Spark Detailing Exercise #2: Spaceship

Flaterectomy · November 2015

PURPOSE AND RULES
This is a creative, visual exercise that is meant to help you get better at lighting and detailing your levels. There is no need to make your entry abide by unwritten NS2 mapping rules such as limited lines-of-sight, avoiding tactically OP hiding spots, etc.

When submitting your level in this thread, please post enough screenshots from various angles to show off your work, include links to the .level file (or the Steam Workshop page if you published it there), and links to any source material you used. If you do put your entry on the workshop, please use the following prefix for your mod: "ns2_sde2_" and state in its description that this is not a playable level. You are free to use concept art, photographs, sketches, or any other sources for inspiration as long as you include them in your submission post. Please try to include your thoughts and motivation for what you were trying to accomplish; point out what you were happy and unhappy with, etc.

Use this thread to post questions, discuss the theme, and eventually post your submission. Once submissions are posted, please try to discuss and post constructive criticism on each entry. If your submission isn't completely done by the end of the specified period, don't sweat it. Just post it, and we will try to provide feedback on what's there.

The rules may change in later exercises.

The theme of this first exercise is:

SPACESHIP
"The exterior of a spaceship built out of geometry and/or props, located in space. This can be any type of spaceship, be it a huge battleship or a small shuttle; contemporary or science fiction; original or based on concept art, or rebuild a famous movie ship."

Remember to consider what parts the ship might need, they will add a lot of functional detail! For example: thrusters for maneuvering, warp/hyperspace engines, a cockpit or bridge, fighter hangars on the side of a battleship, gun turrets, etc. Also consider the lighting carefully--the thing is up in space, after all.

I realize everyone is busy playing Fallout 4 or will be playing other big titles coming out soon, so I'm just going to put the due dates at about a month from now.

Restrictions: none. BE ALL YOU CAN BE
Earliest due date: friday the 11th of december
Latest due date: monday the 14th of december

VALUABLE RESOURCES
- Design Cinema Ep. 83: Designing with Silhouettes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxoNLP_6ok4
This is a really neat method to design things you would otherwise never come up with in Photoshop. You may not have Photoshop or know how to use it well, and being able to draw like him probably means you've got better things to do than partake in my little exercise, but even so it's a clever way of finding shapes and getting new ideas. I advise watching the whole thing, but the spaceship-relevant parts are here:
1.Making the spaceship silhouettes 2.Translating the silhouette into a sketch

- #spaceshipaday on twitter:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/spaceshipaday
Jeff Zugale has done a ton of these, scroll down to october 2nd for the last one and work your way back if you feel like it.

- Elite: Dangerous ships
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Ships
http://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/ships/

- Star Citizen ships
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships
http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Ships

Saffron_baker · November 2015

Very interesting will do more of a custom prop and detailing the enviroment like asteroids.

Mephilles · November 2015

the 13 december is a sunday flat

oh and pls build caged from outside I wanna see how it looks like @Flaterectomy

Kasharic · November 2015

hmmm... this one sounds pretty difficult, if I manage to get time to do it, I will take part.

Soul_Rider · November 2015

I got a steam group message telling me about a spark detailing exercise called Spacehip....

I was intrigued, now I am slightly disappointed.

Flaterectomy · November 2015

@Mephilles Derp, fixed!

@Kasharic Check out some of the links I posted, you'll find a couple of pretty simple-looking designs among them.

@Soul_Rider Not sure what you expected and what disappointed you.

tudy · November 2015

So... is this the point there I might see an Alien-Space-Ship-Level, in which marines invade? You know, aliens always invade some Human-Structure - would be nice to give it a turn-a-round.

Flaterectomy · November 2015

@tudy This is an exercise to practice creating something relatively small but detailed, not an entire level. Anyone is free to do whatever they want with their entries afterward, though.

Calego · November 2015

Flaterectomy wrote: »

@Soul_Rider Not sure what you expected and what disappointed you.

SpaceHIP sounds rather intruiging.

Flaterectomy · November 2015

Oh jeez, I hadn't even noticed that.

Derp.

Kouji_San · November 2015

Flaterectomy wrote: »

Oh jeez, I hadn't even noticed that. Derp.

I don't see the problem, what was it again?

Soul_Rider · November 2015

I expected hips in space, can you work out what disappointed me? :P

Flaterectomy · November 2015

So who's interested in participating in this one? I know @Asraniel was interested, and I will be building something myself, but do we have any other takers? Remember, if you need help with anything, I'm there to help!

Also, have some more concept art!

- http://io9.com/spaceship-concept-art-that-will-blow-your-post-apocalyp-511326531
- http://io9.com/5883927/spaceship-concept-art-gallery-1/
- http://coolvibe.com/2010/50-stunning-futuristic-spaceship-deisgns/
- http://www.webdesigncrowd.com/32-detailed-awe-inspiring-spaceship-concept-art/

Saffron_baker · November 2015

Flaterectomy wrote: »

So who's interested in participating in this one? I know @Asraniel was interested, and I will be building something myself, but do we have any other takers? Remember, if you need help with anything, I'm there to help!

