here are some pictures of the latest alterations, i intend to keep the majority of the panelling as it is on this model however i may also try another version with a simpler panel layout, which could well be more like that on current aircraft.Attachment not found.
yes it has a lot of thrusters, and i might remove one or two of them.
also an image of the new panelling on the underside of the wing root, i shaped it so the wing would appear more blended into the fuselage rather than being stuck on. Attachment not found.
The blending on the upper surface works pretty nicely, and the arrangement of the lateral thrusters should give you a nice left/right slide ability, but do you have more in the forward fuselage to balance the thrust? If they are simply yaw thrusters then the arrangement won't work as well.
The underside blending stops too soon to be effective but if you are willing to redesign your "landing gear" you could solve your VTOL issue. If you blend the wing root out further, making a nice bulge just aft of your thermal radiators you could include a set of lift thrusters to push the ship up off the ground. Then tweak your landing door to open away from centerline, much like on a T-38/F-5.
thanks, there are more thrusters on the nose so there should be no problems, for normal turning about the z axis not all the thrusters shown there would be used, but all would be involved when moving to the left or right. i think i'll leave the gear and vtol as they currently are.
that's my mind made up, there will be two versions of this. the older, simpler panelled mk iii(reworked) which i shall construct by modifying this after it's completion and the newer mark viii(37 years later) with the complex and rather unrealistic panels as you currently see. the main difference between them will be external details. i'll also update the phoenix and banshee with some panelling, they might sell better after that as well. the only external stuff left to do here is the secondary engines and the rear wings. all the rest is internal detail, that starts with the primary engines which i am working on now then continues with internal structure and shield generators/life support/ fuel tanks/ piping.
SF. I think it is admirable that your are finally taking our advice and reworking your designs. Might I suggest however that you do more than just a panel line revision. Given that there are 37years between these craft, why not completely redesign it, just sticking to the same basic design prinicipals, like how they did on the new BSG. The Viper MK2 and 7 were very similar, with the same overall configuration, just heavily, updated and changed between the two versions.
Also, I think you really need to look at why you are modelling and what your goal is in selling the models. Are you modelling for fun? Are you trying to learn the trade for future employment? Are you planning to make a game, mod, book, or movie that your designs play into? Are your trying to make a living selling your models, or just extra cash? This is a place to experiment, learn and grow as a modeller, and many people here are professionals, offering you professional level advice, take that to heart.
i'm doing the modelling because i enjoy it. i'm selling some because i think i may be in with a chance of making some extra money if they sell well enough. what better than earning money from something you enjoy.
as for creating the appearance of 37 years progress, i'm a bit unsure how i could create such a radical change of style(the type of shapes, materails and panels on the mk 7 viper are very different from those on the mk2) without totally altering the overall design(the vipers still have the same shape overall just very different details). one of the key changes in the 37 years i am talking about is that the human race is split into two factions, a tyranny on earth(under the control of "lord emperor" "george" westwood) and a number of planets and a democracy(working name"perseus alliance") on a number of other worlds. the hellhound mk iii was originally developed and entered service before the split, the mk viii is an updated model used by the perseus alliance. another factor to be considered is that the perseus alliance is not only human worlds, after westwood's destruction of their homeworld the hexanoid race( of similar technological level as humans) joins the perseus alliance.exactly what hexanoid ships should look like is still to be decided but my plan was to give them feathered panelling styled like that on romulan ships from star trek.
names and places with "quote marks" around them are placeholders.
spent most of today simplifying part of the primary engine nozzles to lower the poly count. the end result is visually indistinguishable but the number of edges has gone from 447560 down to 267237.
the poly count has been further lowered but the majority of my time has been spent setting up a new computer, with windows beeping8, and clearing up my house before i move. the converting programs from sketchupto blender do not seem to work on the new machine, something to do with java, so for now i am working on old one the despite the speed advantage of the new one. it may be quite a while before i am back here doing much, i've got all my next moves on the model planned out and will work on them when opportunity permits.
