railship by Neomega: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=114432

The shields are the geometric-ish shell that appears in the attack/defense anim.

Hmm... that would not be as easy to implement as I thought. My modeling program would not make a good wire frame... I'll experiment and see what I can up with.
If anyone has an idea on how to model the wire frame in Bryce, please let me know.

Any one remember where this ship fires from? (where the weapons are located) and if they are stationary or popup?

Posted below is the layouts to the X-303. and Bjorlo I have found something that might help and I used it to make the civilipedia Icons I have two different versions. let me know what you think. ill post them later.

Posted below is the layouts to the X-303. and Bjorlo I have found something that might help and I used it to make the civilipedia Icons I have two different versions. let me know what you think. ill post them later.

Looks interesting. Do you have it in a larger format?

I don't know what the shields in SG1 look like, but a transparent sphere with a marble texture on it can many times do the trick. If you can keyframe the transparency from 0 to 0.5, the shield will appear.

There are tutorials floating around the internet on how to do Star-Trek style shields.

(BTW, the railship shield, next time I make one, is going to be a lot neater... that was my first unit in Blender.)

Bjornlo I have a post you need to see.
Open this link.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=117316

No but I can circle in red where the weapons fire from.

No but I can circle in red where the weapons fire from.
That would be cool.
My base inclination is to have fire come from the place I circled above. How close was I?

I don't know what the shields in SG1 look like, but a transparent sphere with a marble texture on it can many times do the trick. If you can keyframe the transparency from 0 to 0.5, the shield will appear.

There are tutorials floating around the internet on how to do Star-Trek style shields.

(BTW, the railship shield, next time I make one, is going to be a lot neater... that was my first unit in Blender.)

Cool I idea. Thanks for the tip. I'm not sure Bryce allows for keyframe transparency. I haven't tried that yet. I will shortly.
I did two cuts at a force field.

http://img183.echo.cx/img183/9823/forcefield4dr.gif
http://img183.echo.cx/img183/2947/forcefield29qw.gif
As you can see these are sort of rough. The first one is a bunch of glass tubes arranged in a grid. The second one is a glass sphere where I bumped the diffuse color up just slightly and cut down on the refraction (to reduce distortion). But it has some palette issues right now, not sure if it is going to be good enough.. going to be hard to sort out in just 160 or so colors allowed.. which is why I cheated and made it in mostly civ specific colors.

Btw, you do not need to appologize for your railship. I thought it was very cool.

I had not thought there might be tutorials on the net on sheilds... makes sense. I'll have to hit google later.
--edit--
Oh and on the shields... the sort of rough one here I tried to copy you took ages. The other one (which I think is the better of the two) took very little time.

Yeah you were close ignitially. good job, but what about having the attackA fire missiles and ships fly out and attack the enemy. and what about those Civilopedia pics.

I already commented in your Civilopedia thread.
I think those are some very nice images.
Having the ships fly out is a possibilty. Bhiita was kind enough to offer to let me borrow his 302 model. This will greatly simplify adding that attack.
I have not yet started working on the attacks because I didn't want to do the same work twice. I've been working on the model and on other things. I got the palette a bit better. I've more or less settled on the constant height movement. I thought about it and the MOD for it will probably be something like:
Ocean & Sea are edited to become space. Lots of small islands represent planets, having at most just a few cities on each. So, having the x303 "settle down" in open space would look strange. I kinda like the idea of the unit rising up, but I think it would not work well in the game.
For now here are my plans:
Wait for the 302 from Bhiita and then make that part of the fidget.
Design some missle launchers. I suspect they should not be pop-up, but I might try it both ways and see which looks better. Before I add the attacks or planes I just need to know if it matter where these attacks(missles, planes, beam weapons) come from? I would like to get it right. Since it is just as easy to get it right as wrong. But I also don't want to stall the unit waiting too long for info I will may never recieve.

Do you like the force fields?

Oh yeah I love the force fields, and I circled the layout to show what is what the circle in the middle is a pop up turret and the four circles in front are missile launchers. :goodjob:

This is looking really good. The bubble one looks better than the grid. If possible, I would recommend having it completely transparent at the beginning of the expansion, and then phase into visibility in the last few frames before it reached full size, then contract a little before going transparent again. This would make it look like the field is always present around the ship, and only becomes visible when it flexes out to meet incoming fire and repel/neutralize it. I'm guessing that it is rendered differently in the actual show, but those are my thoughts on how the expanding shield could look better. I also think a marbled texture would be nice if you can swing it (like on the planet in the background of your space scene you made for RL in the other thread).

