I like those planes. The submarine idea sounds interesting too. There is no stealth in space but attaining a fire control lock is a different story. And there's a real-world analogy: during the Gulf war, US Pilots were surprised that their radars picked up the F-117 and the opposing force likely did too, but of course, attaining a missile lock proved elusive. That's how I see stealth working in space: It's low-observable technology that doesn't automatically guarantee that you'll be able to attain a target lock even if you can spot it. With enough tech you could lock on as well, but it's not a simple done deal.
Thanks, Juvat! Yeah, I'll be doing mechanically correct landing gear, even if they'll probably not look exactly right. The nose gear is nearly done, I need to separate the lower half of it (for steering) and the axle (for wheel rotation), but other than that it works. Rigging it so the animation is automatic if I slide a null back and forth is coming. Some day. (I have a scale model of the beast to use for reference material, so I at least have some idea of the parts involved.)
Will put small canards on it later, and a V-tail is coming, I think. No comment on the heresy of putting folding wings and dorsal engines on it, though?
Mikey-B: WW2 submarine + radar stealth + spacegoing will look more like my old, old ships from when I started - terribly CG looking, but then all real stealth ships look like that. They'll also be small - more of a size with the destroyers...
good craft, like the B1 type shape but it may look better with B1 swing wings, the engine pods on top and below are cool, the smaller ship next to it does not look quite as good as the cockpit is perched too high up. i watched a tv programme last night mentioning the sea dart fighter and the russian ekranoplan, those may provide some inspiration for design elements? also good landing gear on both models, but vtol may be a good idea in some cases.
No comment on the heresy of putting folding wings and dorsal engines on it, though?
Not at all. While I prefer the sexiness of the B-1 as is there's not a thing wrong with your own spin on the design. Too bad you couldn't integrate wing sweep with the folding wings. That'd be pretty sweet to see. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the dorsal engines, but you're still developing this so I'll withhold any criticisms about that for now.
I do, however, LOVE the layout and overall design asthetic of the Hellcat aside from one (and only one) thing: I'd say ditch the vertical stab altogether.
Using swing wings on the B-1 would be one rotation too many, I think, and faced with either swing wings or folding wings, I'm going with folding due to needing the room. I suppose you could do the regular swing wing and add a fold for the outboard sections, but I think that would look too clunky.
I've been working on the main gear, and I think I have all the parts figured out. Now I "just" need to build the gear wells and doors. Not looking forward to that, really. I think I'll hold off on that for a while. (The fact that the big doors close when the gear is fully extended makes this a little less apparent. )
The camera height in this pic is 1.7 meters, so this is basically what you'd see standing next to the aircraft. The shading sucks rocks, I think I left the ambient light turned on. (just checked: I did. Turning it off though made it too dark under the aircraft to see the main gear.)
PS: spacefighter, there's a delete button in the edit post dialog, use that to delete your doubles.
The gear doors aren't that complicated really. The actually doors are almost rectangular and simply open downward along the centerline toward each other. The trick is getting the aircraft skin that's attached to the main downlinks to articulate properly (or not at all since no one would notice unless they were 6" from it)
Juvat: I've figured out the shapes, the problem is getting them onto the model without requiring *extensive* cleanup. My first go didn't turn out all that well, so I'm taking a break from bombing for a moment.
colbmista: Still working on the carriers and fighters for that, subs will have to wait until I've run out of inspiration for that. They're on the list, though.
What do you get if you toss a Flanker, a Raptor, and the YF-24 from Macross Frontier (only seen very briefly as a technical drawing) into a blender? Something along these lines, I think:
This is the single-seater, there's a twin seater that is even more obviously based on the Flanker (the high canopy is a dead giveaweay) also being worked on simultaneously. They will not be transforming, but I'll be giving them Macross-style booster/weapon packs for space use.
