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3DGood Old Homeworld 2...

CalCal0 Posts: 0Member
edited May 2011 in Work in Progress #1
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Still fiddling about in 3dsMax2009 with Homeworld2 meshes. They really do scrub-up well after a bit of polishing up. Here's a Hiigaran Battlecruiser. This is the actual in-game mesh and texture-set.

I didn't use bump or specular maps as I'm aiming to get the models looking like they do in-game (or as near as), hence no anti-aliasing, either (which actually just kills the detail in the lo-res texture maps, anyway).

The beauty of these meshes is that they can be animated fast and easily.

These are not the 'Fabio' LW meshes that have been hanging around the net for years. I extracted all new content and started from scratch on my own Max-native meshes. Same goes for all the textures (mostly converted out of .dds into .tga for easier use in Max when rebuilding the (fully-editable) colour schemes for the ships in Photoshop - every ship has a layered, editable colour (diffuse map) .psd file now). The orange/white/grey colour scheme here can be very easily to changed to grey and any combination of 2 other colours with just a few minor procedures.

Hope you like. The ultimate aim, as always, is to save out the entire library of textured meshes as a Max-native collection for anyone who might want them.
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Post edited by Cal on
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  • OzylotOzylot332 Posts: 0Member
    Nice!!!

    I still would really love to see more high poly versions of these though.
  • AresiusAresius359 Posts: 4,171Member
    I've been looking for reasonable sized images of that ship since ages! All the images you find on the web are small, smaller than 800x600 and that's already low...
    I love that battleship.
    Any chance to get a few shots and orthos of it in the clasical Hiigaran blue?

    It looks very fine detailed.
  • Road WarriorRoad Warrior206 Posts: 813Member
    Homeworld and Homeworld 2 were outstanding. I concure with Ozylot. More please.
  • CalCal0 Posts: 0Member
    hgnshipyardga0.jpg
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    This is the Hiigaran shipyard. Took me ages to work out the extra 'modules' added to this mega-structure (the coloured 'boxes' on the top deck) - luckily I got hold of a mod which is just a HW2 map with all the ships in the game laid out on a grid, so I could fly around the shipyard and take tons of reference shots... something I do now for all the meshes, although the in-game models don't always show all the additions that can be made to the base 'version' of each craft.
  • backsteptbackstept2017 Posts: 918Member
    a good way to keep the detail and have it looking crisp without AA is to render at a larger size than the target size you want and scale it down in photoshop or something . . .

    looks nice so far :thumb:
  • TovetteTovette5 Posts: 13Member
    Cal, you're giving me a hardon. I'm a huge HW dork. Awesome stuff here :D
  • Road WarriorRoad Warrior206 Posts: 813Member
    Awesome man AWESOME
  • CalCal0 Posts: 0Member
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    I love the turrets - this is the Hiigaran Ion Cannon Turret, just one of quite a few flavours. These little fellas are not very strong, don't last long in a serious confrontation, but they do put up one helluva fight before they go down. IMO, this is fantastic design, too - chunky, functional and very militaristic.

    Again, I rigged the turrets in Max2009 for simple animation.

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    This is Chimera Station - seen at the very start of the game when the Hiigaran Mothership first comes under attack. It's a good design, but I find the texture maps rather disappointing, tbh. Still, some nice background furniture, I think...
  • SastreiSastrei171 Posts: 0Member
    Are you sucessfully extracting the goblins as well? Nice work so far.

    -Stefan-
  • Alex McphersonAlex Mcpherson0 Posts: 0Member
    Think you could do a Squad of Hiigaran Interceptors in one image?
  • TovetteTovette5 Posts: 13Member
    This stuff is badass.
  • Road WarriorRoad Warrior206 Posts: 813Member
    Tovette wrote: »
    This stuff is badass.

    Couldnt have said it better. More please!
  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    Ahhhhh, glorious, glorious Homeworld. I am just praying that they actually make a Homeworld 3, seeing as Relic now has the rights back.

    Great stuff Cal. I think that Chimera Station's maps aren't the greatest as it is a minor object in the overall scale of the game.