That fade in to existance and already full-size is pretty much what Neomega suggested too. I will definately look into it. I'm still not sure Bryce allows this sort of thing, but I may well be wrong (wouldn't be the first time).

Iam gonna make a units 32 pcx for this.

I experimented with a few forcefield varients. It is hard to get a good swirl pattern that is not going to mess things up. The big limitation is the palette.
I have to have colors for the unit. The fire from the exhaust. the vapor trail from the missles, the beam weapons and possibly leave a few spots set aside to include the 302.
Here is what I managed.
These are not paletted matched with the unit, since I didn't want to re-render the whole thing I did a single frame.
http://img76.echo.cx/img76/8652/forcefieldtest4ee.jpg

I think I sort of like the original (without swirl)
http://img36.echo.cx/img36/9834/forcefield3ls.jpg

Oh yeah I love the force fields, and I circled the layout to show what is what the circle in the middle is a pop up turret and the four circles in front are missile launchers. :goodjob:
Since there are no firing tubes, guns, or anything similar... I'm guessing the missle launchers must also be pop up. From your image, it looks as if there are rear guns too.

missiles are probally batteries, but are both sunkern into the hull and so small that it not show on this scale. so just having four streak out from the front would be fine, IMHO.

Edit: about the shields, i like both 4 and 6 as my favorites.

and maybe have the shields rise as a fortify.flc ?

Get the palette from my railshipdefault.flc

It has a correct alpha palette, and uses graytones only, so it should work well with your starship.

The palette should work fine, with little difficulty. The only problem would be the flames coming out of the back of the starship.... to stargate spaceships even have flames? If not, you may want to try just a white glow coming from the thrusters. red flames cause difficulties because they are so close in color to the alpha specific magenta, and require quite a bit of knowledge about the palette, and 2d editing to pull off.

missiles are probally batteries, but are both sunkern into the hull and so small that it not show on this scale. so just having four streak out from the front would be fine, IMHO.

Edit: about the shields, i like both 4 and 6 as my favorites.

and maybe have the shields rise as a fortify.flc ?

Thanks for the info. I've looked at some of the MGM original art, and still can't tell where the suckers come from. I've worked up a couple of Missle batteries that I'll post later.

I've been thinking aboutt he shields, and I think #4 is not possible. Since it the colors shift to purple, which is the "shadow" (alpha) color.

Having the shields go up as part of the fortify is a good idea. Better then what I was planning.

Get the palette from my railshipdefault.flc

It has a correct alpha palette, and uses graytones only, so it should work well with your starship.

The palette should work fine, with little difficulty. The only problem would be the flames coming out of the back of the starship.... to stargate spaceships even have flames? If not, you may want to try just a white glow coming from the thrusters. red flames cause difficulties because they are so close in color to the alpha specific magenta, and require quite a bit of knowledge about the palette, and 2d editing to pull off.

Thanks again for your advice, I appreciate your expertise.
Your palette would probably save me alot of work.
I don't know if SG ships have fire... I remember something very "fire-like" but it did not come out the tail pipe like my model does. I added it mainly for color. I think it adds to the model and helps impart a sense of motion to the animation. I've had to do a fair bit of post-render work in photoshop to get the fire to work right in game. The glow is much easier, and will be my plan-B on the movement, if I can't keep the fire looking cool with the other elements added.

any thoughts on the missle launcher?
I've got a pop-up (which allows for a gun-fidget) and the slightly cooler looking tilt-up.
http://img23.echo.cx/img23/8497/firingfwd2gu.jpg

what i meant was the batteries are so small that u dont actually need to animate them. just have the missiles "appear" from the front. they so small in comparison to the scale of the ship that they can not be seen on it.

Nice guns indeed. I also like 3 and 4 the best for shields. If you could do 4 with different colors (no purple) that would be really nice.

