So I finally figured out the process for getting ships into HL2. So far it works best with 3DStudio max. Thanks to some help from Bob and a rapier from Marc, I can show you I'm not lying. I can't remember where Bob got the Hellcat.
Even though I like Marcs model, it doesnt really look that good in it's current form. The problem is scale I think. The two ships in these screens are roughly to scale. (19M rapier, 27M Hellcat) I think the size is actually goo and when walking under them they seem appropriatly bulky.
So I built a little showroom for them (cause its faster to compile than the whole map) and here they are. Plus I tinkered with a bumpmap for both and gave the rapier a glossy paint job. (I absolutely love how after the fact of compiling the textures and models its a simple tweak to adjust how reflective things are and what not (and how transparent... if you want)
I really need someone skilled who can adjust models and make them look more natural. With skilled bumpmapping and such much detail can be left to the texture. It's also possible to make parts of the models glow. Transparent cockpits would be usefull too. That hellcat was tiny and scaling it up it doesnt look so good (and the colors are a bit wierd). Poly limit is 25000/model but for example a HL2 hellicopter is somewhere arounf 6-8000. This ships most likely wont be moving so we can probably get away with more than 6500 without the performance suffering too much. Most of the reason stuff looks great in HL2 is because of the texturing.
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