CGN-25

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

As a side project, I've been working on CGN-25 USS Bainbridge, a cold war era nuclear-powered cruiser. She served all the way up until the Gulf War!

I'm doing this ship as a request from colmack, who provided me with the original model. I have something of a cruiser fetish, so saying no wasn't an option.

 

Mostly I did a clean up, rescaling, replacing/modifying some objects, adding all the weapons, doing the uvw and textures, and ini work. I tried replicating JB5's skinning style, and I think it's coming out pretty well. (Still need to do some work on the deck.) I have one sticking point, though, and that's the railings.

 

This is what I want it to look like:

 

But THIS is what it looks like in SF2:

 

See, this is why I don't bother doing railings on my ships...

 

Anyway, the objects are simple rectangular polygons with a wireframe material assigned, which seemed like a great idea to me and it looks good in render. But obviously it's not working in-game. I'd rather not rebuild them from scratch. Is there a quick/easy way to get them looking right?

[+NGHENGO]

Hey the tga is the right way to obtain railings in low res..................see the fwd antenna of the Iowa_Class80s its a mix of 3D and tga on plane meshes....

 

Mauz.

[colmack]

She's looking nice Operation Sea Orbit!!

Edited June 29, 2011 by colmack

[+PureBlue]

Nice going mate!

[+Stary]

tga is simple way, but gives error when looked at agains clouds in the background

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

Thanks, I got it working with tga's!

 

 

She's just about ready to go. I'll do some final testing on the radar/weapons and put together an archive for upload by sometime tomorrow.

[+Stary]

it has guns too? Only missiles?

[colmack]

she was a missile boat, I guess until they installed the Phalanx

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

Uploading tonight. Enjoy, everyone!

 

Say, did I hear "Operation Sea Orbit?"

 

...I bet someone could make an interesting "what if" mission out of that.

[+PureBlue]

Task Force One, mighty ships!

Looking great WBS! The other two are your WIPs?

 

 

Edited July 1, 2011 by PureBlue

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

Actually the Long Beach and Enterprise are from the A-team site. I think they all look pretty good together.

 

Anyway, here are alternate LODs for anyone who can't get the ship to appear in the first gen games.

CGN-25 alternate LODs.rar

[+SkateZilla]

for railings i just draw lines, set them to 3 sides, and a really small thickness (not at my studio system so i cant tell you what thickness i use), apply black or grey material and link it to the parent Mesh.

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

I finally got around to retrofitting the Bainbridge into a Leahy class.

 

I'll put together the install package for upload after I do some final testing. Should be a day or two at most.

[colmack]

Sweet can't wait to add them to the fleet!! hey do you mind putting some dummy rounds on the aft launcher(s)just for looks n stuff

[Fubar512]

Very nice

 

A tip, if you don't mind: try bump-mapping your models....it make's quite a difference in the model's appearance under DX10.

Edited September 29, 2011 by Fubar512

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

Very nice

 

A tip, if you don't mind: try bump-mapping your models....it make's quite a difference in the model's appearance under DX10.

 

Okay, I'll try. To be honest my computer is pushing 5 years old and my graphics card doesn't seem to support many DX10 features, so I'm not sure if I'll even notice it on my end.

Maybe I'll have to get someone with a more modern rig to take the screenshots for me.

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

I've been experimenting with bump mapping. I've decided that the payoff-to-effort ratio is pretty good, so all my ships will be getting updates with bump maps. It's too bad I can't see it in-game on my own computer, but the renders look nice.

 

Here's the Leahy:

...I also fixed an issue with the railings on this ship and the Bainbridge.

 

For a more dramatic example, here's the USS Freedom:

 

 

A few questions on this process: Can I get away with using a smaller (lower resolution) bitmap? For example, a 1024x1024 map for a 2048x2048 texture? I'd like to save RAM and hard drive space for anyone who downloads my stuff, as long as quality isn't sacrificed too much. Also, is it possible to use a compressed image format (jpeg? png?) for the bump map instead?

[Fubar512]

 

A few questions on this process: Can I get away with using a smaller (lower resolution) bitmap? For example, a 1024x1024 map for a 2048x2048 texture? I'd like to save RAM and hard drive space for anyone who downloads my stuff, as long as quality isn't sacrificed too much. Also, is it possible to use a compressed image format (jpeg? png?) for the bump map instead?

 

Multiple textures and bumpmaps are the way to go. For example, while 6 1024x1024 textures and bumpmaps may total up to more than a single 2048 x 2048, they have less of an impact on systems resources than the single, higher resolution texure/bumpmap!

Edited October 8, 2011 by Fubar512

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

Multiple textures and bumpmaps are the way to go. For example, while 6 1024x1024 textures and bumpmaps may total up to more than a single 2048 x 2048, they have less of an impact on systems resources than the single, higher resolution texure/bumpmap!

 

Huh. I wish I had known that sooner! I'll try using multiple smaller textures if/when I do an aircraft.

 

 

What I wanted to know about bump maps specifically is if I can have a bump map file that's smaller than the model's texture file? i.e. a 1024 texture with a 512 bump map? I tried it and it looks okay in render, but I don't know how it will look in-game.

[Fubar512]

Huh. I wish I had known that sooner! I'll try using multiple smaller textures if/when I do an aircraft.

 

 

What I wanted to know about bump maps specifically is if I can have a bump map file that's smaller than the model's texture file? i.e. a 1024 texture with a 512 bump map? I tried it and it looks okay in render, but I don't know how it will look in-game.

 

They should match, as any issues caused by reducing resolution on the bumpmaps versus the texture files will be all too obvious, especially on lines that "wrap" around corners or radiuses.

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

They should match, as any issues caused by reducing resolution on the bumpmaps versus the texture files will be all too obvious, especially on lines that "wrap" around corners or radiuses.

 

Got it, thanks.

 

I'll be posting updates of these ships soon, so hopefully the bump mapping will be a noticeable improvement for some of you. I may also try using .DDS textures once I get the proper plugin and image converter installed.