Nice guns indeed. I also like 3 and 4 the best for shields. If you could do 4 with different colors (no purple) that would be really nice.
I'll see what I can do. Right now, I am focused on makeing the little bits and pieces I'll need to complete this.
The problem is I used a fairly complete texture to created that swirl.... the swirl contained no purple, but mapping it with the transparent color (blue) created it. It is going to be a pain to get done and have it look good. I may do it. But for now, I am inclinded to pass on the forcefield swirl pattern. If everyone wants this, I will do it. I'm enjoying the challenge of creating a unit I know so little about. I'm just glad it is most straight lines and simple shapes, as this is alot easier to model in Bryce.

what i meant was the batteries are so small that u dont actually need to animate them. just have the missiles "appear" from the front. they so small in comparison to the scale of the ship that they can not be seen on it.
I'm sure you're right.. that I could get away with that. But on the image Roman Legion provided the missles seemed quite large. So I'm assuming these are sized more like ICBMs then sidewinders.
Also I enjoyed the challenge of modeling the guns, as this is my first unit in 3d.

I've made a couple of missle launchers. And did 3 different missles. Not sure yet which I'll go with. I might have to fire all 3 in game and see which style/size works best.
Next up:
1. vapor trails of some sort for the missles.
I have an idea... not sure if it will work. I will make a small vapor trail, group it with the missle, but as a 1x1 object... then have it grow (Byrce allowed animation) as the missle moves. "Should" work.
2. Guns, they need to be popups. I have not yet started to make the guns. Not sure yet which way I'll go.
3. Firing positions. As I see it the ship is a heavy cruiser/battleship + carrier . It needs to be able to defend itself from close quarter attacks.. sort of like the Star Destroyers in Starwars. They have long range weapons (heavy beams, onboard attack craft, and missles) and point defense weapons. I've been thinking about it, and I think for ship defence I am going to add the following.
3a. there needs to be fwd guns (where I circled in my 1st guess). These would have to pop out sideways, and would give some covereage to attack from below.
3b. There needs to be guns on both rear quarter "arms", again where I originally circled. Also from the image Roman Legion provided, it look as if guns should be there.
3c. The two center guns RL gave the location to. One appears to be a 'aaa' type, the other seems to be heavier. Perhaps have to model both types.
4. Fighter-launch facilities for Bhiita's 302... They are located in the center below the bridge. I am considering adding "landing lights" I figured out a way to make it work (I think).. might be a cool effect if it shows at civ scale.

--edit--
btw: please let me know your thoughts on the guns & gun locatons. They can either be beam (looks cool, but mostly fake) or particle (not so cool looking, but at least they are more likely to made).

i would like to see this idea develop into 2 different ships. have 1 that has beams and heavy canons as weapons, (battleship role) and another as a carrier role, having fighters as weapons for both offense and defense.

i would like to see this idea develop into 2 different ships. have 1 that has beams and heavy canons as weapons, (battleship role) and another as a carrier role, having fighters as weapons for both offense and defense.


Hmmm this raises an interesting question... Should this unit be an actual carrier? In which case it needs the 302 not to be an alternate attack animation but to be an actual civ unit. I would still like to use the 302 as part of the fidget and/or fortify animation...
I think this makes more sense then what I was planning. This unit is, I guess, a hydrid carrier/cruiser. It has some weapons... the units it carries should not be part of the attack animation, but Civ Units much like a naval carrier.
Well, then I can scratch one thing off the my todo list.
I am not unwilling to do both a carrier and a battleship. I think this is going to be a carrier / carrier-hybrid. Obviously the MOD'er is free to ignore this thinking. But since I am not going to include the 302 in my attack animaton, this unit could be used as either a carrier or a battleship.. depending on your settings in your editor.

another idea:

use fighters for attack1,
use beams/canons for attack 2,
mod'rs can then decide which to use (or use both together or seperately for 2 diff units)

have the fortify the raising of the shields, fidget could be a quick raise then lowering of the shields, a test of them perhaps. or perhaps have it slightly drift to one side then have thrusters fire to correct its position?

