Vic Viper

I figured I'd give something else simple a shot, after the Chu Chu Rocket scene and animations.

It isn't much, and it isn't even textured, but I think this isn't too terrible for a few hours' work.

That's pretty sweet looking, man. Can't wait to see the final results.

Shweet....I love me some Gradius. If you want my opinion, just make it as simple as possible on the accesories tip. Putting a bunch of missles and stuff on the Vic Viper or Warp Rattler makes it look funny to me.

I'm planning on keeping it simple regardless; I want to see if I can make a decent-looking low-polygon Vic Viper.

I'm learning the whole UVW mapping thing now, so until then, I chucked some simple color materials and a MeshSmooth on there:

http://users.zoominternet.net/~tain/viper2.avi

Looks a lot better....fo shizzle

I have learned a few things:

1. I am no texture artist. Yet.

2. If I'm going to make the skin template with a decent angle threshold, I should render the template in wireframe (so I know precisely which face is where).

3. There are waaay too many variations of the Vic Viper out there.

I'm not finished yet (will probably make a whole new one), but here's some of my texture work so far. Oh, and I wish I could figure out how to un-smooth that back section of the main body of the ship. I'm sure it's painfully obvious.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...chmentid=11176
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...chmentid=11177

If you make another version, make it with a more rounded double hull.
Personaly, if you could pull that off it would be worth it.

The hull is the main problem with it, really.

I'd make it less fat if it didn't completely screw the texturing up.

Anyway, yay for bump mapping followed by baking into a normal texture:

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...id=11231&stc=1

The thing works in a real-time engine (that A6 thing) pretty well, so I think I'm set.