Need creative suggestions

gevatter Lars

gevatter Lars

Vice Admiral
I have digged up an old projekt of mine and I am a little bit out if creativity. So I would like to ask around if anyone has got some suggestions.

My rought guide for the model is "What would the Wing Commander Movie Tigers Claw would have looked like when we take the game model as the starting point."
I have made the basic shape of the gamemodel following the Clawmarks for most of it. Then I gave the runway some details that I like so far. Then I started the outside of the runway and my mind was totaly blank...no ideas at all...or better said I didn't like them very much.
So I would like to ask for some input. What I don't want to do is somethink like open structures like they do it often in StarWars....simpley hate it ^_^
I am mostly searching for somekind of details/examples for the armor plating and other details. I have made a simple render and done some rough scetches with Photoshop for some of the ideas I had...still very basic.
Big Armorplating
Mid armorplating and thrusters
smaller armorplating, thrusters and maybe a place for torpedo tubes

Who would like to draw some suggestions himself here is a clean pic
Basis

Please remember that I want to keep the basic shape as much as possible. I hope someone can cure me from my idealessness.
 
Well, it looks like a great start my friend. I didn't want to be the first to make a suggestion but there are lots of ways you can go with it. Obviously panelling and all that good stuff will go a long ways. However since what your trying to do is tie the movie bengal with the game bengal. I would suggest you make a way were the "walls" of the runway can converge much like the move bengal did. That would provide a unique aspect to the model. But really...it's your model, do what you like and then show us the results! :)
 
Hi there.
Somehow this thead does not show up in the list, I only saw it as a Last Post in the main forum view. :S
So far so good :D I don't really understand your problem with detail, you made lots of it with the thrusters and torpedo banks and windows. I like the largest armor plateing, but that'll make the ship look smaller then it should. The way I would work around this would be to make the big armor plates in geometry, and than apply a map of smaller plateing to the modell (10-20 smaller plates in texture only). Attach some antennas hanging out in groups from the side of the runway, like on a real carrier (the ship that floats on water I mean :D )
More detail is allways made up from stuff that is small, and totally unnecesary, like tubings and wires and such hangin out from the armor a bit. That makes it more "human". A rare exception, where this is minimized is the WC movie capship design.
So, I would do the big armor plating with the torp tubes and exhausts and windows!
One more thing. I would round the nose-fin part of the runway. Ya know, the parts that extrude beyond the runway on its sides, with the runway in the middle. I would give it a bit of rounded Vertical edges. Leave the horizontals sharp.
(btw, what software/renderer you use?)
 
@Lorddarthvik

The topic wasn't shown? Thats realy strange...well now their seams to be some people who see it ^_^

Antennas are an interesting idea...will see how to work with that.
About the tubes I didn't want to use that kind of detail since I allways beginn to swear that such structures of a ship should stay internal and not be visible through the outside. I mean what sence would it make to put tubes outside the ship except for cooling systems...but then even to have that outside is quite a risk.
Sadly its the only good thing about the WC movie ships I can see.

Rounding up the nose is a good idea...the geometrie allready gave me some problems when I tried other detailing stuff.

I use Max for modeling...the pics where quickly overworked with Photoshop...rendered the ship and then drawed some lines over it.

@Striker
I would suggest you make a way were the "walls" of the runway can converge much like the move bengal did
Click to expand...
Sorry but I don't get what you mean. What way do you mean?
Do you mean the open sides where they moved in the crashed fighter?
 
First off, I think Lorddarthvik meant that this thread didn't show on the main page. That happens a lot as the main page only lists the threads that most recently have had posts to them (I think it only lists the last 10 or so). If he's like me I use the front page for 90% of my forum responding (I know I really should go in an check all the forums, but the latest topics on the front page is so dang handy).

As to what I meant with the model. Well, remember in the movie the Bengal's sides could stretch apart to make the runway open for the fighters to take off? What I meant was to make the long runway on the game model and it's long sides capable of sliding closed together. I know, radical idea, but it's was a spontaneous thought, not sure how'd it look exactly when put into practice. Kind of like how a big modern stadium dome can slide back its roof...
 