I like shield number 1 the best and 5 But i would rather have ships come out as an alternate attack but also hold ships as an aircraft carrier. what do you think Bjornlo

I like shield 1 & 2. :)

Hmmm, I can use fighters as one of the attack sequences.... I'm not sure if I like this method since the fighters would just be missle attacks at the carriers strength with no basis on the strength of the fighters. It does add realism in the animation, but a cost of constency with the rest of the game.
For example, if a naval carrier were to attack another ship in the game, it would launch its planes and the defenders would have a chance to shoot them down. The carrier could close in and use its minor guns on the enemy as well.
If I make the 302 as part of the attack animation, it would instead be just a variant missle attack. Air defense would not factor in, only standard defense. Not saying this is horrible, just quite different.
Testing the sheilds & guns for the fortify seems a fine idea.
WRT sheild #1, I sort of don't like it any more. The reason is because it is so "cloudy". It would hide any animation details I add to the ship. I can probably do this one, if the lose of detail and animation is ok... or I can proceed with a clearer sheild... I might be able to change the material of the shield in mid-animation. Not sure on that.

[Missles]
For now I'm going with the lean up. Not as cool an animation (in fact slightly harder to animate), but seems more believable.


[Guns]
From the crude drawing Roman Legion found, there seem to be some guns onboard. Some smaller anti-fighter guns. And a single heavier main gun.

I'm done modeling the guns.
I've settled on the main gun.
http://img153.echo.cx/img153/2418/hvgun1kg.jpg

I'm still not settled on which small gun to use.
http://img153.echo.cx/img153/5734/ltgun6ub.jpg
For now, I'm leaning towards #6 and #7 because they look the most like popup guns. I've leaning away from #9 (decided I don't like the mix of bigger & smaller guns) and #3 (boring) and #8 (looks a little too much like a robot).

[Shields]
I'm still leaning towards the original as it would show the most detail. Next would be #2, 5 & 6. I've pretty much ruled out #1,3 & 4

as for the smaller guns, i'd chose #7 or #9.

reasoning: 1-3 = boring and plan.
4 - looks like it's been stolen from a death star....
5 - looks too big and the orange looks wierd.
6 - again too plain
7 - looks gd. altho the actual barrels aren't too cool
8 - looks like a robot as u said.
9 - being my favorite. but possibly only using the lower 2 guns.

the silver does look cool and should really stand out to make small wpns actually stand out against the massive grey hull. so i'd have to vote for colouring the wpn barrels silver whichever wpn set u use.

if you don't like the combination of smaller and larger guns, use #9 just without the top 2 barrels.

have u decided upon wpn animations and fighter attacks yet?

also have u decided which shields to use as the fortify.flc ?

#4 is a rip off of the death star.
#5, size is relative. The size you see has nothing to do with the actual size. They will all be more or less the same size. I added detailing on some that will never be visible in game.
#5, 7 & 9, the barrels are too close together to see both.
All barrels will be black in game, as that is the only chance for them to be visible. The difference between gray and silver is not alot.
Here is a quick sample at game scale. It includes guns 1, 6 & 9.

If it is for anti-fighter, point-defense, like U said, I'd go with #7.
However, if it is used to attack #9 is the best...

[Missles]
For now I'm going with the lean up. Not as cool an animation (in fact slightly harder to animate), but seems more believable.


[Guns]
From the crude drawing Roman Legion found, there seem to be some guns onboard. Some smaller anti-fighter guns. And a single heavier main gun.

I'm done modeling the guns.
I've settled on the main gun.
http://img153.echo.cx/img153/2418/hvgun1kg.jpg

I'm still not settled on which small gun to use.
http://img153.echo.cx/img153/5734/ltgun6ub.jpg
For now, I'm leaning towards #6 and #7 because they look the most like popup guns. I've leaning away from #9 (decided I don't like the mix of bigger & smaller guns) and #3 (boring) and #8 (looks a little too much like a robot).

[Shields]
I'm still leaning towards the original as it would show the most detail. Next would be #2, 5 & 6. I've pretty much ruled out #1,3 & 4

7 looks a lot more like something the Tau'ri might have on their ships then anything else that I can see. So I would go with 7.

EDIT: http://www.unreal.fr/stargate/images/models/cannon_hotsnow.jpg

7 looks a lot more like something the Tau'ri might have on their ships then anything else that I can see. So I would go with 7.

