3DGeneric fighter with a big gatling cannon

I.g.(.

Hi there, I'm I.g.(. and I'm new, to the community and to 3D working too, as you can see looking at my first real (low poly) project;
It's a simple light fighter with a huge gatling tought firstly for space combats and improved for atmospheric flying. Right now I'm working on the cockpit, I added the pilot, yes, that green round shape is the pilot and it's human, so as you see, the fighter is really little.
There will be another booster on the ammo box with the last wheel for landing.
When I finish the fighter I'll make its mothership, a light cruiser.

As the noob I am I'm learning to use my 3D software [Inivis AC3D 06.1.07] by selecting things and "clicking" every command I find in menues: I learned how to model but not how to use textures.
Is there a tutorial about texturing? Please post here or PM me.
Does anyone who use this program know something about? Please post here or PM me.
Does anyone use this program? Looking at the models on the site I really can't see how to make similar things with AC3D so I also ask you advices on rendering and modelling softwares.

Please comment, ty for reading.

Stonecold

Looking interesting. However, pilot position is strange (field of view is very limited). And, if it is a ground attack plane (gatling!) shouldn`t the armor be somewhat better?

sorceress21

You have a good start here. I would really think about loosing the uber gun and toonish ammo can though. There is no real technical reason for such a thing. That would allow you to add a nosewheel. I'd also enclose the cockpit a bit more. A completely transparent cockpit is neat to look at but provides pretty much zero protection for your pilot. Unless of course you have some kind of transparent armor in your verse. But overall I love the design. Sexy and sleek lines for sure!

I.g.(.

Wow! A technical comment. I try to answer with my own words but I think it will be hard to explain. Try to understand pls

1- This is a space fighter adapted to atmospheric flying, Think to a space battle: no gravity, no field, no horizon, the fighter flyes in every direction and the enemy could be everywhere:
try to sit in your chair on that position: you can look ahead, you can look very very easily up, and also behind, and looking behind you see much more than sitting in a "normal" position, so I think the field of view is not limitated. Anyway I'm going to add the last booster on the "tale" of the fighter so the field of view will be alterated... we'll see.

2- Again, think to a space battle: where is the ground? The ground is the spaceship you're attacking, a spaceship tought for space combat and not for atmospheric flying: it has no problems of weight or aereodynamics, so it's big, very well armoured and it has got an impressive attack/defence weapon system with large cannons to hit other spaceships and turret with gatling cannon as big as yours, or maybe bigger, to hit fighters:
to have a really good defence you should have better armor but then you'll be also a more dangerous target, so you'll need also a better engine to go faster, some light turrets to get defended better form other fighter and you'll need a cargo section to hold all that ammo, and a crew to control all that systems...but now you have really heavy fighter or a little space cruiser...probably without atmospheric flying capability.
The point is that I want a "generic" space light fighter with also atmospheric flying capability and with this I mean that it can fly, land and take off, it atmospheric fighting capability is really limited.
"Generic" because in space, with a powerfull and fast weapon like that gatling it can attack enemys spaceships and also enemys fighters.

Anyway I'd like to make it as armored as it can, I'll try to get an "armored" effect with textures.

Sanderlee

I agree with Sorceress ... the ubergun is a bit silly. As it is now, it's exposed to fire, prevents ease of landing, and will really disrupt the airstream when this thing goes atmospheric. In space, the gun is low enough that, if it's got any real recoil (and if its this big, it WILL), then it's going to off-balance the ship when it fires.

If you want to keep a gun this gnarly, tuck it up into the fuselage. Encase the gun into the fairings and have just the snout poking out alongside the cockpit maybe. Speaking of which, an all-open cockpit like this is really exposed (especially if your foe has lasers) and yet the pilot has very limited aft visibility (which he's gonna need in a furball, especially in space).

It's a great start ... don't let our critiques get you down. You've got more talent at this stuff than I have ... that's for sure (my first few attempts before I gave up in frustration looked like spiny, mis-shapen pickles). You just need to think function and form. Even the outlandish Star Trek stuff has form following function according to its rules.

Keep it up, I'm interested in seeing where this goes.

sorceress21

Sanderlee wrote: »

I agree with Sorceress ... the ubergun is a bit silly. As it is now, it's exposed to fire, prevents ease of landing, and will really disrupt the airstream when this thing goes atmospheric. In space, the gun is low enough that, if it's got any real recoil (and if its this big, it WILL), then it's going to off-balance the ship when it fires.

