Serval Battlecruiser

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: 2430x5235 image!

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

Comparison of textured and untextured meshes can be seen here: [link]

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 battlecruiser at 460m lengthwise, slightly smaller than a Hurricane (which has a length of 490m). Its main body is also quite small, just about the size of some configurations of the Loki class. But its 'wingspan' exceeds both that of the Cyclone's and the Hurricane's length at 594m. It's mostly bilaterally symmetrical with the exception of a few details and the thruster area which is radially symmetrical at its own pivot point.

I resisted the urge to go heavy and bulky and uber like I did with the Advent. Matari ships have one quite distinctive feature: they look like they're held together only by duct tape and fervent prayers of their crew to their tribal totems. LOL I wanted to keep that aesthetic. I love the tapered lines of the Hurricane and the pointy sleekness of Vagabonds, and some of their design elements inspired the shape of this. You can also see the aesthetics of the Rupture, Scythe, Firetail, and the Cyclone in it. The entire form of the ship however, is not inspired by a dragonfly, despite looking very much like one. It's actually inspired by the Thukker tribe logo (see Dorsal View). Which, for all we know, might have been inspired by dragonflies or some sort of bird (if they exist in New Eden) in its turn *shrug*.

THE TL;DR

This was a labor of <3. It's completely unwrapped and textured; diffuse, spec, reflection, normals, the whole shebang in 4 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). Not an easy task as this being quite skeletal, it has far more non-contiguous surface area than my first entry.

Like the Advent, 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. See comparison pictures linked above.

Total creation time, along with my other submission, the Amarrian Advent Battleship (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 entry as well - the Advent ([link]). Although I like this entry a whole lot better than that one. :3

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 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 kittuns were harmed in the making of this starship.

Good luck to everyone!