EDIT: http://www.unreal.fr/stargate/images/models/cannon_hotsnow.jpg

I agree that #7 is the most realistic (for this ship). My problem, is I could not find a way to render it and have it show up in the final unit.
Here is a render with Gun #6 and the heavy cannon, in between then is a gun #9. Gun number 9 is the smudge in the middle.
http://img139.echo.cx/img139/9187/3guns6jd.jpg

Here is a close up so you can see #7 is sized bigger then either of the other two guns in the picture. I'm leaning towards using a modified version of #6. I used the put the heavier barrels I made for #8 on it, and it is the one that shows up best in game now. If you look closely at this zoom in, you can see the modified barrels,
http://img139.echo.cx/img139/4247/bigguns1ey.jpg

It is not as cool in closeup, but I like the fact that it still looks good in game.
Your thoughts?

looking good.

Here is the Fidget animation. The shields do not come up when fidgeting, but I have the guns popup and swing about a bit.
My question is: Does this look too busy or is it acceptable?
http://img248.echo.cx/img248/8053/prometheusfidget9lu.gif
I could slow the fidget around, but it is already at 25 frames, and I don't really want to go above that.

The fortify animation will be similar except the guns stay out and the sheild is "tested" (flashes on then back off).

The attack will be all weapons and shields come on and fire as they can be brought to bear.

Death anim... still mulling it over.

Comments / suggestions on the animation(s)?

I agree with you on #6. No need to waste time on detail that won't be visible in-game. The simpler turret design shows up better. My only suggestion would be to have them not pop out as far. It seems that in most spaceship designs I'm familiar with, there is less "neck" on turrets in relation to their overall size and shape. It doesn't look so bad on the round white ones, but the long-nosed gun on the ship's spine, in the fortify animation, looks very nose-heavy with a disproportionately long and skinny neck.

It would be kinda cool to have #5 on the bottom of the ship.

It would be kinda cool to have #5 on the bottom of the ship.

I thought about putting a gun (any gun) on the bottom and it would be some what pointless since it would never be visible.
I wonder if the bigger of the two guns in the image you had was not supposed to be on the bottom...

What do you think of the fidget animation? To busy, ok, rocks, or ???

I agree with you on #6. No need to waste time on detail that won't be visible in-game. The simpler turret design shows up better. My only suggestion would be to have them not pop out as far. It seems that in most spaceship designs I'm familiar with, there is less "neck" on turrets in relation to their overall size and shape. It doesn't look so bad on the round white ones, but the long-nosed gun on the ship's spine, in the fortify animation, looks very nose-heavy with a disproportionately long and skinny neck.


Good suggestion on the pop-up height. I can hold the two in the rear and the two in the nose closer to the hull.
I think the missle popup works. Pops up fires, drops down.

I agree that the main gun in the middle (the long nosed gun along the spine) is a problem.

It needs to have a heavy enough cannon to work as the main gun.
It needs to be located in the middle of the ship (based on the drawing from Roman Legion).
Since there gun on the tv model is not visible at this location, this needs to be a large popup gun.
It needs to rise up enough to fire over the forward bulkworks.


I thought about a couple of ways to solve this.

The current method (simplest, but maybe not the best)
The current method and add a telescoping brace from the middle of the gun back to the turret brace. Not that hard, but was worried it might look too busy/clunky.
The current method but have the gun-barrel mount to the base more in the middle (less nose heavy), this will negatively impact firing arc of the gun. Not an issue in game, since they always fire in a single direction.
Change the popup style to have some doors open and a larger gun emplacement rise up. Maybe make is more like gun style #4, but with a single larger gun barrel (to match the image from Roman Legion)

As always thanks for the feedback.

Any comments or suggestions (from anyone?)
Also the fidget animation? Great/good/just-ok/bad/nasty/or??
I wonder if it seems too busy. Would it be better if only the main gun popups and back down?

Here are some examples of two the of things I was talking about.

main gun with brace.
http://img156.echo.cx/img156/9248/biggun27ha.jpg
Pro: gives some support to barrel.
con: limits animation and makes it slightly more complex

Popup doorway
http://img156.echo.cx/img156/7564/misslelauncheralt8ch.jpg
Pro: allows barrel to be mounted more in the middle of the turret
Con: more complex animation, limitatons on barrel positions in animations.

I changed the front barrel my changing the mount point and lowering the height of the barrel visually (the ridge on top is now on bottom).

Here is a preview of the attack animation.
http://img208.echo.cx/img208/9635/prometheusattack5w2dd.gif
I had to remove the tracers from the smal guns, as there was too much light, and it looked like a christmas tree.
I also am considering not having rear missles fire, since it would looke pretty crowded if they did.
This is with the clear sheild, as you can see even with this sheild there is a fair bit of lost detail in the animation.