    Man, now I want to play Homeworld.
  • CalCal0 Posts: 0Member
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    This is just referred to as 'sp_tanker' in the extractions. I guess it's a general civil vessel (though I've badged it up for Hiigaran military use here). She is a massive vessel. I've changed the colour scheme quite dramatically to a luxuriant set of reds, but she can easily be switched into an entirely new livery - like this:

    sptankerorangegreyqu4.jpg
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  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    In the game that's one of the ships (of 6 I believe) that you ahve to protect in one of the early levels. (2nd level I think)

    Nice paint job though Cal.
  • Road WarriorRoad Warrior206 Posts: 813Member
    Sweet.
  • StarSlayerStarSlayer0 Posts: 0Member
    Can't wait to see my personal favorite, the Destroyer :D
  • BerkutBerkut1 Posts: 0Member
    StarSlayer wrote: »
    Can't wait to see my personal favorite, the Destroyer :D

    Ditto, there was also a Vaygr station that was in one mission that was a really amazing design, also the projenitor ships were pretty sweet.

    If I remember right those crew transport ships were called bishop. Or at least that was their designation.

    Nice work. So essentially you're importing the game models/textures into max? Are you going to do any work on them? Like adding better details and making higher res textures?
  • CalCal0 Posts: 0Member
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    I decided to do a small animation test using some of the models I've assembled so far. This picture (a still from a 250 frame animation) shows the Hiigaran Battlecruiser again, this time with a much smaller 'Keeper' Mover ship passing far above. Everything was done in Max - the starfield is Max's own built-in FX and the engine trails are a freebie plugin called KY Trail - both FX are added as video-post at time of render.

    I'm not recreating the original textures, improving them or the meshes. The idea is to simply get the entire collection of HW2 meshes (as they are in-game) together in a hopefully definitive 3dsMax-native collection. Fabio did a great job on his LW set a fair few years ago, but I've always felt these wonderful mesh designs needed a little love from a Max user.

    The work continues...
  • backsteptbackstept2017 Posts: 918Member
    a while back I did some work converting Fabio's set to truespace . . . I should go back and finish 'em

    I wonder if your textures may be interchangeable between the two sets of meshes . . . or if your set has different UV coords, etc? I'd love to be able to change the colors :D
  • dlfurmandlfurman171 Posts: 7Member
    Coolness. I'm just now replaying this bad boy, with the last mission to go.
  • CalCal0 Posts: 0Member
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    The Bentus megastructure - it's so massive it dwarfs even some of the biggest ships in HW2. Great fun to be had setting up flyover animations with this...
  • OzylotOzylot332 Posts: 0Member
    That one is another favorite! If I had the time I would so model a higher poly version!

    Looking good so far! :thumb:
  • Road WarriorRoad Warrior206 Posts: 813Member
    The Bentusi -awesomeness!
  • CalCal0 Posts: 0Member
    hscoreandsajuukya6.jpg
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    This is the 'hs_core' (foreground) and 'Sajuuk' (background). All rendered in Max, using Dreamscape plugin for some atmospherics. I'd like to find a way to recreate authentic HW2 backgrounds, but so far my search has been fruitless (it just doesn't seem the original backrgound art was ever released, nor has it ever been extractable from the game files).

    I don't want to go down the road of using a mapped texture - it never looks as good, nor is it as flexible as using render FX, especially when it comes to full 360 degree animation... Max's built-in starfield generator really works brilliantly, but it could sure do with some added features (nebulae, ect).
  • MelakMelak332 Posts: 0Member
    Nice!

    Regarding the Homeworld 2 backgrounds, this tool is said to be able to extract them from the game files, I don't have HW2 installed though so I can't try it.
  • Road WarriorRoad Warrior206 Posts: 813Member
    These are the endtimes....we know this because the third hyperspace core has been found. Ha!

    As usual Cal - awesome.
  • TovetteTovette5 Posts: 13Member
    This is just awesomeness.
  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    I eagerly await the release of these goodies!!
  • AresiusAresius359 Posts: 4,171Member
    Frankly, the background you made for them works perfectly.

    It's wonderful.
This discussion has been closed.