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New EarthForce fighter prototype
madmaniac
Earthforce Officer
Well... anyone remebers that new fighter competition thread from a few weeks back? It got me thinking and tinkering, and finally I came up with my version of a possible Thunderbolt replacement. Took me approx. 50-70 (don´t know exactly) hours to complete (from design to modelling and texturing).
For those interested in the story/technology I came up with (and before someone asks: yes, I´ve got too much time on hand for this stuff [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]): it´s the prototype/technology demonstrator of a new class of fighters for EarthForce, to eventually replace the Thunderbolt. Roll-out was a few months after the cure for the Drakh virus is found (according to several timelines/rumors the cure should be found before 2270, so I´d say rollout would be around 2271). It incorporates technology tested with the Warlock class destroyers, as well as new technlogy acquired from the Interstellar Alliance, and the usual deal of "we could tell you where we got it, but then we´d have to kill you" hardware.
The fighter is piloted by a crew of one, assisted by state-of-the-art computers. The canopy has been enlarged to give the pilot a bigger field of vision than in the Thunderbolt. Like the Thunderbolt, it is atmospheric capable, and mounts two SCRAM-jets on the top wings for propulsion in oxygen-atmospheres.
Three major improvements over the Thunderbolt have been made: propulsion, sensors/ECM and jump capability. Propulsion is still supplied by the engines mounted at the tips of the fighters wings, but is supported by a gravitic drive system, which reduces the fighters mass/inertia, thus making the thrusters more effective. Sensors and ECM/ECCM were also upgraded, and a stealth system similar to the one on the Minbari Nial was added, making the fighter harder to detect. And finally, the most significant addition, a newly developed jump engine, capable of 2 jumps has been mounted to the craft. The power for those add-ons comes from a upgraded fusion reactor; the jump engine also makes use of 2 surge cells (batteries) mounted on the lower wings to gather the energy necessary for opening a jump vortex. Drawback of the jump-engine are the long cooldown/recharge times between jumps.
Armament consists of 2 pulse cannons and 6 missile hardpoints on the top wings.
Oh, and in honor of those boards I dubbed this fighter "Aardvark", hope you don´t mind... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]
Finally, some more images can be found here:
Aardvark photo gallery (there´s also a QuickTime VR file, at ypprox. 5MB)
Comments are welcome...
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Chaos, panic, and disorder - my work here is done!
[This message has been edited by madmaniac (edited 07-02-2001).]
For those interested in the story/technology I came up with (and before someone asks: yes, I´ve got too much time on hand for this stuff [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]): it´s the prototype/technology demonstrator of a new class of fighters for EarthForce, to eventually replace the Thunderbolt. Roll-out was a few months after the cure for the Drakh virus is found (according to several timelines/rumors the cure should be found before 2270, so I´d say rollout would be around 2271). It incorporates technology tested with the Warlock class destroyers, as well as new technlogy acquired from the Interstellar Alliance, and the usual deal of "we could tell you where we got it, but then we´d have to kill you" hardware.
The fighter is piloted by a crew of one, assisted by state-of-the-art computers. The canopy has been enlarged to give the pilot a bigger field of vision than in the Thunderbolt. Like the Thunderbolt, it is atmospheric capable, and mounts two SCRAM-jets on the top wings for propulsion in oxygen-atmospheres.
Three major improvements over the Thunderbolt have been made: propulsion, sensors/ECM and jump capability. Propulsion is still supplied by the engines mounted at the tips of the fighters wings, but is supported by a gravitic drive system, which reduces the fighters mass/inertia, thus making the thrusters more effective. Sensors and ECM/ECCM were also upgraded, and a stealth system similar to the one on the Minbari Nial was added, making the fighter harder to detect. And finally, the most significant addition, a newly developed jump engine, capable of 2 jumps has been mounted to the craft. The power for those add-ons comes from a upgraded fusion reactor; the jump engine also makes use of 2 surge cells (batteries) mounted on the lower wings to gather the energy necessary for opening a jump vortex. Drawback of the jump-engine are the long cooldown/recharge times between jumps.
Armament consists of 2 pulse cannons and 6 missile hardpoints on the top wings.
Oh, and in honor of those boards I dubbed this fighter "Aardvark", hope you don´t mind... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]
Finally, some more images can be found here:
Aardvark photo gallery (there´s also a QuickTime VR file, at ypprox. 5MB)
Comments are welcome...
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Chaos, panic, and disorder - my work here is done!
[This message has been edited by madmaniac (edited 07-02-2001).]
Comments
It's much better that the ship I'm making. I'd have it done now to compare, but unfortunately I've had a lot of setbacks.
Good work!
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
took you long, but you did it, good work bro [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img] looks damn good...