I think I get what you mean...have to watch the movie to take a closer look at that. Maybe it can be put to some use...while I would more likely have two or more armorplates that cover the runway when its not used instead of sliding the entire side. Also the mechanical part of having the complete side moveable would have to be quite big. Still I will concider it.

Other thing that came up to my mind...what size would you think a normal armor plating would have? 2x2 meters?
 
I mean that I was looking through the Wc3d thread, and I couldn't see it there. It only showed on the main page as a "last post" in WC3D.

I don't really think that the moveing runway sides is a good idea. Make some kind of a door for the hangar, but moveing those big sides just to close a piece of metal wich only serves for take off and landing... Btw, the ships in orginal WC never needed a runway, the launch tube was there for faster takeoffs only.. I didn't see the point of this in the movie. Of coarse it looked good and seemd logical while whatching the film, but when you start to think about it... :D

I think that 2*2m is the smallest piece of armor your talking about right? Obviously, actual size doesn't matter. No one will ever tell. Whats matters is the overall look. Find a size that suits you best.
 
That the topic wasn't visible is realy strange...well at least you found it anyway ^_^

About the runway-cover as it could be called. It would make sence when you only have the flightdeck for landing fighters while starting ones use tubes. That way you would make sure that the runway is still intakt when the fighters are comming back.
That brings me to the point to where place the tubes? They would be quite big to host the different fighters size. Only place I could think of it without currupting/adding to much new geometrie is at the same place as it was in the WC-Academy tv show.

I asked about the armor plating size because of another model where people placed a block beside the ship to get a feeling for the size. Then I thought wow that ship must be realy big when the guy their is about 2m. Then I thought what would be the size for armor plating. I mean their are people that have to move them around and so. The idea behind this is to come up with a semi SF-Real design. So the design would be about 70% SF and about 30% realistic...what is also the reason why I don't want tubes or vents on the outside.

Oh before I forget it...I will most likely take over the blastdoors of the hangar that we saw in the movie. Its good to have a backup system for the forcefields and it safes energie when there are no fighters luchning/landing.
 
The only thing why I still don't really like the runway idea is that every WC ship can hover, like the ones in Star Wars.... Look at the dragon langin and takeing off on the virus-bombed planet in WC4, or the shuttles landing and takeing off in WC3,4.
I wuld leave off the tubes, for more realism. No need for em. That why we got a runway for :D How does a Brodsword fit into a launcher anyway? :D
The blast-doors is a must on all ships.
So, If you don't waht to make unreal stuff outside of the ship, than you can rename the vents to thrusters, to controll rotation of the ship. Thats even more realism added :D You just need to paint the surrounding texture appropriatly (black flame-marks on it)
 
From what I remember WC1+2 ships seamed to need a runway. When we look at the landing sequenz of WC1 and the landing/starting from WC2 its quite visible that they need it. An explenation could be that it has something to do how gravity is projected or whatever. I don't want to think about that to much ^_^
Where I have to agree is that WC3+4 ships have shown that they can do some kind of simple hover mode for starting.

For the "smallest station in history" AKA Broadsword in a tube...well I asked myself how that ship could fit in anywhere at all. ^_^

Their will be thrusters. I like the idea of it and it gets taken over by more and more SF shows.
Question is how many should their be? We surly need some big ones to provide the nessessary propulsion for manuvers...but what about some smaller ones for finetuning the position?
 
well, you decide on the size of the thrusters. I wouls make it with the double hole design you drawn, that looks good to me. You don't really need small ones, as even a big thruster can make very small thrusts cause useing less fuel to burn. But, its up to you of course. I don't have an idea for that yet.

yep, your right about WC1,2 ships, I remeber that every ship had something resembaling a runway.
 
the tubes do have a need, you can quickly launch fighters from various points of the ship without having to wait for a runway to become clear. this concept was redone with the midway in WCP.

this would be needed in a scramble, if the ship is under attack, to launch fighters to fend off enemy attackers. you don't use a bomber for this. you could launch that
one off the main landing bay.

same thing: the battlestar galactica, has numerous tubes for quickly deploying fighters, and two landing bays.

the wing commander 3/4 carriers had flight decks large enough to use them to launch several fighters at thesame time, i guess..

the concordia had two runways.. but it was blown up all the time ;)
 
Mace said:
this would be needed in a scramble, if the ship is under attack, to launch fighters to fend off enemy attackers. you don't use a bomber for this. you could launch that
one off the main landing bay.
Click to expand...