sorry but my old machine with xp where i am modelling is not connected to the net at present, my new windows8 machine is and i don't have a spare usb drive with which to transfer pics across. as i stated, the changes are not very visible, they are mainly little bits of simplification to reduce poly count. file is 15 meg in sketchup at present but this at least triples upon blender import. it looks exactly the same as before but for the removal of a few smaller panels.
been abroad a while, doubt i will get much chance to post pictures of recent work in the next few days but as i am currently on the old machine there are some pics here. some of the images are a bit bad, also note that elements hanging to the side in mid air have yet to be rebuilt and reattached. the internal shot has loads of work still needed on that area.
also some pictures inside the new engines showing:
first the intake, similar to the old one but the mesh is cleaned up a bit(complete)
second, the new inside of the engine reactor(complete)
third, the outside of the new engine reactor(WIP as something looks "WRONG" with it)
fourth, the rear of the new engine(complete except for some thrust vectoring flaps as seen on old design)
reworked the power reactors, bulked them up a bit. Attachment not found.
print screen is a far more bothersome process on the new machine than the old one.
There is still way too much empty space in there. That whole space should be filled, even if you have all your avionics up in the nose say, then that area would still be filled with all the electrical wiring and engine plumbing, not mention the fuel tanks.
There is still way too much empty space in there. That whole space should be filled, even if you have all your avionics up in the nose say, then that area would still be filled with all the electrical wiring and engine plumbing, not mention the fuel tanks.
there will be tanks, more systems and such added as i continue working. there will still be some space as i have previously mentioned but nothing like the amount there currently is. as well as fuel tanks(done, more to be added later if space left), i must fit:
strengthening beams (done)
high power(terawatts) electrical connections(not visible, so might as well be done)
heat transfer piping(done, not much too se for that really)
not to mention the internal hull surface details(done)
pipes for transferring helium 4 out of reactors to exhaust streams( done)
pipes to transfer hot gas and plasma from ramjets and reactors to thrusters(done)
pipes up to booster ramjets(done)
pipes for transferring hydrogen collected by ramjet scoops between reactors and fuel tanks (done)
shield generators(done)
life support systems
some basic pilot facilities for long missions
cockpit(behind camera in latest image) with control panel and seat(done)
waste recycling
air recycling
air vents(done)
...
once all that is done there won't be much space left
why are you giving a fighter a toilet.... you honestly are craming to many things in to such a small vehicle its rediculous a fighters role is not ment to be long term in any thing it does it is suppose to be deployed to shoot somthing down to chase somthing away then come straight back to its ship or base its stationed at.. and it would apply for air and space plus for thos "long term facilitys" you want to add the only way that will even be feasible is if you insert tubes in to the pilots private parts and im sure no pilot wants to do that every single time they go on a mission not to mention how uncomfertable that would be for having them in there for long periods of time.
Colbs I think you might be being a little harsh on that one. We don't know what level of crew plumbing he talking yet. Is it simply a feeder line with water and maybe a protein/electolyte drink, and then something to drain the pilot's piddle pack? Or is it a full on lav? If the former, that is reasonable, if the latter, not so much.
it,s not a full toilet. it's the stripped won essentials. so there is a toilet of a form but as small and light as possible, the waste recycling system converts the majority of chemicals in the unmentionables into an edible form, this requires quite a bit of energy but when the fighter is cruising there is plenty of reactor output to spare. all this stuff will be as small and light as possible.
remember this fighter is multi purpose, designed to knockout enemy fighters and protect other ships in a huge variety of scenarios(many of which will involve missions of several days duration). for example escorting a bomber squadron to a distant target, fighters like this will accompany the bombers from the base station, planet or ship into hyperspace then emerge near the target to defend the bombers during the attack. after the attack the surviving bombers and fighters will renter hyperspace to return to base. the round trip could take up to a week for longer missions, mostly spent in hyperspace.
