Where do you source your ship artwork?

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NewAgeOfPower
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Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby NewAgeOfPower » Mon May 27, 2013 10:54 pm

Is everyone here their own artist? My artist got bored with FTL a few months ago, and thus I have no ship to mount my shiny new mod onto.
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jonny_AB
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby jonny_AB » Tue May 28, 2013 1:30 am

Some of us just recolour vanilla ships, some of us splice. Some of us scale down ships from other games/shows, and some of us use advanced models.
Most of us just don't know what we're doing.
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speedoflight
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby speedoflight » Tue May 28, 2013 2:11 pm

For making your own original mods, sketchup. I dont think there is a better and fastest tool lthan that, not if u want to make some decent looking ships graphics. U can try using photoshop to make a 2d graphic for a ship, but unless u have really good skills on that, u will waste much much more time than using sketchup or even a simple icon editing program like iconworkshop and the results will be far worst than almost everything lol.
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NewAgeOfPower
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby NewAgeOfPower » Thu May 30, 2013 3:46 am

Google Sketchup? Isn't it 3d modelling software?
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speedoflight
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby speedoflight » Thu May 30, 2013 2:35 pm

YES, it is.

But that doesnt mean is hard to use, or worst than photoshop or gimp, for example for this mattter. In fact, i never used any other program to make my own ship graphics for this mod or for other games. People sometimes forget a 3d modelling program can RENDER the models u make on em. Meaning u can render a top view of it, and that will be the same as making a 2d graphic with photoshop (with the difference that the 3d top view screensho will look far better).

The reason i recommend sketchup is, first, its really easy to handle, second, it doesnt matter if it is a 3d modelling program, since u can make top view screenshots and thats the good thing, since u can modify the entire ship or watever u want if u need to do some changes, and u take a screenshot again.

If u use photoshop, and u notice u need to re-design half of the ship, i tell u that is more tedious than doing it on the sketchup model u already have. Besides, the quality is far better than using photoshop (unless as i said, u have really great skills on photoshop, i mean professional skills). I waste about 45-60 minutes on sketchup (usually 45 minutes) in a ship design. Thats wat it takes to make a decent ship graphic in sketchup since u start to creating the 3d model, until u get all textured and the top view ready to capture.
Of course, i use som filters on sketchup to simplify some things, like creating curved surfaces, tubes, etc the potential of sketchup is that u can add a lot of plugins that makes things more easy (if possible lol).

People sometimes freak out when they hear the word "3D", and i will agree if u are talking about 3d studio , blender, truespace or other really hard to use creeping 3d modelling program. This doesnt apply to sketchup. But in year 2013 people still are too lazy to try new things and i was really afraid of trying any 3d modelling program 6 years ago, i coudnt even waste more than 10 minutes trying to manage 3dstudio.. xDDD. Until i discovered sketchup, that changed my life :lol:
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Ora_unit_SR388
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby Ora_unit_SR388 » Fri May 31, 2013 1:07 am

I don't render my own ships for ftl, I just splice. When I render other stuff though I use maya. Maya is super expensive though so I agree with speedoflight here is saying that you should try sketchup.
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby speedoflight » Fri May 31, 2013 1:46 am

Yeah, i forgot, sketchup is free (there is a pro version but u have all you need with the free version), so thats other thing to have in mind.

Maya is great, i used it time ago, but the problem is, it s far harder than sketchup (of course, they have different purposes) and as u said, it is expensive and it will be ridiculous to buy it for making mods for ftl.. besides, i think maya is too much for using it in this matter. I think sketch up is ideal, and even if sketch up itself doesnt have a render engine, u still can export the model in a top-view png image with the resolution you want (bigger the better so u can have a really good graphic to work on) and u will amazed how good they look in the end. U can also add borders to the edges of the model, apply shadows, and get a closer style to the vanilla ftl ships.
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kartoFlane
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby kartoFlane » Fri May 31, 2013 10:09 am

IMO raw renders look ugly and out of place. You could make your ships look much better and vanilla-like, if you used your render as a base to draw on top of.
I used this method to create two ship hulls, and it has served me pretty well.
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speedoflight
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby speedoflight » Fri May 31, 2013 10:26 am

kartoFlane wrote:IMO raw renders look ugly and out of place. You could make your ships look much better and vanilla-like, if you used your render as a base to draw on top of.
I used this method to create two ship hulls, and it has served me pretty well.
Reference image, raw model render
End product


I really dunno wat u talking about, but i imagine u talking about Light Wave (LMO¿?) ?? the point of the thread is to model the graphic from the beginning, not to retouch something that is already there. ;) (he wants to design a ship from the beginning, not to pick a base sprite and go from there..) :)
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kartoFlane
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Re: Where do you source your ship artwork?

Postby kartoFlane » Fri May 31, 2013 11:47 am

IMO = In My Opinion

Huh. I was under the impression that the point of this thread is a discussion on how to create a nicely-looking hull graphic for a ship. I think that using a raw model render as a sort of "concept art" to draw the hull sprite proper, yields results of superior quality.
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