Also, have some more concept art!

- http://io9.com/spaceship-concept-art-that-will-blow-your-post-apocalyp-511326531
- http://io9.com/5883927/spaceship-concept-art-gallery-1/
- http://coolvibe.com/2010/50-stunning-futuristic-spaceship-deisgns/
- http://www.webdesigncrowd.com/32-detailed-awe-inspiring-spaceship-concept-art/

I will participate but will have to change my all my map and file names that got a "å" letter in it.... But when im Done with that it should be good ill work on it!

meatmachine · November 2015

Aww to hell with it, I just got an idea for a submission so I will give this a shot later

McGlaspie · November 2015

Thought you guys might want some source material

Not much to go on, but it is NS2 specific

Flaterectomy · November 2015

I could keep posting concept art, but I felt maybe an example of what can be done in the editor would be more suitable, so I decided to whip up a stereotypical UFO. I would not use this as my final entry, as it lacks detail and the smoothing on the glass dome doesn't really work, but it shows off how quickly you can get something like this going with mostly just circular props and the rotation tool for the little lights on the sides.

Flaterectomy · December 2015

The sad news that we all know about is that there are some problems with hit-reg in the game right now. The good news is that hit-reg isn't a problem in the editor! There's one week until I hope to start seeing your spaceships! Here's one I made earlier:

      __
     /  \
    / __ \
|__/ /  \ \__|
\__        __/
   \__/\__/

UncleCrunch · December 2015

Only right now ???
That story may be older, isn't it ?

Mephilles · December 2015

just saying the game might be reverted now but if you awnt to continue using the trim tool subscribe to the ns2 beta branch. Just make sure to unsubscribe if you wanna play again

Kouji_San · December 2015

I was going to make EXO Carrier Resolute II latest?cb=20100505212259

But nope, dat bloody time thing... Good luck to you lot, get some inspiration going, watch Firefly

Flaterectomy · December 2015

Something tells me I'll need to do another size restriction next time. I've heard a few people say they figured they'd not have the time to build the giant spaceship they had in mind. Detailing exercises don't need giant spaceships.

That said, my own entry is getting a little bigger than expected. But it's good practice for the eventual exterior outside DAT-1 in Caged, so yay.

Kouji_San · December 2015

Should've called it Space Corvette/Frigate/Destroyer than noob

"Ship" tends to relate to Battleship/Carrier size, right? Curious what peeps can come up with here, so who's doing this exercise, pics or it didn't happen hehehehe

Flaterectomy · December 2015

I would call a shuttlecraft a spaceship too, but perhaps that's just me. I'll be sure to stress how these things are meant to be small enough to remain manageable next time.

BeigeAlert · December 2015

Someone needs to make this spaceship, from "Too Many Cooks".

Soul_Rider · December 2015

I had my space ship all planned...

Then I realised I don't have NS2 installed...

-edit-
and I also realised I'd probably need to make more than just this face, as I can't lock the player in place to see only this..

Flaterectomy · December 2015

It's an exercise, if one detailed face is all you end up with, that's fine. Locking the player in place is unnecessary, in fact there's no 'player' to cater to, just people interested to see what you made.

But the no NS2 thing would be problematic, yes.

Kouji_San · December 2015

Soul_Rider wrote: »

-edit-
and I also realised I'd probably need to make more than just this face, as I can't lock the player in place to see only this..

Hmm, you could always place a tiny 1x1x1 block with invisible texture on the origin of the player start entity, that way he should be stuck

Flaterectomy · December 2015

Starting today spaceships might start arriving in this thread! Remember, the final date is monday the 14th. Of course, this being an exercise means there isn't any kind of disqualification if you've got something to show later than that, but I'd like to see results in the set timeframe.

I've heard a few worrying stories along the lines of "I didn't have the time to build my giant battlecruiser" so I'm afraid not many might show up. Like I said above, I will make sure to restrict themes to things you cannot blow up beyond the intended scope from now on. This is all about detailing, not about rebuilding Serenity or the Deathstar.

That said, I even blew up my own entry into something a lot bigger than I really wanted. Still needs a bit of work, but it'll appear here soon!

Flaterectomy · December 2015

Here's my own entry! It's based on the International Space Station, so fairly contemporary-looking, but with mostly Descent and Veil props/textures it still has a pretty sci-fi vibe. It turned out a lot bigger than I anticipated at the start, as I was planning on only using the ISS as a very basic reference, but I ended up pretty close to the design of it. I'm not sure how many hours I spent on it, as I didn't want to have awareness of it interfere with the process of making it. I can see I started this one the 5th of December, having discarded a previous slightly Apache helicopter-inspired greybox I had put together before.

Station on the workshop (Mod ID: 22438d60):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=574852448

More screenshots:

References used:

deathshroud · December 2015

that is a great looking space station flat, i can see it being used in a skybox for a map or something.

Spark Detailing Exercise #2: Spaceship

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