reworking some other parts to lower the poly count again but am doing well keeping it lowish. it has to be atleast such that this model can be worked with easily in blender, even on my old machine. all my current blender models(hellhound,heavy fighter, phoenix,banshee) can so as long as the poly count is not too far above that i foresee no problems. when i get to the secondary engines they will have exhaust closely inspired by those of current rockets, even though the exhaust will be of much higher velocity. main sticking points now will be designing the shielding units(placed inside the hull forward of the reactors) and fitting control panel into the cockpit. to lessen the effect of having some space in the back i will be fitting various reinforcing structures across the inside of the hull.
have not been able to do much work recently and won't get much chance for a few weeks.
SO, you want your pilots to stay in a seated position for a week straight? That would destroy their circulatory system cause bedsores and a number of other issues. If you are planning to put a fighter out for that long then they should be with a tender or light carrier to bring them into the battlezone then pick them up after the fighting is over.
he clearly doesnt understand that a fighter is a support craft not an all purpose craft hes trying to put 100 things in to a box that fits 5 things also why would you need fighters to be in hyper space im pretty sure there is no fighting in in hyper space so bring a support cruiser with a hanger with a few fighters and as soon as you exit hyper space deploy the fighters and keep the cruiser stationary that way you have a base of operations near by
ok, i'm not getting into a long drawn out rant and argument over what is on my fighter. remember that this being sci fi space combat rules will differ from current warfare. anyway, the key issue now is designs for the shielding unit.
i still think its dumb that you wanna give your fighters week long missions when that type of craft inst suited for that type of missions a fighters mission should last 6hr to 8hrs or less and stay near its base/station or mobile base. you wanna have an escort style craft make one the size of a troop transport or larger. and have the fighters stored on those escort craft what i am seeing with ur design is that your trying to make it a do every thing type craft and for that size is just not right
ok, i'm not getting into a long drawn out rant and argument over what is on my fighter. remember that this being sci fi space combat rules will differ from current warfare. anyway, the key issue now is designs for the shielding unit.
I'm not joining in the argument, but you need to consider some things.
First is this: Multi-role craft regardless of environment (ground, sea or space) are jacks-of-all-trades, but masters of none. You can keep throwing all this stuff on one platform, but you're not designing a fighter anymore. This is straying into the territory of escort now.
Second: You're limiting yourself into one constrained type of craft and fighting tooth and nail for something that plainly doesn't make sense.
It's your universe; that much is true, so design how you see fit. Beware; however, that it's really hard for me and everyone else to take you seriously or comment honestly on your WORKS IN PROGRESS when you feign interest in our suggestions and try to placate people through the most minor of tweaks to your designs.
With that being said, the last thing I'd suggest is to stop posting in the WIP section if you don't want the advice and just wait until you've completed a project and post it in the finished work section
Juvat stated it really well. People on here want to help you, but you keep rebuffing every comment we give you. If you are going to put a pilot in a seat for a week straigh then you need to do something to keep them fit. Why not put them into some sort of suspended animation while in transit then?
ok, away from all that matter of mission durations... i have said before and i will say again that what i look for advice on is those things i specify in questions, not that which i have already planned to do.
shield generators: any thoughts what they should look like?? the old version looked a bit glowy and fantastical, i want a more realistic look to it but it should fit in a similar space. the other point i should make is on how the shielding in my verse works,
it's based on plasma windows with some special ionised molecules contained amongst the plasma for other forms of protection. around the hull, just a few centimetres out from it, there is an inner electromagnetic field, then a few centimetres of the plasma, then an outer electromagnetic field to hold the plasma in place.
ok, away from all that matter of mission durations... i have said before and i will say again that what i look for advice on is those things i specify in questions, not that which i have already planned to do.
You are either completely obtuse or childishly arrogant. You've demonstrated time and time again that you don't understand the concept of a "works-in-progress" section on an internet forum.