The whole thing right now comes out to about 1300 polygons. I'm going to give the idea of just keeping going without freezing the subdivision surfaces a try, just to see what I can accomplish. Even if the results don't come out as awesome as i'm hoping, it wil be a learning experience.
(is it just me, or did I use an awful lot of in this post?
very much like aircraft, maybe design them to be a little more spacecraft like with some not aircraft features. i rather like the nose of the latest fighter and think it would be great as an aircraft model but for a space fighter alter the wings a lot, add some thrusters and maybe enlarge the engines. i like it but it still needs some work. what you have don so far is well modelled.
I'm still shaping it, the actual geometry is really simple so it's just dragging vertices around to see what shapes I can make. Also, the engine nozzles for these haven't been built yet, so the engines will look a bit bigger when finished.
Working on some boosters right now:
These are pretty much straight up cribbed from Macross Frontier so far, but I'll be putting my own spin on them (rectangular rather than round nozzles, a few other things).
I dig the fighters. While I really, really like them, my only (out of left field) critique is they look conspicuously 21st century next to the WWII-retro-futuristic look of the ships. I just wonder what an SB2C Helldiver...in spaaaaaaace would look like.
BB: The problem is that while WW2 ships are already as streamlined as they have to be, I can't see an aircraft shaped like a single-engined prop fighter operate at supersonic speeds without much more physics mangling than I'm comfortable with, nor would they look any good at the size I need them to be to not look too out of place on the deck.
That said, if you'd like to help me mix things up a bit, I'd love to have you give it a go - your Vir Inter Astrum fighters were one of the reasons I finally managed to buckle down and build the carrier...
Knight: the boosters aren't supposed to be permanently mounted, though in practice they stay on while the fighter is space-borne. There might be another set of boosters for atmospheric use coming (along the lines of the Tornado pack from the Macross Frontier movies).
Well, and I preface this with saying I have the utmost respect for your abilities and vision, if your universe was my universe( and I'm sure after seeing this you will be infinitely glad that isn't the case) I'd say forget about making it conform to the laws of science and totes double down on the WWII vibe. Your ships are very literal re-imaginings of real world vessels, I'd do the same for the air, or space, power. Comme ceci:
Again, your work, your vision. I'm just throwing it out there for you.
I have to agree with bbzwbbzw. The planes you made look very cool, but too futuristic for the ships. I'd say going full prop-plane look is a little to far though. Have you considered some of the classic 50's fighters? The F9F Panther and F84 Thunderstreak come to mind as appropriately retro.
A little over two thirds of the air wing parked on deck - 12 twin-seat fighters, 24 single-seaters, and 30 bombers. The rest of the aircraft haven't been built yet, I'm still considering the options. I may replace some of the bombers with a smaller type, to represent the dive bombers, plus there's the support craft (AWACS, ECM, recon etc) to work out.
How about this idea, take WW2 fighters, turn them around, sweep the wings, reverse the cockpit and replace the prop with a rocket exhaust? That might make some really interesting fighter designs that are still high speed enough and still loo ww2 vintage.
The thing is, I just don't like the aesthetics of WW2 fighters for use in space, other than maybe the color scheme. The shapes are all wrong and I can't figure out a way to turn a propeller into a useful space propulsion unit. BB's Corsair thing is about the closest I've seen to something that might work, but it doesn't work for all types of fighters and it's still not my thing anyway.
Also, Macross was pretty much the gold standard when I was a kid for, if not actual realism, then at least not blatantly half-assing things when it came to how things worked and how they were operated.
Anyway, I've been working all night (whoa, it's 9 already? o_O) refining the forward fuselage and spine sections of the single- and twin-seat fighter model.
First, I made sure to synch up the vertices on the unfrozen mesh so that all the bits that were supposed to be the same on both versions *were* the same. The result is that the only thing that's different between the single and twin-seat versions is a section of the upper forward fuselage from the back edge of the windscreen to somewhat aft of the cockpit - the very same section that's hanging next to the rest of the fighter, actually. As I was doing that, I separated the canopies and made them transparent, so they actually look like fighters.
