Advent Battleship

PLEASE view at full resolution! The details are meant to be seen up close. 99% of the text in the entry are relevant and actually readable. If you can't make them out, click the download button beside this entry to open it up in a new window. Feel free to zoom in further as well. Word of warning though: 2000x4000 image!

Samples of my texture maps for this can be seen here: [link]

Comparison of textured and untextured meshes can be seen here: [link] (also click it if you want to see the silver/red version of this ship and from another angle)

THE DESIGN

The role description and background history described in the submission is only a proposal and should be viewed only as such.

The ship is a battleship at 895m lengthwise, a great deal smaller than most Amarrian battleships but still quite bulky. It's symmetrical, except for a few texture details in the prow. It's also heavily armored. Maybe too heavily armored even :/ But then again, this is a royally funded battleship, quite old, and like the Golden and Silver Magnates, they can certainly afford to plate this with gold, can't they? ;D Especially as this came from the height of glory of the Amarrian Empire, just as they were about to engage the Jovians and just as the Matari were starting to rebel.

The ship borrows the aesthetics of Amarrian battlecruiser and cruiser-sized ships, since for a battleship it is actually closer to a battlecruiser in size (remember, the weapon/capacitor nacelles, the 'wings', make up virtually half of its length). It's more appropriate to think of it as a battlecruiser with the ability to mount mega pulse laser turrets really. It's completely covered in armor except for tiny gaps, again, much like smaller class ships. Also heavily ornate, as befitting a ship designed for the exclusive use of a royal family's navy (in this case, one of the richest, most powerful, and most miiltarily leaning of the five - the Sarum Family). This ship actually has alternate colors where it uses silver and and red for some of its plating, but I opted to go with the 'standard' gold plating of the Imperial Navy for the submission. I followed the Amarrian design philosophy of smooth, rounded curves abruptly terminating in wicked sharp points. The shape itself is meant to evoke the image of angels, especially the plating pattern of the sweptback 'wings'. I expect it would look even more angelic once the broadsides start firing, giving the illusion of unfolding 'wings' of deadly laser beams, each the approximate diameter of schoolbuses. LOL

THE TL;DR

Like the Serval, this was also a labor of love. It's completely unwrapped and textured; diffuse, spec, reflection, normals, the whole shebang in 3 2048x map sets. Even places you sadly will never see from the limitations of the submission rules. No tiling textures, minimal reliance on actual geometry to flesh out details. Each individual window, each tiny little panel underneath the armor is painstakingly hand made. No overpainting, except for the thruster glow, it's all textures. Not the slapdash 'make generic details and fit faces over them' kind of textures either, but unwrapped with unique UV's (except where it's mirrored of course).

Though it's a bit easier to unwrap and texture than my other submission, it's not an easy feat either. Note the sheer difference in the untextured mesh and the textured ship. Like the Serval, this is somewhat a meld between the game-art 'optimize everything' discipline and devil-may-care edgeloop high poly modeling approach. I didn't rely too much on actual geometry and chose to detail parts in texture, mostly because I can't render much of anything past the 1 million poly mark, LOL. Texture, sadly, can't be shown in the orthos according to the rules. It does have the advantage though of having far simpler geometry (and thus easier to follow) while still maintaining the illusion of greater detail in its final form. Pretty much like how game engines actually do it anyway. I also detailed with function in mind. Not complexity for the sake of complexity.

Total creation time, along with my other submission, the Matari Serval Battlecruiser (and including concepting, modeling, unwrapping, texturing, creating the art and write-ups for the submission forms, interruptions, googling close-up references of existing ships, breaks, hours of staring at the screen wondering if I should make it like this or like that or if it was all worth it, two other ships started and abandoned along the way, redoing things and redoing them again, and that annoying thing called real life) is about three weeks.

Higher resolution orthos and other views are available if requested. Please check out my other (main) entry as well - the Serval ([link]).

DISCLAIMERS

EVE and DA logos, faction logos and some descriptions and fiction background are EVE and DeviantArt IP respectively, and are used as expressly permitted by the rules for this contest alone. No stock photos are used, and whatever base textures used here are appropriately licensed. Also please note that the background is NOT a screenshot from EVE or anywhere else. Everything including stars, the planet, the 3d overlay (deliberately made to resemble the EVE tactical view UI), the tiny techy text and linework (which are handmade and NOT brushes, feel free to actually read them), etc. are my work and made solely for this contest. Even the faction logos and 'HUD' icons used are my own work based on the designs. The only things used pretty much 'as is' in here are the EVE and DA logos. No other graphical elements of EVE or DA is used.

No slaver hounds were released in the making of this starship.

Good luck to everyone!