Let me give you a roadmap:
1) You post your work-in-progress in said forum.
2) People give you ideas and advice on how to possibly develop your design and to HELP you throughout your project. They also point out when something defies common sense and destroys the suspension of disbelief for your design.
3) You take everything with a grain of salt and realize that maybe you made a mistake here and there and adapt to overcome.
4) Rinse and repeat.
Your fatal flaw is that you think everything in your universe is perfect and that there's no room for improvement. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret...it's not. No one's is. Blowing off aesthetic advice is one thing and most people can overcome that as long as there's some semblance of reality to maintain that suspension of disbelief. You, on the other hand, shrug off everything and people lose interest rather quickly while new blood comes in, sees the ignorance of your comments and leaves.
Keep going the way you're going and you'll lose everyone's interest that could either a) Recommend your models to others because they're solid pieces of work or b) Give you hits on your website or on your threads.
I'm going to go find a thread where common sense may just prevail.
i'm sorry for all this and i can see i'm being a bit of an ass. i'll post on the thread again once this model is finished.
p.s. colbs: thanks for tip about shields, that short squat cylinder has actually given me rather good pace to start.
Posts
yes it has a lot of thrusters, and i might remove one or two of them.
Attachment not found.
The underside blending stops too soon to be effective but if you are willing to redesign your "landing gear" you could solve your VTOL issue. If you blend the wing root out further, making a nice bulge just aft of your thermal radiators you could include a set of lift thrusters to push the ship up off the ground. Then tweak your landing door to open away from centerline, much like on a T-38/F-5.
Also, I think you really need to look at why you are modelling and what your goal is in selling the models. Are you modelling for fun? Are you trying to learn the trade for future employment? Are you planning to make a game, mod, book, or movie that your designs play into? Are your trying to make a living selling your models, or just extra cash? This is a place to experiment, learn and grow as a modeller, and many people here are professionals, offering you professional level advice, take that to heart.
as for creating the appearance of 37 years progress, i'm a bit unsure how i could create such a radical change of style(the type of shapes, materails and panels on the mk 7 viper are very different from those on the mk2) without totally altering the overall design(the vipers still have the same shape overall just very different details). one of the key changes in the 37 years i am talking about is that the human race is split into two factions, a tyranny on earth(under the control of "lord emperor" "george" westwood) and a number of planets and a democracy(working name"perseus alliance") on a number of other worlds. the hellhound mk iii was originally developed and entered service before the split, the mk viii is an updated model used by the perseus alliance. another factor to be considered is that the perseus alliance is not only human worlds, after westwood's destruction of their homeworld the hexanoid race( of similar technological level as humans) joins the perseus alliance.exactly what hexanoid ships should look like is still to be decided but my plan was to give them feathered panelling styled like that on romulan ships from star trek.
names and places with "quote marks" around them are placeholders.
sorry but my old machine with xp where i am modelling is not connected to the net at present, my new windows8 machine is and i don't have a spare usb drive with which to transfer pics across. as i stated, the changes are not very visible, they are mainly little bits of simplification to reduce poly count. file is 15 meg in sketchup at present but this at least triples upon blender import. it looks exactly the same as before but for the removal of a few smaller panels.
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
also some pictures inside the new engines showing:
first the intake, similar to the old one but the mesh is cleaned up a bit(complete)
second, the new inside of the engine reactor(complete)
third, the outside of the new engine reactor(WIP as something looks "WRONG" with it)
fourth, the rear of the new engine(complete except for some thrust vectoring flaps as seen on old design)
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
print screen is a far more bothersome process on the new machine than the old one.
no other significant alterations.