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I am sane when i am insane and insane when i am sane. And now i am sane.....
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Thomas Banner
[url="http://www.3dfrontier.com/~banner/"]Diverse 3D[/url]
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[url="http://slade__tek.tripod.com/"]Alec McClymont, 3D Artist[/url]
3D Artist - GVFX
We live for the one. We die for the one.
slade: I know, it looks a bit unproportional, but hey, thats artistic license (yeah, right...) [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]. But to be honest: I spent hours trying to figure out where to put it, and _that_ size at _that_ exact location was the point when I gave up and decided to live with it... the other versions just looked waaayyyy to ridiculous, and totally ruined the model - so, I guess I´m stuck with this version [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img] (also, the fighter´s a prototype, so I might change it for a final version...)
oh, btw... I´m just working on a short animation with this baby, I´ll let you know when it´s done...
Make a few pics, show them around, make people drool, and RIGHT before they all gather to kill you for your hard drive, release it! =)
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[b]whitestar90: [/b]"it would give the computer a heartattack just looking at it" -
[b]Sanfam: [/b]"And Drazi didn't like it one bit.-
[b]Mr.Bungle: [/b][i]"So that's where the forum went..."[/i]-
---
[b][i]ahhh, the good old days of HTML.[/i][/b]
I love it! the balance of components is great, the color scheme and themed design seems great!
just two problems:
1: The jump engine: I really cannot agree with the decision to load it with a jump engine, no matter how limited. It just ruins the concept that a ship has to be at least X powerful to do that. the whitestar and bluestar seem fine, but a fighter? Hmmm...
2: the hardpoint positions are a little iffy for actual use. Here are your primary problems...
The launching of a missle in space might be ok, because a small charge could cause it to detach, and then the ignition could happen, but in a 1 G or higher environment, this would not work. the missile would most likely not detach. It would also definately alter the center of balance. Having them on the inner portion of the upper wing seems to be the best idea, as once they are released, they will simply go "down" in any environment. This would definately lower the probability of massive damage due to a slight mechanical issue, and would decrease wear on the mechanism, as well as weight (due to the lack of a really strong detaching charge). The center of gravity would be more towards the center if they were on the inner portion of the wing, too, making manuvering much more easy. that is all [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
Again, these are minor issues amplified by the critique-o-matic 10,000. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img] Do not treat them as horrible, glaring issues [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
Sanfam: 1) I know, the jump-engine is a bit over the top, but I kinda liked the idea to make a fighter more independent from cap-ships. Image what you could do with a flight of those, opening small jump vortices (sp?) and sneaking into enemy territory. Their small size/small sensor footprint, combined with speed and mauverability, would make them a nasty little surprise for your enemy, esp. in hit-and-run attacks.
2) actually, there are some fighters today (well, not that up to date ones, theres from the 70´s/80´s)), that mount missiles on the top of their wings (if I recall correctly, the Blackburn Buccaneer did so, and also the Jaguar (? man, it´s been ages that I knew that stuff by the book, so don´t sue me if this is not 100% correct)). For atmospheric missiles (those shown on the model are space-space missiles, so there´s no real downward-drag [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]), I´d figure you´d have some sort of rail that guides the missile forward over the edge of the wing before relasing it. And mounting them between the wings seemed a bit odd, since there´s not really much room in there, so any minor mistake could let the missile end up in your lower wing.
as for the blueprint images: I guess I could tell you - but you didn´t hear it from me...
Actually, I replaced the color textures by b/w ones (basically the bump map for the panels with the logos and yellow parts put on top), remoced all other texture-channel (only the color channel was active), and then rendered each view with the cartoon renderer of Cinema. the only probem there was the fact that the cartoon renderer only creates an outline that is 1 pixel wide, so I had to widen that in photoshop. I gave the edge-color in the 3d-app some dinstinguishable color (neon-green for example) rendered the image and opened it in ps. There, I selected the green color (don´t know what the actual command is called in the english ps-version something like "Select color range", or something), and widenend the selection (so that the object-edge are thicker than the lines for the plating). create a new layer, and fill the selection with black, and you´ll end up with a outline for the different objects. Finally, I also made the outmost border a bit thicker by selecting the white space around the image. create a new layer, invert the selection and use it as a mask, then fill the color channel with black. Make a selection from the mask, shrink it by a few pixels, invert it and hit in the color channel of the layer to delete the unnecessary black areas. That should do the trick.
Also, I don´t know how other 3d-apps are capable of creating cartoon-renders, so your method may vary... for lightwave, there´s at least one plugin (one´s called "illustrate" or something, if I recall correctly, but that ones a bit on the expensive side), that do something similar within lw, probably without having to use ps at all.
[This message has been edited by madmaniac (edited 07-04-2001).]
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
------------------
'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]