Making the Games: Pelican Artwork (November 16, 2008)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Today we feature two alternate takes on the same basic C-9 Pelican artwork. Frankly, I'm surprised that more textured versions of ships like this even exist - what was the artwork ever used for? There aren't any Pelican cutscenes.

Thanks to Captain Johnny for both archiving and providing this material!




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Original update published on November 16, 2008
 
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Wow...I never thought a transport could look so...good.

I wonder what the "tubes" are mounted on the front. Weapons or perhaps sensors?
 
We got all of the textures for in-game models from renders of the high-end versions of the ships. Pretty much everything was built as a cinematic model, then we had a library of ships that we could pick and choose from to drop into the backgrounds of cinematics. It's also possible this WAS used in a cinematic that was dropped from the game. But I'd say the probably main reason for the high-end version was so that we'd have something to render for low-end in-game textures.
 
Interesting - this doesn't actually look like a textured high-res model - it looks like a detailed paint-over of a in-game model - perhaps reference for the high-res textures? if you're curious, you can tell because the textured detail (small panels, text, shading) doesn't match the curvature and surface of the model. For instance, the panel detail to the left-center-bottom on the right-hand forward prong is made up of perfect squares and rectangles - the only way that would make sense is if that stuff was photoshoped on after the main image was rendered.
Anyhow, random observation.
Still looks awesome.
 
Yay! I didn't expect to see a high-resolution Pelican, I mean, ever! I love these ships, they're so utilitarian, you can tell a fair amount of thought had gone into the design.
 
I can't say why but I absolutely love these pictures! They make the Pelican so...realistic? I don't know, they're just great.
But I don't think these tubes on the fron are weapons. Maybe connections for fuel hoses?
 
Howard, good eye. This is definitely NOT a render of a hi-res version, though I still suspect that there was such at some point. Definitely looks like someone used a texture fill in photoshop to color in a previously drawn or rendered model; the panel lines don't follow the lines of the ship at all.
 
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