New Crossbow

[Eder]

Our old Crossbow sucked, so I went and made a new one which I believe is pretty damn accurate. Thanks to LOAF and BradMick for the reference material.

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You might notice that its textures look cleaner than the average Standoff fighter's... that was intentional, since in our storyline Crossbows are hot rods just out of the prototype testing stage.

 

[Lynx]

Hmm, I remeber it looking quite deifferent in WC2, but maybe that's just me, it's long since I've played it actually.

As for the model itself, I think your old model was much better, qualitywise( accurate or not). There's some ugly texture stretching on the pods, and those wing things on the pod ends have a much higher texture resolution, it'd look better if they'd as washed out as the main body, though it won't really matter since it'll be hardly visible ingame. The wings seem to be quite fat, is that intentionally? Also, the contrast between the green, blue and white is pretty hefty, perhaps it would be better to make the green and blue brighter?

How many polies and textures does it have?

 

[Eder]

It has 1188 polys, two 256x256 textures. The fat wings are supposed to be like that for accuracy's sake. The contrast between the colors is what I meant by cleaner textures... the green and blue aren't as low-saturation as on other ships, and the generic white/grey is brighter than, say, on the Rapier. I'm considering lowering the saturation on the blue and green even further, but this is already good enough to not look out of place when flying side by side with the other models. I think now it might actually be the white that's sticking out too much.

And trust me, it looks pretty close to WC2's model... well, Academy's, actually (down to the hull plating lines, even...), but I suppose Academy used the same model as WC2, only with different textures.

 

[Lazy Panda]

Whoa, this tub had to sacrifice quite some sleekness for quality. Really gotta miss the nice rounded torpedo holds (or whatever the purpose of the two front sections is) and get some flattened-down edgy thingies... If it'd be possible, the old gray looked much better than the reddish-gray color of the new model.

I wounder how it will fly without afterburners which became so much more important in the WCP engine...

Edit again: Speaking of engines, the engines of the Crossbow look kinda Starcraft-ish. Are they supposed to be that way, never got to see'em in the old Crossbow screenshots.

 

[poopnoodle]

I'm in agreement with lynx, i love your original crossbow, and im kind of confused about why it needs to be changed.

-brad

 

[Chicken]

Meh. Looks fine to me. As long as I get to kill stuff with it !

 

[ChrisReid]

I'm in agreement with lynx, i love your original crossbow, and im kind of confused about why it needs to be changed.

One of the biggest aspects of Standoff's charm is how attentive their staff is to the original source material.

 

[Lynx]

I planned to replay WC2 anyways so I'll see it myself, but I think the WC2 versions pods were either longer or less fat. Haven't seen the Academy variant I cannot comment on it. Did you model it after the render model for the ingame bitmaps, or after that one seen in the cutscenes? IIRC the shape is slightly different between them.

Could you post a screenshot in white lighting? I think the red lighting makes the contrasts on the textures stronger than they actually are. As for the textures looking newer than other craft in Standoff, it doesn't really appear to me like that. The colors are brighter and the saturation is higher, but the contrast between the different gradients of the textures is the same like on all older Standoff craft, there are burnmarks or dirt or whatever that's almost black in places. I'd suggest giving the overlay used there less contrast to make it look cleaner and newer. And perhaps you should consider addding a third texture map for the side of the pods since the texture stretching is really obvious there

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Looks pretty darned accurate to me.

 

[powell99]

See that is the best work ever. I hated the old Crossbow design (not yours Origins) Now I must say that is prime work!

 

[Eder]

Did you model it after the render model for the ingame bitmaps, or after that one seen in the cutscenes? IIRC the shape is slightly different between them.

You're right, the shape of the pods and of the main wings is slightly different in the landing scene (hand-drawn) Crossbow. The same model is used everywhere else, though:

(Top: our new model overlayed on landing scene Crossbow; Bottom: our new model overlayed on in-flight sprite from WC2)

Our old model's pods conformed to the landing scene's Crossbow better than the new one's do. However, between our new model and WC2's in-flight model, the main differences I can think of are the reworked cockpit, the liberties I took with the paint scheme, and the more recent Confed Star (which we use in Standoff) in place of the WC2 Star
Oh, right, and the fact that one model has 33k polygons, and the other has 1.1k polygons. Take a look:

(Our new model vs. WCA's ship viewer model - which is WC2's model with Waterloo textures, it seems)

That also serves as a shot with white light, though it's outside the game engine, so it actually makes it seem like there's more contrast.

And perhaps you should consider addding a third texture map for the side of the pods since the texture stretching is really obvious there

Can't. By my own rules, Standoff doesn't use more than 2 textures for anything that isn't larger than a bomber.

I hated the old Crossbow design (not yours Origins) Now I must say that is prime work!

How odd, but thanks.

 

[Lynx]

Aye, it's cool. I just have the tendency to prefer cutscene over ingame models, and the cutscenes pods are clearly rounded, but what of those options you take is a matter of taste I suppose.

And yeah, with white lighing it looks much better, it was just the colored light making it look different(I'm perhaps th only person, but I think colored light wasn't the best thing they invented inm space sims )

Now it's edgy enough to fit into WC3 too.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

And yeah, with white lighing it looks much better, it was just the colored light making it look different(I'm perhaps th only person, but I think colored light wasn't the best thing they invented inm space sims )

No, there's literally thousands of people out there who enjoy a game with *no* lighting...

 

[Quarto]

Aye, it's cool. I just have the tendency to prefer cutscene over ingame models, and the cutscenes pods are clearly rounded, but what of those options you take is a matter of taste I suppose.

I talked (or, well, whined) to Eder about the angularishness of the pods too. Basically, it's not an aestethic choice - Eder would prefer more true-to-the-original rounded pods too. However, once he added the additional engine exhausts in the back, there just wasn't enough polys left to do rounded pods - WCP can't handle that many polygons in one mesh .

 

[Eder]

Yeah, I'd love to try and make the model work with both the in-flight model and the hand drawn landing scene art (like I did for the Rapier), but I just couldn't afford to smooth out the pods. I'll probably do it for our own landing scene version of the Crossbow (heh, the irony).

 

[PopsiclePete]

I prefer your new not-quite round model over a rounder one. It makes more sense. And looking at the comparaison shot from WCA, it seems almost perfect.

 

[Edfilho]

I really, really, really like the new one a lot better. It looks pretty good indeed. Congrats!

 

[Dundradal]

Looks great as always Eder....
It's really great that you guys on standoff are so willing to be as acurate as possible. Next best thing to a real origin release....

 

[Eder]

A cookie to whoever comes up with a good idea for this thing's landing scenes. I can't have the tech talking to the damned torpedo pod, and from side view it blocks the cockpit entirely.

 

[PopsiclePete]

Have the ship land toward the screen and the chief tech. I mean, we see the ship landing from the front, chief tech standing in the way.