Then I added the nose gear bay and doors, and the nose gear unit itself, which is now fully articulated except for the scissor link at the back, which I haven't figured out yet. Dreadfully irritating. I still need to add the actual hinges for the nose gear door, but I can fix that later.
The latest addition has been the rudimentary cockpits with instrument panels (completely bare for now), a floor, and coamings. I think I might have to reshape the single seater a little to make the canopy a little longer, and of course I need to make some ejection seats, but it's really starting to look like something flyable now.
The next step will be getting the shape of the wing box exactly the way I want it, before cutting the wings up and separating the flaps and folding outer sections. After that comes the vertical stabs and the rudders, and then I need to get down and dirty with a completely new set of engine nacelles and main gear bays. At that point, I'll be done with the basic fighter and can get started on the boosters and weapons...
I didn't actually hit the bed until nearly three in the afternoon, I was having so much fun with the building process. I've cut up the wings, and separated the inner and outer flaperons, spoilers and slats, but aside from getting the pivot for the wing fold in place I haven't been able to figure out how to orient the control surface rotations properly. It was so aggravating I gave up and did something else.
After I got to this point, I gave the single-seat canopy a workover (no renders, forgot to make any) stretching it a little towards the back and making the piece behind the opening canopy transparent as well. It looks pretty good for now, but the whole area needs a bunch of work. For example, I really need to put together an ejection seat.
Then, I started mucking around with the engine nacelles, which are now longer, and larger in diameter at the back, so the nozzles look properly large. The nacelles are the only part that hasn't been frozen yet, I'm still not completely satisfied and I need to work out where to put the bays for the main landing gear.
Finally, I worked out the booster pods, and built the exhaust flame for both them and the main engines. Every tutorial says to use volumetric lights for these nowadays, but I've had trouble getting those to show up - sometimes changing the diameter of the light cone by 20 mm makes the whole thing vanish, sometimes cloning a working setup makes both lights die, I don't know what the heck is going on. I gave up and made my exhaust flames as mesh objects with transparency maps. Not only do they show up properly, I can give them arbitrary cross sections and add shock diamonds etc. Booyah.
This has all the stuff I've been working on today except the single-seat canopy, and is lit by a HDRI scene I found on the Smart IBL plugin page plus a key light.
much improved by the booster pods but still very aircraft like. maybe change to a delta wing? texturing is needed in that render of the 2 craft in flight. the engine glows look nice though.
Finally found some inspiration for the ships again, and work has restarted:
I finished up one of my older projects, a collapsible light AA gun based on a picture I saw at DeviantArt. I've hopefully put enough of my own spin on things that no one will call plagiarism. There's both a single and a twin version (it might be hard to see, but that's the twin version in the picture), and after I got done with those, I busied myself with adding them to most of the cruisers:
Cleveland (furthest), Pasadena (middle) and Fargo (nearest). Cleveland represents what the designers *thought* would be a sufficient AA battery (fifteen light AA guns and four twin medium AA guns); Pasadena represents what the Cleveland Class was eventually up-gunned to (she was the first ship completed with the full kit of ten single light AA guns, six twin and four quad medium AA guns); and Fargo represents the fixes that had to be made to the design to combat the extra weight and bad fire arcs of all those extra guns (she has ten twin light AA guns, and two twin and six quad medium AA guns). All numbers are of course per hemisphere for my ships.
The heavy cruisers Baltimore (furthest) and Oregon City (nearest) actually have almost identical armament, as the Baltimore was completed after combat had begun in earnest. They both have 48 medium AA guns, arranged as 12 quads on the Baltimore and 11 quads and 2 twins on the Oregon City (also on the later Baltimores, only the first few had the stern quad mount and twin cranes). Baltimore is loaded up with 26 single light AA guns, while Oregon City has twelve twins - and I'm not completely sure that two of the Baltimore's guns are supposed to be there.
