Hello everyone

The main intention of this post is to present the creation of resources for my game project with Godot Engine

Backup, comments, questions and especially advices are really welcome.

Use Tags instead of title names. Makes it all clean and searchable.

I did not notice there was a WIP tag, sorry and thanks for reminding

NP, I just added a Design and Modelling tags. Maybe modelling suits this post also(optional).

Done :) Off topic: THis tag system is a really very good invention. It allow users to directly find what they want without spending hours browsing forums...great !.

@keltwookie said: Done :) Off topic: THis tag system is a really very good invention. It allow users to directly find what they want without spending hours browsing forums...great !.

Yeah this was my way of adding sub categories without cluttering the forums with endless pits of clicking. :smiley:

22 days later
a month later

The IOR values will come in handy. Thank you _

11 days later
a month later

After ân excellent motivation to improve our modeling skills here A bit of work with shaders (Blender Cycles Render):

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Yeah yet some work to do...

Advices welcome :)

Here are the nodes setups I used for exhausts: Blender Cycles nodes setups

@keltwookie said: Advices welcome :)

Got any concept art to show us? also seeing the wire-frames would enable me to perhaps give more pertinent advice.

First of all, many thanks for your offer

<s>wireframe solid view</s>

I meant actually screenshots from the edit mode, that's whats usually called wire-frame shots irrespective of 3d modeling software. Anyways from what little I can tell from this it seems like some part of your model are very dense while others not so much, but since it's not an "organic" or deformable mesh, that might not be much of a problem.

Topology aside I do wonder why your spaceship has a tailplane? Is it like the shuttle in that it is intended to do atmospheric entry and flight? In which case the whole shape of the vehicle is kind of strange, but since it is a sci-fi vehicle I guess it might feature energy shields? :wink:

@Megalomaniak said: I meant actually screenshots from the edit mode, that's whats usually called wire-frame shots irrespective of 3d modeling software. Anyways from what little I can tell from this it seems like some part of your model are very dense while others not so much, but since it's not an "organic" or deformable mesh, that might not be much of a problem.

Ah, sorry, misunderstanding, well the model has many parts, maybe could you tell me which part you would want to see more precisely ? And about the density, some part are more detailed than others (ie : a panel simulating a futuristic engine). Concerning deformable mesh ? No, not planned for. Just a little animation for wings and thrusters (landings and take offs).

Topology aside I do wonder why your spaceship has a tailplane? Is it like the shuttle in that it is intended to do atmospheric entry and flight? In which case the whole shape of the vehicle is kind of strange, but since it is a sci-fi vehicle I guess it might feature energy shields? :wink:

Taiplanes, héhé, yes useless in space ,, isnt’it ? So yes, this thing is planned to land on planets … and suffer such entry (don’t know yet how to figure that out completely, just a few ideas). About the general shape, yes, you could have right, once again I'm far from beeing a drawer and I just acted like a baby with clay. And yes too, shields are planned :smiley:

As asked, a few edit mode views: After removing doubles, here is (for those who could ask) what Blender says :

Vertices : 44137 Edges : 84815 Faces : 40730 Triangles + ngons : 80954 For this latest one, I reduced a lot their numbers as everyone discourage the use of them, but this shape being a rigid body, I think I can allow a few sharp edges. …And not less than 39 materials. Will be reduced during texture baking operations :wink:

<s>Here’s the wireframe view with seams and sharp marks...Yes, some areas appears are more dense than others, here’s an example to explain why.The engine panel I talked above (not finnished yet), wireframe view:</s> ...

The rendering:

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…. I just realized that this topic slides slowly but surely to a work log :smiley: ….

Looking quickly through blenderartists.org WIP forum I picked a thread as an example of how people usually show wireframes: As you can see ctdabomb is showing images of solid meshes with wireframe overlay's. In this case I think they are renders rather than screenshots however just edit-mode with solid shading would be sufficient, really. Here's another post from a different thread where just edit mode is used.

Another thing you can see from there is that the Stingray's body shows plenty of triangles and n-gons. If you place them/leave them in spots where they subdivide fine on hard-surface models you can get away with them fine, especially since with a sub-d modifier they all get turned into quads anyways. Some people make a big deal out of it but honestly if you place them carefully you can get away with leaving some triangles and n-gons even into organic models such as humans for an example, again remember that the sub-d modifier quadifies everything in the end anyways.

Another thing I'd make note of is that if you are doing sub-d modeling try not to place in any excessive geometry you don't need, especially early on. The cleaner you leave your cage the easier it is to edit and modify, hence why I took note of the density difference throughout the mesh.

Really sorry, you mean this?

... ... ...

And about what you said, here’s some points I will take great care in the future, many thanks. :smile:

Nice works,great design....more detailed (small)parts of the ship should be separated from the main part of the ship and in Godot setups for them LOD....also try offset edge slide and bevel edges on some parts...this is in the hardsurfacing very useful.

.....ahh and for screens wires you don't have must be in edit mode

Hi Bishop, Many thanks for your backup. To make it short, let's say this is the first model I build from scratch, so I try to take care of it :)

....more detailed (small)parts of the ship should be separated from the main part of the ship and in Godot setups for them LOD....

Really interresting, could you give more details about this please (and yes, we already talked about LODs), because, I feared the LOD could be really different once the mesh would be " game ready ",

....also try offset edge slide

Really sorry, I don’t understand (English is not my mother tongue and GG translate only returns stupidities)

.....and bevel edges on some parts...this is in the hardsurfacing very useful.

Well, I’m not easy with the bevel tool, i already made some tries but it was a pure disaster. But it is a good reason to practice. Without wanting to abuse of your time, could you show me where you think a bevel operation could be necessary ?

And thanks for the tip, this will be usefull

EDIT : Subsidiary noob question : Actually side thrusters and wings are planned to rotate duringf landings/takeoffs (will post an animation draft asap), what could be the best choice for nodes+scripting in Godot : KinematicBody, or RigidBody and why?

Hi keltwookie, I start with a last question, so.. thrusters and wings I would go for KinematicBody - because they don't need to use physics (as children) attached to the main body of the spaceship. and the main body would be the RigidBody to have access to physics and forces. ....therefore, it is necessary to separate thrusters and the movable wings from the main ship body and set them right rotations origins....you can animate directly in Godot.