If you want to keep a gun this gnarly, tuck it up into the fuselage. Encase the gun into the fairings and have just the snout poking out alongside the cockpit maybe. Speaking of which, an all-open cockpit like this is really exposed (especially if your foe has lasers) and yet the pilot has very limited aft visibility (which he's gonna need in a furball, especially in space).

It's a great start ... don't let our critiques get you down. You've got more talent at this stuff than I have ... that's for sure (my first few attempts before I gave up in frustration looked like spiny, mis-shapen pickles). You just need to think function and form. Even the outlandish Star Trek stuff has form following function according to its rules.

Keep it up, I'm interested in seeing where this goes.

Bingo! Weapons don't have to be big to be powerful. A MIRV 6 is a scant meter long, but it can level an entire city! And if this is an advanced starfighter, think advanced technology. Why not enclose your cockpit and give the pilot holographic immersion vs a transparent hull!

I.g.(.

Just cuz is not that tecnologic and not that advanced.. I'm thinking to a not far future, no lasers, no holograms, no warp, no FTL.
All they have are very heavy armores that needs big weapones to make some damages, think also that they don't have small space missiles, that gatling is the only weapon of the fighter! [I'm a bit sadic as the God of my universes, I love to put them in bad troubles].

I leave the cockpit opacity low for working better, I'll make it less transparent when it will be finished, also I'll give to my poor pilot a complete space suite and a nice space helmet, and maybe a more "traditional" pose, but pls explain better the visibility thing cuz I'm not convinced, I tryed to sit in that pose.. I found it comfortable..

For my big gun, yes! It will unbalance the ship when it fires but the lower boosters should keep the fighter balanced. Again, in the atmosphere it only has to fly, not to combat, so the gun is not a real problem.. I thought the atmospheric fly as an emergency option.. if your fleet gets defeated then you go back to your nearest land-base or, you take-off form your land-base and gives support to your fleet. Yeah, the fifth booster will be the one that gives the fighter the possibility to "jump" form the hige atmosphere to the space, it can be used only once then it has to be "refilled", in space it's used as an extra booster to escape faster from a bad situation.

colbmista

a glass cockpit? thats kidna stupid for a fighter a few bullet and the plane shatters.... kinda pointless

salsa

Looks good except for that wonk ammo box. I agree with sorceress, ditch the uber cannon. If it's chemically powered, the barrel doesn't need to be that long, just long enough for the projectile to travel until reaction to provide peak energy to the projectile. If it's a railgun or a coilgun, then a longer barrel makes sense, since that gives you a chance to give the projectile more energy.
Windows let in radiation and having the cockpit in the very tip of the nose is a very bad idea. I'd put it further in the hull to protect the pilot. I like the idea of having a 360 degree video feed being projected around the pilot.

Like i said though, the body is really nice.

sorceress21

colbmista wrote: »

a glass cockpit? thats kidna stupid for a fighter a few bullet and the plane shatters.... kinda pointless

I would not go so far to call it stupid.

I.g.(.

It's Ok, I allow you all to be bad with me
But why do you think it must be just simple glass?
Culdn't it be a transparent armor? Anyway, I repeat: I made it that transparent to work better and to let you see inside better.

Salsa I'm not a weapon expert [my bad, sorry] and I can't understand really good what you're saying, pls explain it or link me something.
I promise you I'll study
All I know is that gatling cannons have hige rate of fire [wich is good if you're trying to hit a fast space fighter] and are really really powerfull [wich is good if you're trying to attack a well armored spaceship].
I made it that long cuz the design needs it that long, same for the ammo box but I say you to wait for the ammo box thing, it will be edited for adding the fifth booster.

Cockpit [no-one likes it uh?] further where? in the little hull I imagined that there should be the computer and the other vital systems of the fighter
, ther's no space for the pilot, also, if the pilot dies no one will care, it's better to save the fighter ... [did I said I'm a bit sadic? well maybe I'm a lot sadic...].

Anyway don't you think it's a bit usless to think that an enemy shooting the fighter from his turret is able to aim the cockpit?
Let's think: this fighter is very very little, looking at the pilot I extimated 7 meters long and less than 5 large, and it's fast, and in space it could have the most strange trajectory the pilot could think. It shouldn't be that easy to hit the fighter, and looking at the cockpit, it's "slim", so it will be really hard to hit it.
Also, enemy turret is probably enought powerfull to destroy a fighter with a few bullet.

