The Hiigaran destroyer from HW2 had turrets, was boxy and rugged looking, but it still had an appealing design. "Ugly" can have a menacing appeal; see for example the A-10 Warthog. Large and clunky can look great, e.g., Star Destroyer, Sulaco.

In contrast, the Kodiak and other TEC ships look goofy. They lack a sense of proportion and design that make other, similarly themed ships look good, the Sulaco being an excellent example.

Maybe the Kodiak was a garbage hauler?

The Sulaco and Homeworld designs were done by some of the highest paid people in their professions. I don't think a company like Iron Clad or Stardock would even consider hiring such expensive talent. Contrary to what people believe, art is hard work and the best designers are very expensive in this industry. All the best designs you ever salivated over were probably done by someone who is a top tier designer in the industry. There is a reason why smaller companies art assets are never quite as good as the stuff you see in AAA titles.

Artists are highly paid? When did that happen?

ok, one more becuase I'm on a roll.

Javelis LRM The sloped neck of the Javelis was completely unecessary and lacked any obvious reason why anyone (civilian or military) would design it to have one. when designing Alien ships you can get get away with such minor oddities (see, Defence Vessel, Aegis Drones, Purge Vessel, etc) because it's an alien culture. When designing a human space race you have to retain a sense of believability that we, in our future, would build such a thing.

There is a 100% chance that Iron Clad and StarDock WONT make a patch because of a few ships that a few people think look bad(and fewer still are those who agree on all the ships that need changing).

The Aeria Drone Host looked better in the original version. It was supposed to be 'in your face' from the start, with the round thing in front being the rotary hangar and the round thing in the back being the drone factory that takes over 2 minutes just to put together a simple bomber squadron. The 'head' was supposed to be the control room from which the ship was piloted and drones were controlled. But this 'redesigned' one is just plain bulbous.

The Garda Flak looks like a dumb rowboat because it is a dumb rowboat with some guns bolted on. The original design was perfectly fine, but this redesign is better.

The Defense Vessel has been severely improved. It was hideous before. The Kodiak has also been improved.

As for the Javelis, it was perfectly fine before and the original look was better.

Also, the Advent ARE humans. Both the TEC and Advent are human civilizations in this game. They with different goals, different cultures, different outlooks, and different ethics, but they have the same history for 500k years of human existence, splitting off only in the last millennium and returning for vengeance in the game.

in real life long ships would be harder and take longer to turn due to inertia so you would have it short and lick a volvo (a flying brick) but the defence vessel looks good now

Is there any way to just re-skin the vessels? Like grab the Star Destroyer models from a mod and use them to replace the graphic of whatever ship you don't like? Or is there coding involved?

@Bertl
Thanks for the correction. It's Ventral, not dorsal. Don't know marine biology terminology!

@Bubb9
I agree, Ironclad will not waste time/money on this. unless it's for an expansion pack to sell. This is a shout out to you guys, the game's mod community, to take the inititive and remodel them. I see all this talk about Star Wars, Star Trek, Gundam, blah, blah, etc. Why take on such a huge mod project (which would take months or a year to complete) when these model can be simply and easily corrected?

@FalShia
Feel free to use my ideas if you want. Just give me cred. reuse the original mesh as much as you can and the existing textures. That will cut down the remodeling time.

@PeskyFly
Ask the TEC if the Advent are human. One could argue they are not and they are genetic monsters. I would imagine the Advent would hate to be called human- as humans are inferior. Gorilla's and Humans are related gorilla's still aren't classified as human. It's semantics, anyways...

@Fear100
The laws of physics have never been realistically applied in video games. There's no friction in space, so objects move indefinitely until they collide with an object. Spacecraft don't come to a full stop unless retro thrusters are fired. The point is, the general concensus in sci-fi is large capital ships are lumbering and slow to turn, whereas fighters are fast and agile. I wouldn't be to concerned with things like inertia and mass.

I think the textures need more work than anything. But for the record, i think all of the ships are well-made and reflect what their jobs are. yes, even that Kodiak tank thing. Besides, having them less pretty is better for your frame-rate during those big-ass fleet battles. I am sure we would all be pissed if Stardock pulled a crytek and made everything too pretty for anyone to run, so lets all just be happy that the game is as pretty as it is while running as good as it does.

Nice work there Static starter on the tec stuff. Though I'm not sure about changing the neck on the LRM ship. Don't forget that silhouettes of a design is important.




Either you know nothing about the reality of skilled artists or you are a bitter no talent hack. Try bringing your skill up and getting some business sense and you won't have to be so surprised that skill makes money.

lets see...

Local graphic designer here makes $60 an hour. He isn't even at the upper skill level for his profession.

Animators, concept designers, and 3d cg artist make about $50,000-$200,000 a year depending on skill level, experience and how in demand they are. If your a newb you'll start out around 50k a year in the states. If your experienced you can make much much more.

So 50k isn't exactly highly paid, but I would think of $100,000 or more a year as highly paid. If your single that's more money than you know what to do with. Also your pay scale depends on who you work for. Little crap shack game company probably isn't going to give you more than 50k a year at best. EA, Rockstar, ILM, Dreamworks, Pixar etc... will easily net you top tier paying positions. The folks at Weta during the Lotr days and later were making a pretty penny. So it depends but overall, yes artist do make good money. If you are a deluded college student who went through a crappy art program and didn't put the time into your work like the way someone who's studying to be a doctor does then yeah...your going to be sorely disappointed.

PS: Freelance/contract work can net you even more money. I netted myself $500 for six hours of work when a local designer needed to outsource some extra work.

Hrmm.. we can't use thumbnails on this forums? A little warped but okay, i'll tray again.

Garda Flak Frigate
[http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/5231/screenshot0copyht1.jpg][/img]