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  • Graphics chatter

    I think I'am enlisted into SPDT as artist, but nobody seems to contact me with tasklist , so I pick random target and hit it hard. I select chopper.

    Author's description:

    "Stingray" class Fortrification Leveling Unit (F.L.U).
    Anti-ground futuristic chopper, slick, stealthy and deadly. Best deployed against "soft" targets, but may wreak havoc even among heavy armoured units. This chopper prefer to stay somewhere nobody may spot it, occationaly rushing into unstoppable strafe run, unleashing lethal storm of ASM-P652 plasma discharge cluster missiles and "Hasher" rapid-fire rail miniguns.
    NOTE: This unit is't capable of deploying of tactical fusion, fission or AM bombs as it can't leave area of effect quickly enough to survive.

    Design concerns:
    1st of all, I got a pictures from the forum. One was a helicopter. IMHO, this chopper design is 1960ish, bulb-like hull with compensator rotor at the tail. Trusted, well adopted and surely non-futuristic. Modern war choppers lack some critical point: stealth. Front aviation unit must penetrate deeply into enemy territory, kill its prey then return to base. Typicaly, chopper lives until something big and evil, like interceptor, spot its position . Chopper can't run and can't fight against specialized aerial predator. So chopper must be as hard to spot as possible while it is compatible with its primary function (blowing stuff up). IMHO, hiding rotary wing inside hull may resolve some questions (sonic noise and inability to make rotary wing stealthy). Also, hull must be slender, so it'll blend with terrain smoothly. So this copter is thin, pair of counter-rotating rotors are concealed inside mostlly toroidal hull. Rear hemisphere is covered by pair of turrets which both may fire even straight sidewards, harrasing enemy infantry etc and keeping six-sooters at bay.

    No propietary programs were used during creation of this model.

    P.S. Description is only the my random inspiration and is subject to free
    change in order to fit SP storyline and tech tree.

    Suggestions are always welcome.
    Attached Files
    If you don't see my avatar, your monitor is incapable to display 128 bit colors.
    Stella Polaris Development Team, ex-Graphics Manager

  • #2
    Concerning picture #20... was it created using Terragen or it's just an artist's mistake? Terragen produces horrible cubistic pictures, esp. water reflections. Any terragenish picture is plagued with same problem, but its author seems to ignore it.
    If you don't see my avatar, your monitor is incapable to display 128 bit colors.
    Stella Polaris Development Team, ex-Graphics Manager

    Comment


    • #3
      No, it wasn't. It was generated with pov-ray 3.1. It's a text-based ray-tracing program - and it's freeware.

      I'm not a complete idiot: some parts are still missing.

      Comment


      • #4
        Targon -

        That is one heckuva 'copter you've got there...
        Veeerryyy nice!

        What program did you use?

        And about that 1960's chopper you saw.... It was a joke.
        I'm not a complete idiot: some parts are still missing.

        Comment


        • #5
          Modelling: KPovModeller 1.0
          Rendering: PovRay 3.5
          Motion blur: Cinelerra (as my Imagemagick installation seems to be broken... , anyway, it's darned bad blur indeed...)
          It taken me something like half a day to model and another half to fight against various porgrams to make rotor really rotation-looking (in fact, I'm failed
          If you don't see my avatar, your monitor is incapable to display 128 bit colors.
          Stella Polaris Development Team, ex-Graphics Manager

          Comment


          • #6
            Povray sometimes generate really bad tiled pattern where tiles are in fact unwelcome, and it's hard to overcome. Watch your six - I can't belive in squared waves!
            If you don't see my avatar, your monitor is incapable to display 128 bit colors.
            Stella Polaris Development Team, ex-Graphics Manager

            Comment


            • #7
              Is there suposed to be two rotors in the middle, rotating in the opposite directions? Because that could compensate the rotation of the ship?

              But I guess the ship rotation could be taken care of with thrusters....
              I'm not a complete idiot: some parts are still missing.

              Comment


              • #8
                Heeh... It has waves coming from two different directions. This phenomenon is called interference. But in this program, this was just an unexpected result...
                I'm not a complete idiot: some parts are still missing.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Why not? It's common design for, say, Kamov "Ka" war helicopters. Counter-rotation is automatic, cheap and easy to use, while thrusters require constant care and additional design problems.
                  And as you may see, it's pretty effective
                  Attached Files
                  If you don't see my avatar, your monitor is incapable to display 128 bit colors.
                  Stella Polaris Development Team, ex-Graphics Manager

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    But this type of copter would eventually require thrusters to make it move quicly.

                    But now that you mentioned it, yep. there are copters with counter-rotation blades... IIRC...

                    BTW, nice explosions. Paintbrush?
                    I'm not a complete idiot: some parts are still missing.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      BTW, one common mistake with rendered shore images: waves _must_ run || to shore. This phenomenon is called dispersion. If non-aligned wave runs towards shore, its deccelerates as wave speed is proportional to sqrt(g * depth). So wave is effectively rotated towards shore. Nature is exciting.
                      If you don't see my avatar, your monitor is incapable to display 128 bit colors.
                      Stella Polaris Development Team, ex-Graphics Manager

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        OK, thrusters are welcome, while helicopters are rare case of machine what can enjoy real 6DOF using the only propulsive agent.
                        Explosions are five-minute kludge using The Gimp.
                        BTW, can _anyone_ tell me what things I need to do fo StP besides rendering useless pictures and expressing my military science knowledge in the forum? What units need to be done, etc.?
                        If you don't see my avatar, your monitor is incapable to display 128 bit colors.
                        Stella Polaris Development Team, ex-Graphics Manager

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Oh, that chopper looks a lot like manta.
                          I believe those 'eyes' are the cocpits of the chopper. But does it need two cocpits? Or the other could be used for steering, the other for navigation/hostile detection/entertainment/whatever...

                          And what you could do...?
                          Well, useless pictures are 'almost never' useless. All kind of unit renders are wellcome. You can use your imagination as you like. You can re-design some units if you want to.

                          No designs are final so far.

                          If you have more ideas like this chopper, I ask you to show us more of those ideas.
                          I'm not a complete idiot: some parts are still missing.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Okay, I didn't do it accurately. Please forgive

                            As a matter of fact, I don't even know how it could be done accurately with pov-ray... perhaps with a hand-made height-field ... too difficult...
                            I'm not a complete idiot: some parts are still missing.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Sure. I have called it "stingray", but "manta" is better.

                              Two cockpits are for two pilots. Helocopters are just too fun to control for a single pilot. And last but not least, it looks cool. I belive that war mashines must be both beautiful and terrible, like life itself.

                              I really appreciate such a freedom of imagination, but I saw someone titled "Graphics Manager", what is his job indeed?

                              I love to invent futuristic war machines (some days ago, I found my old pictures of space battleships and battle landscapes, dated as I was 6-years old). So I have some ideas, some good, some bad ... community desires. BTW, I'am dissappointed by degree of ignorance to fresh enlisted graphics artist (nothing besides Rasbelin mail from 29.11.02 ... he said I need't any other applications...).
                              If you don't see my avatar, your monitor is incapable to display 128 bit colors.
                              Stella Polaris Development Team, ex-Graphics Manager

                              Comment

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