However as written in the first message this is my first real work and I'm more interested in techniques advices than in design, but pls continue to comment, I'm happy to find all this ppl interested to my work.
ty

daibaka

I kind of like this design. Ignoring all the "real world" engineering issues, from an artistic point of view this looks dynamic and different and generally quite cool. Yeah, if it was being built for real it wouldn't work and you could do a lot worse than listen to some of the advice already offered if you're after a quasi-realistic F-22-clone in space. But as none of us really knows anything about how the rules of technology work inside your fictional future universe, I say you have a blank canvas to work with and should just go with your own ideas. Unfortunately, I don't get a lot of time for 3D work these days, so I'm afraid I can't help you with your original question about texturing, but there are some very talented people here who can and a wealth of tutorials from which you may be able to extract some information for your application if you can't find anything specific to it.

Really like this plane for some reason - glass cockpit, uber-gatling and funky ammo box and all! I'd love to see a scene with a flight of them coming in to make an attack run on one of the light cruisers you've mentioned.

I.g.(.

TY daibaka.

L2K

this kind of plane fits in well in a gundamverse. because of the uber gun and the ammo can, but also the design... wouldnt be surprise to see it ammong huge space robots.

i'd bend the wings under the engines. the silhouette is a bit too straight.
giving an angle to the wings or even to the whole engine bloc would help.
maybe you could review the pilot position.
as the others said, its alot of glass. but its also a very uncomfortable position.
what about a more "motorbike-ish" position ?

I.g.(.

L2K wrote:

i'd bend the wings under the engines. the silhouette is a bit too straight.
giving an angle to the wings or even to the whole engine bloc would help.

what do you mean with this? explain better pls.

L2K

like this

I.g.(.

Uhm.. the "motorbike-ish" position seems bad.. the pilot can't look up and for the engine it seems only a design question.. I like the second inclination.. maybe I'll apply that one ty

Ironscythe

The "motorbike" position would allow the pilot to see along the axis of the fighter's movement without having their chin pressed against their chest. I know you want to make this a "low tech" fighter, but hear me out-- already, modern aircraft have fully integrated readouts installed in their helmets, and lasers have already been developed to the point where a plane can shoot down missiles before they hit ground targets. So even now, a pilot doesn't really need to crane their neck around. Sensors can feed the data to the helmet display.

There's also the physics of this. A gatling cannon is a "direct fire" weapon, meaning it fires a projectile down a barrel and out towards an enemy. The act of accelerating the projectile (bullet, warhead, whatever) down a barrel creates a counterforce that would act on the entire fighter. Adding a high rate of fire to that would make flying the fighter very very difficult (nearly impossible).

There is also the heat of the gatling cannon to consider. Space is cold, but things don't cool down very fast due to lack of atmosphere to conduct heat. For a weapon like a gatling gun, this means any kind of prolonged fire in space would melt the barrels or even cause an ammo explosion in that giant crate you've got strapped to the back there. All-in-all, the best kinds of weapons for space combat would be either self-propelled missiles or "torpedos", or lasers. You could even use a bunch of mirrors to focus sunlight on a spaceborn target and burn it to a crisp.

daibaka

@ Ironscythe - I think the "motorbike" style piloting position is quite a cool idea, but if we apply real world physics to it, its a lot more dangerous to the pilot than the "sportscar" position that I.g. originally started with because of the G-forces that would be applied to the pilot. In the "sportscar" pose, the pilots head is a lot closer to the crafts centre of gravity and therefore not as susceptible to the "blood pooling" and blackouts that would be caused by the "motorbike" position. Of course, it would be even more effective if the piloting position was moved back further from the nose into the centre of the fighters mass. But then the fighter wouldn't look as cool. And there's a lot to be said for being able to look straight up with the Mk.1 Eyeball, even with modern (or should that be future?) helmet mounted visual aids.

As for the gatling cannon - its outrageous, its HUUUGE, its immensely impractical and its damn cool! That last point is reason enough to include it. IMO, not everything has to be engineered down to precise detail. Lets not forget that this is ultimately artwork and sometimes the fact that something just looks interesting and exciting really is enough reason to include it. If I.g. had set out right from the start that this was some sort of near-future, gritty and realistic universe and that he was intending to follow all the restraints that govern real world spacecraft design, then everything thats been said above would be valid criticism. As it is, all that he's done so far is post some pictures of a fighter that would not be out of place in Anime or some sci-fi fantasy similar to Star Wars and asked for some help with texturing advice. If the ship had an enclosed cockpit with a "motorbike" piloting position and all data fed intravenously to the pilot and a laser focussing array instead of the gatling, it might very well look amazing, but then it wouldn't be THIS fighter would it?

