Kilrathi Corvette Appears in WC Saga (March 11, 2009)

[ChrisReid]

The WC Saga team has started a push to wrap up its capital ships as it makes progress towards an 'alpha' build. They've taken inspiration from Feng Zhu's concept art developed for unreleased Wing Commander games. They've released shots of the Kamrani corvette featuring their most updated Kilrathi textures.

It’s time to introduce our Kilrathi capital ships. Scooby Doo from the team explains the process: "Like everything in game development, designing capital ships is always more difficult than it sounds. As a team, we had a long discussion regarding the overall look we wanted to create for our ships. We went through every available concept art from finished Wing Commander games and also from the art associated with the unreleased Wing Commander games. We found the artwork by Feng Zhu were particularly helpful."

​

We started with the basics. We took a simple yellowish base metal texture, and we started evolving it from there. One of the first additions we made was dirt patches. Next we began playing with armor plating. We actually have a good foundation in there now. We wrote a simple Photoshop script that creates armor plates in a matter of seconds (thus saving us a lot of time).

Normal maps came into the picture a little after that. This is one of my personal favorites. Basically, normal maps are used to greatly enhance the appearance of our low poly models without using more polygons. This technique allows us to create highly detailed, impressive models with very small impact on performance, allowing Saga to look and play great on a wide variety of machines."

As our first demonstration of the results of our work in this area, we would like to introduce our version of the Kamrani. The Kilrathi’s obsession with hit-and-run strikes and wolfpack tactics is manifested in their most recent corvette model. Its combination of offensive anti-ship missiles and high speed enables these corvettes to attack Confederation convoys before they have adequate time to muster a counterattack. Even though the Kamrani is lightly armored, this corvette is well protected against fighters with its multiple turret configuration.

​

In our future updates we plan to release some information on the story, talk a little bit about our characters, and introduce the player's nemeses! Stay tuned!

--
Original update published on March 11, 2009

 

[Vinman]

That's gorgeous!

 

[Dundradal]

Certainly an interesting texture change. Nice work all around.

 

[rapierdragon]

beautiful cruiser

Love the cruiser... any chance of getting a set of pics from the top, side, and front (atypical 3 pictures like you get for most ships).

I would like to know its name, stats, shields/armor/weapons also.

Thinking maybe I'll do a paper model of it if I can get top, front, and side pictures (so I can get the needed measurements seeing as I suck at the 3d-CAD type programs and end up doing paper-models via windows paint).

rapierdragon
matsho@sympatico.ca

 

[AD]

It looks good in the first screenshot, but the reflections (lighting? Alpha channel?) seem all wierd in the other two.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

In the first one, it appears the normal mapping isn't being shown very well. The other two definetely show off the normal mapping, which gives the illusion of surface detailing, which might be where your getting confused at.

 

[AD]

In the first one, it appears the normal mapping isn't being shown very well. The other two definetely show off the normal mapping, which gives the illusion of surface detailing, which might be where your getting confused at.

I'm not really confused by it. But it's making all the edges of the paneling where the normal mapping is stand out too much at a distance. So while I like the rust and texture detailing, the screenshots at a distance seem cluttered unnaturally. You would think the paneling lines would be softer the farther away you are. Maybe it plays out differently in game but it just strikes me a little odd in the second shot.