I still have a few more cruisers to update - the Atlanta/Oakland/Juneau anti-aircraft cruisers, and the post-war Worcester and Des Moines classes. The latter two are way out of date, as I haven't worked on them in earnest since they got accidentally reverted a while ago. And there are still things to do even with the ones I've shown - I could go on forever.
Posts
Will put small canards on it later, and a V-tail is coming, I think. No comment on the heresy of putting folding wings and dorsal engines on it, though?
Mikey-B: WW2 submarine + radar stealth + spacegoing will look more like my old, old ships from when I started - terribly CG looking, but then all real stealth ships look like that. They'll also be small - more of a size with the destroyers...
Cheers for now, it's back to work for me.
Not at all. While I prefer the sexiness of the B-1 as is there's not a thing wrong with your own spin on the design. Too bad you couldn't integrate wing sweep with the folding wings. That'd be pretty sweet to see.
I do, however, LOVE the layout and overall design asthetic of the Hellcat aside from one (and only one) thing: I'd say ditch the vertical stab altogether.
I've been working on the main gear, and I think I have all the parts figured out. Now I "just" need to build the gear wells and doors. Not looking forward to that, really. I think I'll hold off on that for a while. (The fact that the big doors close when the gear is fully extended makes this a little less apparent.
The camera height in this pic is 1.7 meters, so this is basically what you'd see standing next to the aircraft. The shading sucks rocks, I think I left the ambient light turned on. (just checked: I did. Turning it off though made it too dark under the aircraft to see the main gear.)
PS: spacefighter, there's a delete button in the edit post dialog, use that to delete your doubles.
colbmista: Still working on the carriers and fighters for that, subs will have to wait until I've run out of inspiration for that. They're on the list, though.
What do you get if you toss a Flanker, a Raptor, and the YF-24 from Macross Frontier (only seen very briefly as a technical drawing) into a blender? Something along these lines, I think:
This is the single-seater, there's a twin seater that is even more obviously based on the Flanker (the high canopy is a dead giveaweay) also being worked on simultaneously. They will not be transforming, but I'll be giving them Macross-style booster/weapon packs for space use.
The whole thing right now comes out to about 1300 polygons. I'm going to give the idea of just keeping going without freezing the subdivision surfaces a try, just to see what I can accomplish. Even if the results don't come out as awesome as i'm hoping, it wil be a learning experience.
(is it just me, or did I use an awful lot of
Working on some boosters right now:
These are pretty much straight up cribbed from Macross Frontier so far, but I'll be putting my own spin on them (rectangular rather than round nozzles, a few other things).
That said, if you'd like to help me mix things up a bit, I'd love to have you give it a go - your Vir Inter Astrum fighters were one of the reasons I finally managed to buckle down and build the carrier...
Knight: the boosters aren't supposed to be permanently mounted, though in practice they stay on while the fighter is space-borne. There might be another set of boosters for atmospheric use coming (along the lines of the Tornado pack from the Macross Frontier movies).
Again, your work, your vision. I'm just throwing it out there for you.
A 'futurized' F7U Cutlass would be great too.
F7U_Cutlass.JPG
A little over two thirds of the air wing parked on deck - 12 twin-seat fighters, 24 single-seaters, and 30 bombers. The rest of the aircraft haven't been built yet, I'm still considering the options. I may replace some of the bombers with a smaller type, to represent the dive bombers, plus there's the support craft (AWACS, ECM, recon etc) to work out.
Also, Macross was pretty much the gold standard when I was a kid for, if not actual realism, then at least not blatantly half-assing things when it came to how things worked and how they were operated.
Anyway, I've been working all night (whoa, it's 9 already? o_O) refining the forward fuselage and spine sections of the single- and twin-seat fighter model.