Thoughts on this?
How does this look to you? ready to ship? Needs more work?

Status:
More or less have the following done
default.flc
run.flc
fidget.flc
fortify.flc
attack.flc

to be done
death.flc

--edit--
Oh and I need to sort out some sound files.

looking good.

loving the missiles.

1 thing i would change myself, is remove the white turret from the top (between missiles and main cannon).

two reasons why : 1st it cant actually fire straight infront of the ship as the front rises and blocks it's firing angle.

2nd: it not really needed, there's plenty going on in the animations and i think it is a tiny bit busy atm.


but otherwise, looking good.

a suggestion about the death flic:

i love the missile silos you have, and would like to see them blow skywards leaving explosions/setting off missiles(randomly streaking everywhere, perhaps one flying off and hittting the ship again)



have the ship have chain explosions, starting from the front > missile silos going off> another explosion > big explosion ripping ship into 2 pieces somewhere around where the main turret is, > have 2 explosions on the back then 1 big one completely vapourising the back section with big blue flames this time (ships engine reactors going critical).

just some ideas. enjoy.

Good suggestions.

I agree that the middle white-top gun seems pointless. I put it there based on an image from Roman Legion, but I think you're right. The ship would look better if I took artistic licence and deleted it.
I think I will also delete the rear missle silos. I was on the fence as to whether or not to leave them in (and add missles from the rear). But I think it would be too messy and not add anything to the unit in game.
Deleting the centeral white-top gun, will require re-rendering fidget, fortify and attack. But I think the it will be better for it. I will delete the rear missle silos at the same time.

I'll see what I can do on the death animation. Might not have time to get to it for a few days.

Here is a sample of what the attack will look like with 1 gun removed and the rear missles completely deleted.

http://img205.echo.cx/img205/3333/prometheusattack6w3as.gif

yeap. looks better now.

can't wait for this unit.

(have no idea how i gonna use it in my industrial-modern scenario tho ;-) )

Preview of the death animation.
http://img142.echo.cx/img142/3883/prometheusdeathnw2jd.gif

remaining to be done:
Re-render some of the older facings that still have the extra middle gun (now deleted).
Find some sound files. (help)

The death looks "exciting". Maybe you've got to much going on?

i dont think so. Although to account for all the pieces flying off u might want to create more flames and explosions. also the animation seems to run quite fast, is that just the demo.gif or actual speed?

The actual speed should be slower. I have not tested it in game yet.
It might be a bit busy in the death sequence. I tried to simulate a ship blowing apart, it seemed that there should be plenty of pieces. I am not going to add more flames. There are more then 15 independent flames already. It is quite a hassle to keep track of them all in bryce.

the explosion needs to be bigger and what about the ships comin out and attacking the enemy? other than that GREATTTTT Job!!!!!

Not that there was alot of doubt, but it's official. I'm an idiot.
Just as I am finishing up version 1.0 of this unit I realized that I forgot to add civ-specific color to ship!
I guess I'll re-color the outside pontoons or some other part of the ship and re-render everything. Should I also release the unit that only has civ specific color in the force field?

the explosion needs to be bigger and what about the ships comin out and attacking the enemy? other than that GREATTTTT Job!!!!!

I do not have the model from Bhiita yet. Since his model looks good, I don't want to re-invent the wheel and spend another week making a copy of his unit when he was kind enough to offer to share it once he is done.

I'll see about making the explosions larger when I re-do all the renders to add civ specific colors.

No your not an idiot, we understand how hard it is to make units your doin the best u can. and yes on civ pecific force field.

All right thanx. but how do u add all the stuff at the bottom of every message, u know where it says everything u ever made?

Go to Private message (on top) and look on the left, the first item in the Control Panel that says "edit signature", this will let you put what you want in there up to a maximum of 5 lines or so.

No your not an idiot, we understand how hard it is to make units your doin the best u can. and yes on civ pecific force field.

Just to double check here, you want me to release both the unit with civ colors (and civ colored force fields) as well as the unit with only civ colored force fields (and blue/gray everywhere else).
Right?

no just civ-specific force fields.

hmmm i disagree here, i'd rather have paint on the hull as civ-colours.

hmmm i disagree here, i'd rather have paint on the hull as civ-colours.

