The Name Means Phoenix

[Knight26]

Side view, that discoloration is becuase I left a piece of one of the development canopies. As you can see there is plenty of room for the crew and good visibility, I am still debating a split canopy though. Oh and that gap there has been corrected on the new cockpit, I just haven't moved that into the master model yet, oops.

Edited September 20, 2004 by Knight26

[Knight26]

Nose Job:

Man this part of the design has really given me frustrations, mostly due to the limitations of AUTOCAD. What started out as two seperate parts grew to seven, should have only been three, because the parts wouldn't rejoin together properly. I am however now contemplating remaking the nose in a completely angular fashion, maintain the same overall shape, but using angles instead of curves. Oh well. Anyway here it is.

[Knight26]

Underside, if I have time tomorrow I will panel up the cockpit exterior, man I am almost afraid to look at the file size on this beast now.

[Knight26]

Cockpit is all but done: I just need to make a couple minor modifications around the canopy as well as add the canopy openning hardware. The dark area on the "canard" is a walk path, and the two ports above the ladder door are climbing handles for boarding. As always C&C are welcome.

Edited September 22, 2004 by Knight26

[Knight26]

Opposite side, similar but different, notice no boarding hardware, and that little box, emergency canopy release. I also plan to possbily add a couple of pop out atmospheric data probes, though I am not sure if I will do that. Anything you all see that needs to be added? I will try to start on textures this weekend. Also anyone like to see a before and after shot before I start texturing?

[Knight26]

Couldn't sleep, here are a couple comparison shots, had a little bit of texture trouble when inserted but oh well. You can really see the difference between the two designs, almost like the difference between the breast fighter and the valk.

Edited September 22, 2004 by Knight26

[Knight26]

One more and I am off to bed.

[Kin]

It looks very cool, but is there not an anti-aliasing feature in your rendering options?

[Knight26]

I would have to ask Kin, excuse a little ignorance, but what would that do for the render?

[Kin]

it makes the lines and grooves much smoother.

Edited September 22, 2004 by Kin

[Knight26]

Oh duh, my bad, yeah I just checked I will make a render when I get home with the anti-aliasing on high, right now it is on miminal, oops. Hmm with how many lines are on there, should be interesting to see how long it makes the render take.

Edited September 22, 2004 by Knight26

[Knight26]

Ok some renders with it anti-aliased, it is so much better its not even funny.

[Knight26]

Another one, from beneath:

[Knight26]

Man this thing hardly even needs texturing now but I applied a basic dirt map, any comments?

[Knight26]

From below and behind.

[Lynx7725]

I really should have commented on this earlier, but the redesign process was going great so I didn't want to disrupt that.

Sorry man, this design doesn't quite grab me. Maybe it's just the FSW part, something just doesn't work for me. But the attention to detail is really something.

[Knight26]

Well FSWs aren't for everyone, too unconventional, but I love FSWs. Any more comments?

[Knight26]

I made a couple scene renders. The first one came out iffy, see what you all think.

[Knight26]

This one took a few tries before I got the lighting to look right to me, I think this will be my new desktop.

[Knight26]

Third scene, not as good as the first, its a pain making the lights match up.

[Knight26]

One more before bed, I altered the original just slightly, added a ripple and motion blur coming off the tail pipes to simulate moving, heated air, i.e. exhaust off the gravity engine. It is the only visible exhaust the engine produces, and outside of atmosphere that is gone.

[Knight26]

The products of the last two redesigns together. I have no idea why the glass came out so frosted but I will work on that in the future.

[Knight26]

Rather then start a whole new thread I thought I would show a quick shot of the start of my texturing on this unit. Any thoughts?

[Knight26]

The texturing is coming along well, I;m having to modify a few parts to get the textures to work but that is no big deal. Anyway here are the latest progress shots.

[Knight26]

And from above, the cockpit interior is already done, this is just a stand in for now.

[Vostok 7]

Very cool design. Does remind me alot of the PyroGX though, hate to say. Maybe that's just 'cause I spent most of my childhood playing Descent/Descent II

If I really had to put a finger on it, it looks like a PyroGX combined with a fighter design I made for a (failed) mission pack I was making for Descent II, which itself was based on a Transformers Cyberjet (Space Ace) and oddly enough named the "F-33 Firebird".

Keep up the good work man!

edit: make picts work now.

Vostok 7

Edited November 8, 2004 by Vostok 7

[Knight26]

You know other then the FSW it really does not look anything like a PYRO GX or your design. Really saying it looks like the PYRO is like saying the Su-47 looks like the X-29. Yes there are some similarities in layout in that both are FSWs, both mount multiple cannons, both are twin engine with a forward cockpit, but other then that they are two completely different looking entities. Your design there looks like a short stubby Su-47 much moreso then mine looks like a Pyro GX.

[Knight26]

Because of the comments about the resemblence to the PYRO I found the following images online:

Looking at these I see almost no resemblence beyond those that I mentioned earlier, and even those resemblences seem trivial. I think people are seeing the resemblence because they want to, not because they really stand out.

[Vostok 7]

Hey I'm not trying to cause trouble Like I said, I like the design.

And what a coincidence... that Vertigo 7 pict is one I made back in the day (was edited by me anyway). I was Vertigo 7 when I played online.

Vostok 7

Edited November 8, 2004 by Vostok 7

[Knight26]

The Results are in:

Well other then some little house keeping work, intake wall ribbing, gear wells, gear parts, etc... and adding warning labels you can call this one done. I even figured out a good way to do the rotational texture, not the easist method but it works, basically I figured out the circumfance of the object, then knowign the height and placement of all objects on it drew an rectangle that equaled the cylinder's area. After that it was just a matter of putting it all together and coloring it, then fidning the proper way to map it to the gun barrel. I will start on texturing the Splicer 2000 this weekend, after I do the cleanup on this one and maybe make a couple more color schemes as well. Well onto the pictures.

And V7 I wasn't upset by your comments, but the commetn about hte resemblence is getting really old.

[Knight26]

From Beneath:

[Knight26]

Not a good place to be standing, these textures hold up really well, even up close.

[Knight26]

Airshow view:

[Lynx7725]

And V7 I wasn't upset by your comments, but the commetn about hte resemblence is getting really old.

*laughs*

Knight, what do you expect? Most of us aren't even remotely connected to the aerospace industry, just a bunch of wannabes. To some, a FSW is a FSW is a FSW.

Tell ya what, design a plane with 4 wings, 2 on each side connected at the root. No matter how you place the wings -- horizontally, vertically, gull, FSW, swept back -- someone is going to say it looks like an X-wing ("but with s-foils on top", "with dipped s-foils", "with s-foils swept forward/ back", etc.).

[Knight26]

I know ywhere you are coming from Lynx, but it only has to be mentioned once or twice, but people are all but harping on it. I will admit that even I was guilty at first of calling some B5 fighters star wars rips, but as I watched it i quickly dropped that thought. Back then I was still hardcore in SW, I have since learned better, lol.