First, I made sure to synch up the vertices on the unfrozen mesh so that all the bits that were supposed to be the same on both versions *were* the same. The result is that the only thing that's different between the single and twin-seat versions is a section of the upper forward fuselage from the back edge of the windscreen to somewhat aft of the cockpit - the very same section that's hanging next to the rest of the fighter, actually. As I was doing that, I separated the canopies and made them transparent, so they actually look like fighters.
Then I added the nose gear bay and doors, and the nose gear unit itself, which is now fully articulated except for the scissor link at the back, which I haven't figured out yet. Dreadfully irritating. I still need to add the actual hinges for the nose gear door, but I can fix that later.
The latest addition has been the rudimentary cockpits with instrument panels (completely bare for now), a floor, and coamings. I think I might have to reshape the single seater a little to make the canopy a little longer, and of course I need to make some ejection seats, but it's really starting to look like something flyable now.
The next step will be getting the shape of the wing box exactly the way I want it, before cutting the wings up and separating the flaps and folding outer sections. After that comes the vertical stabs and the rudders, and then I need to get down and dirty with a completely new set of engine nacelles and main gear bays. At that point, I'll be done with the basic fighter and can get started on the boosters and weapons...
After I got to this point, I gave the single-seat canopy a workover (no renders, forgot to make any) stretching it a little towards the back and making the piece behind the opening canopy transparent as well. It looks pretty good for now, but the whole area needs a bunch of work. For example, I really need to put together an ejection seat.
Then, I started mucking around with the engine nacelles, which are now longer, and larger in diameter at the back, so the nozzles look properly large. The nacelles are the only part that hasn't been frozen yet, I'm still not completely satisfied and I need to work out where to put the bays for the main landing gear.
Finally, I worked out the booster pods, and built the exhaust flame for both them and the main engines. Every tutorial says to use volumetric lights for these nowadays, but I've had trouble getting those to show up - sometimes changing the diameter of the light cone by 20 mm makes the whole thing vanish, sometimes cloning a working setup makes both lights die, I don't know what the heck is going on. I gave up and made my exhaust flames as mesh objects with transparency maps. Not only do they show up properly, I can give them arbitrary cross sections and add shock diamonds etc. Booyah.
This has all the stuff I've been working on today except the single-seat canopy, and is lit by a HDRI scene I found on the Smart IBL plugin page plus a key light.
I finished up one of my older projects, a collapsible light AA gun based on a picture I saw at DeviantArt. I've hopefully put enough of my own spin on things that no one will call plagiarism.
Cleveland (furthest), Pasadena (middle) and Fargo (nearest). Cleveland represents what the designers *thought* would be a sufficient AA battery (fifteen light AA guns and four twin medium AA guns); Pasadena represents what the Cleveland Class was eventually up-gunned to (she was the first ship completed with the full kit of ten single light AA guns, six twin and four quad medium AA guns); and Fargo represents the fixes that had to be made to the design to combat the extra weight and bad fire arcs of all those extra guns (she has ten twin light AA guns, and two twin and six quad medium AA guns). All numbers are of course per hemisphere for my ships.
The heavy cruisers Baltimore (furthest) and Oregon City (nearest) actually have almost identical armament, as the Baltimore was completed after combat had begun in earnest. They both have 48 medium AA guns, arranged as 12 quads on the Baltimore and 11 quads and 2 twins on the Oregon City (also on the later Baltimores, only the first few had the stern quad mount and twin cranes). Baltimore is loaded up with 26 single light AA guns, while Oregon City has twelve twins - and I'm not completely sure that two of the Baltimore's guns are supposed to be there.
I still have a few more cruisers to update - the Atlanta/Oakland/Juneau anti-aircraft cruisers, and the post-war Worcester and Des Moines classes. The latter two are way out of date, as I haven't worked on them in earnest since they got accidentally reverted a while ago. And there are still things to do even with the ones I've shown - I could go on forever.