strengthening beams (done)
high power(terawatts) electrical connections(not visible, so might as well be done)
heat transfer piping(done, not much too se for that really)
not to mention the internal hull surface details(done)
pipes for transferring helium 4 out of reactors to exhaust streams( done)
pipes to transfer hot gas and plasma from ramjets and reactors to thrusters(done)
pipes up to booster ramjets(done)
pipes for transferring hydrogen collected by ramjet scoops between reactors and fuel tanks (done)
shield generators(done)
life support systems
some basic pilot facilities for long missions
cockpit(behind camera in latest image) with control panel and seat(done)
waste recycling
air recycling
air vents(done)
...
once all that is done there won't be much space left
remember this fighter is multi purpose, designed to knockout enemy fighters and protect other ships in a huge variety of scenarios(many of which will involve missions of several days duration). for example escorting a bomber squadron to a distant target, fighters like this will accompany the bombers from the base station, planet or ship into hyperspace then emerge near the target to defend the bombers during the attack. after the attack the surviving bombers and fighters will renter hyperspace to return to base. the round trip could take up to a week for longer missions, mostly spent in hyperspace.
reworking some other parts to lower the poly count again but am doing well keeping it lowish. it has to be atleast such that this model can be worked with easily in blender, even on my old machine. all my current blender models(hellhound,heavy fighter, phoenix,banshee) can so as long as the poly count is not too far above that i foresee no problems. when i get to the secondary engines they will have exhaust closely inspired by those of current rockets, even though the exhaust will be of much higher velocity. main sticking points now will be designing the shielding units(placed inside the hull forward of the reactors) and fitting control panel into the cockpit. to lessen the effect of having some space in the back i will be fitting various reinforcing structures across the inside of the hull.
have not been able to do much work recently and won't get much chance for a few weeks.
I'm not joining in the argument, but you need to consider some things.
First is this: Multi-role craft regardless of environment (ground, sea or space) are jacks-of-all-trades, but masters of none. You can keep throwing all this stuff on one platform, but you're not designing a fighter anymore. This is straying into the territory of escort now.
Second: You're limiting yourself into one constrained type of craft and fighting tooth and nail for something that plainly doesn't make sense.
It's your universe; that much is true, so design how you see fit. Beware; however, that it's really hard for me and everyone else to take you seriously or comment honestly on your WORKS IN PROGRESS when you feign interest in our suggestions and try to placate people through the most minor of tweaks to your designs.
With that being said, the last thing I'd suggest is to stop posting in the WIP section if you don't want the advice and just wait until you've completed a project and post it in the finished work section
shield generators: any thoughts what they should look like?? the old version looked a bit glowy and fantastical, i want a more realistic look to it but it should fit in a similar space. the other point i should make is on how the shielding in my verse works,
it's based on plasma windows with some special ionised molecules contained amongst the plasma for other forms of protection. around the hull, just a few centimetres out from it, there is an inner electromagnetic field, then a few centimetres of the plasma, then an outer electromagnetic field to hold the plasma in place.
You are either completely obtuse or childishly arrogant. You've demonstrated time and time again that you don't understand the concept of a "works-in-progress" section on an internet forum.
Let me give you a roadmap:
1) You post your work-in-progress in said forum.
2) People give you ideas and advice on how to possibly develop your design and to HELP you throughout your project. They also point out when something defies common sense and destroys the suspension of disbelief for your design.
3) You take everything with a grain of salt and realize that maybe you made a mistake here and there and adapt to overcome.
4) Rinse and repeat.
Your fatal flaw is that you think everything in your universe is perfect and that there's no room for improvement. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret...it's not. No one's is. Blowing off aesthetic advice is one thing and most people can overcome that as long as there's some semblance of reality to maintain that suspension of disbelief. You, on the other hand, shrug off everything and people lose interest rather quickly while new blood comes in, sees the ignorance of your comments and leaves.
Keep going the way you're going and you'll lose everyone's interest that could either a) Recommend your models to others because they're solid pieces of work or b) Give you hits on your website or on your threads.
I'm going to go find a thread where common sense may just prevail.
p.s. colbs: thanks for tip about shields, that short squat cylinder has actually given me rather good pace to start.