I'll be doing both. Since I had all but one of the animations rendered the wrong way. I'll just finish that up, and then go back and render them again after I recolor the ship. The zip file (when released) will have two subfolders.

ok excellent.

Updated death sequence.
http://img151.echo.cx/img151/8295/prometheusdeathupdated1kj.gif

You may be past this discusiion but I think you should have a version WITH civ coloring on the actual ship. Makes it more usuable that way.

You may be past this discusiion but I think you should have a version WITH civ coloring on the actual ship. Makes it more usuable that way.

I agree. I meant to do this all along, but forgot.
So I will be release a ship with civ colors (and civ colored shields) and one with only civ coloring on the sheilds.

Now to comment on the Death animation, as I was reading on another page of this thread when I posted AND you were still uploading the anim when my browser loaded this page.

It is very good, but rather fast. Is that just flictogif or is it really that fast? If so, then you should reduce the speed.

loving the death anim' now :D

Now to comment on the Death animation, as I was reading on another page of this thread when I posted AND you were still uploading the anim when my browser loaded this page.

It is very good, but rather fast. Is that just flictogif or is it really that fast? If so, then you should reduce the speed.

I think it is not quite that fast. But I have not viewed it in game yet. If I have to I will figure out a way to slow it down maybe 10-15%. Explosions are supposed to be fast, but this seems a bit too snappy.
To render this preview, I used Bryce to render an AVI, loaded the AVI in Animation Shop, saved it as a GIF.
Animation Shop does not have the means to change the speed of a GIF. I have Image Studio from Adobe that can. I think I need to finish rendering this (render the other 7 directions) and see what it looks like in game.

Preview of what the civ-colored version will look like.
http://img79.echo.cx/img79/1038/x303run9vl.gif

thats sweet.

not too much colour, but just right.

The above image is from an AVI -> GIF. The death anim in particular has been vexing trying to get the colors right in the FLC.
I thought I had the colors right, and then tried it in game... and the colors did not render correctly.
The animations are all done. But, I'm going to have to scrap my palette and start over on that part.
For those who don't know... the unit is rendered in Bryce. Bryce exports the frames of animation that I create to a bunch .BMPs (1600+) or s single .AVI. I load the .BMPs into SBB to convert them to a BMP storyboard. I then take and create a PCX story board of the same size. I assign a palette to this storyboard. This palette is restricted. The first couple of rows are transparency, the last couple civ color. The middle 160 are mine to play with. I have to carefully select colors so that the image I rendered will look as close to the BMP as possible in the game. It is this part that I messed up. I'm working on it. I hope to have this unit out this weekend.

wat software are you using to design these units? and can you give a link to other units already designed for SG-1?

I mainly use Bryce. It is a entry-level render program, but gets the job done.
I also use Photoshop, Painthshop Pro (you don't need both, but I got a superduper deal on both), AnimationShop (for Gif's), Steph's SBB program (free program online here), Flicster (free program online here), CivFlcEdit (free program online here), Microsoft Gif Animator (free download), Pedit (free download) and some others I am probably forgetting.
There are some other SG1 units. I know Bhiita is working on the x302 fighter that this ship carries. There are also some already done in the units section. Just go there and look in the librarys (near the top).

I said I thought I'd have this done this weekend and I didn't make that goal. Should have kept quiet, I guess.
In typicaly NOOB-Unit creator fashion, I created my own problems... using the civ color as the shield color... this changes the ship color when the sheilds are up to a civ color... meaning I need more civ colors then CIV allows for.
I've been playing around with combinations of Pedit and manual edits of the palettes and it is not working out very well. I may have to re-render the unit using a non-civ colored shield. I hope not, since I think the current setup looks pretty cool.
I haven't given up on this. I worked too hard on this to not finish.

I thought that you inteded to use civ-coloured shield, and thus I kept my mouth shut.

I think you should have used white colour in the shield. In kinboat's initial palette (which comes with Pedit if you download it from CFC) the transparencies are pinky shades of white - and they'd look quite nice on that shield :)

I thought that you inteded to use civ-coloured shield, and thus I kept my mouth shut.