Just a bit of IMHO!

I.g.(.

TY daikaba, your defence is better than Enterprise's shields

Also I'm surprised... you can "read" me. I admit it, I don't have much skills about tech datas and I'm moore Influenced by Animes [my passion is to draw mechs and robots..] than by other things.
I think I'll open a thread in 2d WIPs to show some of that...

Anyway I repeat this: I'm asking info about texturing, lighting and rendering;
If you know some tutorials pls link them or PM me.

P.S. not that important but my nick is I.g.(.
the "(" isn't optional, in Italian it means something

daibaka

Apologies I.g.(.! I'll remember it in future. And I'd like to see your 2d work as well.

JWWright

I gotta say, I like the 'crotch-rocket' pilot posture... it makes sense. I might have to incorporate that into a future design!

This ship looks fast & mean, what does the landing gear rig look like? How does the pilot climb in and get out?

Cant wait to see more!

Daemoria

I rather like the form of this fighter, the exaggerated features = win. Who cares about lack of heat dispersion in space and melting your gun barrels, the thing looks damn cool.

I.g.(.

I've Actually decided to include the big gun in the fifth "fuselage block" with the lasts 2 boosters on the back. This "fifth block" will fit the design of the others, it will be just longer to include the gatling and some kind of ammo pack that will be hidden. You can think that some device provides freezing gas to cool down the gatling when it fires.
[ty to Ironscythe for the idea, I love it, I think it add a lot of risks in the battles ]

During a battle, when the fighter will finish ammo it will go back to his mothership and in the hangar it will discharge the fifth block entirely; the hangar personnel will change it with another one reloaded and cooled down before.

For the cockpit: pilot position has been changed and others detalies had been added, nothing that important and nothing that nice.
Also, I'm learning how to use textures starting from simple objects: the barrels of the gatling had been textured

As said, I've started a 2D gallery to show you some drawings. Here's the link: I.g.(. - Drawings

Khay

As the look of your spaceship is the most important thing for you then, it's aaaaaalright, this baby looks badass, go for it. Add another big gun or two for more coolness, stop worrying about the pilot cursing you because of his position which will force him to raise his head and ruin his neck if he wants to look forward, and voila! Forget concepts like mass centering, acceleration, reaction mass, EVERYTHING. Just keep pleasing our eyes with things which look like they could hurt us badly. It looks like an A-10 SpaceThunderbolt to me! I love Thunderbolts! They have big guns. And i like bug guns

If someday you want to work on something more realistic, then there would be a lot of reworking on it. We all hard sci-fi nerds will give you tons of constructive criticisms if you want.
The mandatory reading begins here http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/

Did i say that i like big guns?

Hellsgate

Hmmm...looks like an early defender from Cybertron. Don't forget Decepticon or Autobot insignia on the engines.

I.g.(.

As said in the last message, I'm including the gun into a new structure that will include also the additional boosters. Here's the first part.

Today I have finally had some time to work with my model.
Right now I've finished the extra boosters and I'm re-making the engines to correct some errors and to make them with another and better modelling tecnique I learned .
I'm also changing colours from red to orange&dark-grey.
But.. but.. right now, with the new extra booster part my little fighter cannot fly in any atmosphere.. it's really too much impossible, so I'm also removing the wheels. It will only land in its hangar and in emergency case the pilot will die without any "survival hope". Anyway who cares about the pilot? XD

I.g.(.

New Images:

The Engines, the cockpit with the pilot and the firsts verniers placed under the gatling gun.

Please comment

Stonecold

Looking good so far. Pilot`s position seems to be changed a bit? Now it looks more conventional. Also, interesting seat design. Probably you should experiment with the end of the pylon under the gatling. If you make it somewhat inclined, I think it will look more aerodynamic and more agressive, but that`s just my impression, nothing more.

I.g.(.

Yes, pilot's position is more conventional. The seat could be layed down to give the pilot direct access to the fighter's vital system. Imagine that during a battle the fitghter got damaged; the pilot could reach a safe area or maybe the enemies thinking the fighter is down left it inerth, and make some repairs.

L2K

i'd see damages on a combat spacecraft to be more EXTERNAL than internal... i dont see how the pilot could repair his burning engine, or an oil leak from the inside...
even a computer disfunction, there wouldnt be spare pieces on board.