So you don't need tubes, because loading a ship into a tube takes ages, as seen in WC:P, and the fighters are small enough to emerge in large groups form the hangar, and you don't use bomber for emergencies right? :D
Ok, you need the tube cause it was in the Tigers Claw. How about inserting some tube ends into the end of the "wings"? Launching the fighters perpendicular to the carrier, on both sides? Whats in the big "wings" by the way?



For me WC:P is just a stolen name with stolen actors and Not Wing Commander. It simply does not deserve it in any aspect. Sadly, the series of Wing Commander Ended with WC4. (or it should have, we could sleep better if there wasn't any Prophecy :D )
but that's another topic :D
 
I think tubes makes sence when you load them quickly enough or have enough of them to lunch fighters in mass. Biggest advantage is that when one is destroyed their are some more to lunch fighters.

What wings do you mean...the wings that about at the same level as the bridge structure or the ones that house the engines? I sometimes also refere to them as wings.
For the wings that are at near the bridge structure I thought that they might house sensore equipment or some other technical devices.
I also wanted to place the side torpedo lunchers under that wing because its quite the same position as in the movie.
Thats why I thought the tubes could be at the tv series position.

Another thing that was shown in the movie was Paladins freighter landing in the back of the hangar via a top shaft. Should that be taken over or left out?
I don't realy like the idea, but it would be an interesting detail.
 
I liked the separate hangar landing part, but I don't know if there's enough space to implement into this modell.
I was refering to the engine houseings as "wings". It would help us to understand each other if you could post a render of the full ship in view. We could sketch onto that. I currently don't have any modell of the Tigers Claw, and I can't seem to recall where the fighters were launched from in the TV series. It wasn't the underhung pods, was it?
 
Seams like a good idea to post the complete ship. I only got these render of a top-perspective view with an older try on armor plating.


And here are another two shots showing the view from outside into the hangar and the other way around.



And to give a feeling for the size...what brings me to the point that sizes are lunatic in WC ^_^
Hangar with Hellcats and Mr.Biped (1,80m)
Bengal next to a Kilrathi DN
I special like the last one...it nearly seams as if the Bengal could fit into the hangar of the DN.
 
heh, sizes are really strange. The hellcats look deffinetly too big for Mr.Biped.

Love the detail on the runway, and the hangars a nice one too. But, now that I see the picture, I can't see any space that ould be filled with a launch tube.
Torpedos should be under the bridge in the wings? That looks cool but stupid. The thing that would get hit in a battle... So, its again "sense or realizm"?
I'm goin to sleep now, and try to dream up somekinda solution for tomorrow :D
 
The pic fools the eye a little upon the size but the stuff is scalled from the values of the book and when using that you won't never get a realistic size.

The sidefiring torpedos wouldn't be in the wings (front) but under them in some kind of "case" so they are a little more protected.

For the lunchtubes...now that I think about it their is real not much space. I would have to see how big they would have to be.

Well good night to you...I should also ge to bed ^_^
 
lorddarthvik said:
I wuld leave off the tubes, for more realism. No need for em. That why we got a runway for :D How does a Brodsword fit into a launcher anyway? :D
Click to expand...

The Broadsword made it out the side tubes in Academy no problem. But that's also why you have a runway. It's mainly for landings, but it's also a takeoff option.

lorddarthvik said:
For me WC:P is just a stolen name with stolen actors and Not Wing Commander. It simply does not deserve it in any aspect. Sadly, the series of Wing Commander Ended with WC4. (or it should have, we could sleep better if there wasn't any Prophecy :D )
but that's another topic :D
Click to expand...

You can go by whatever you want for yourself, but that's just silly to bring up here. People are using stuff from Prophecy to bring up valid points about launching and recovering fighters.
 
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