I think you should have used white colour in the shield. In kinboat's initial palette (which comes with Pedit if you download it from CFC) the transparencies are pinky shades of white - and they'd look quite nice on that shield :)

Oh I did intend to use civ colors on the shield. It was just a very bad idea. I will download Pedit from here to get Kinboats Palette. Thanks for the tip Aaglo. I don't remember where I got Pedit, but it did not come with Kinboats Palette.

I have nothing to say other than that the unit looks really cool and the death is great. :goodjob:

Thanks, but we'll have to see if it still looks as cool when it is re-rendered in more a civ compatible palette.

Anyone have an opinion on these two sheilds?
http://img153.echo.cx/img153/5970/wsattack14zm.gif
http://img153.echo.cx/img153/9754/wsattack20nf.gif

The all-semi-clear one has the advantage of a more uniform look. The one with the refracting cresent has the advantage of being much more visible in game.

btw: Dropping the civ colored screens pretty fixed my palette issues. Oh well. I wish I'd thought it through sooner.

Personally, I like first (semi-clear) one, but the both look good. A in-game shot might help.

Here is an ingame shot.
http://img253.echo.cx/img253/6641/wsattack17fv.jpg
http://img253.echo.cx/img253/8302/wsattack24mv.jpg
The semi-clear one disappears even more then I expected. So it seems the cresent one would be a better way to go.

Yup...I agree with you. I wonder though, could you adjust the transparancy on the crescent some, so its not so "bold"?

Just an idea...

Yup...I agree with you. I wonder though, could you adjust the transparancy on the crescent some, so its not so "bold"?

Just an idea...

I'm not sure I can. But I will experiment and see if I can figure something out. I know I can make it slightly more grey, which would not impact the transparency, but would be it slightly less bold. If I set it to have any color in the cresent at all, the color goes all the way to solid. The above is set to 85% transparency to help the white show up more. If you look at the Blue screens all of them are set to 100% transparency, but the cresent in blue is just as bold. I'll play around and see if I can find a way to reduced it without turning it off.

looking ace

looking ace
Thanks... I got a little more playing around with the forcefield color/transparency... then a whole bunch of rendering. The sound files are already done.
I don't know what I did, but I did something to the "death" animation (must be something to do with those fireballs) that causes that one animation to take more then 40minutes per facing (and there are 8 facings) to render. For comparison the attackA (seen above) takes less then 5minutes to grind out.
In fact, I discovered I can have more then one copy of Bryce open at a time. So I can render the all the other 7 animations (attackA, AttackB, AttackC, Fidget, Fortify, run and Default) in around 1/2 the time it takes to render the death animation by itself.
I think I need to figure out if there is some way to get Bryce to supports batch renders.

doesnt having multiple copies fo the same program rendering defeat the idea?

surely rendering is CPU based and having it do several seperate ones reduce overall speed of doing it?

doesnt having multiple copies fo the same program rendering defeat the idea?

surely rendering is CPU based and having it do several seperate ones reduce overall speed of doing it?

You'd think so, wouldn't you? I did it as an experiment because I was so bored waiting for the death-anim to render and I wanted to play with the Hummer I was working on. having a 2nd copy of Bryce open only dropped the render speed by 10-20% if I was modeling in the other session. And 20-30% if I was rendering in both. I happen to have a fairly beefy system, and it seems Bryce is not purely CPU constrained.
In a couple of days I am told I will be able to borrow a multi-processor machine for a few months. I am curious what that will do to render times. I know bryce supports network renders.. so I might experiment with that too. But for 90% of the stuff I render for units, the time per facing is less then 10minutes, and so not worth too much fuss. The wondersplashes take longer since I tend to render them in much higher resolution (960x960) and reduce down in photoshop, since that seems to give a better result... depending on how complex the scene it, these take from 8minutes to 8hours(For these I just start them just before I go to bed).

how strange.

could be GPU and RAM influences as well, maybe.

The best looking over all seems to be the plain white sheild. Of which the cresent style is the most visibile.
I'm almost done re-rendering all the animations.
Here is a large image (1024x768) for your amusement.

http://img213.echo.cx/img213/5687/sgx303attack2lj.jpg

I sort of like the 'worm-hole' effect behind the ship.

Wow, I like all latest versions of this. Quite remarkable.
When it's up I'll be definitely using this.

This unit has been released.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=118769

Posting this again, so hopefully it is not missed.
If you downloaded this unit before v1.1 (may 15), you should probably download it again. Sorry.