Topic: X Ships Project....

[Centurus]

Well if anyone wants to rework it when these are finished, they can go ahead.  As for me, I don't see any problems with the ship as is, with the exception of the thickness of the engines.

[Centurus]

I've resized the warp engines.  They are now 80 percent as thick as they once were.  Not sure if I should make them thinner.  Here's an image of how the XCA looks now with thinner engines.  Should I make them thinner or are they good as is?

[FoaS_XC]

Could you show us it with another 10% chopped off the nacelles?

[Centurus]

You mean 10% more thin?

[FoaS_XC]

Yawp

[Centurus]

Nacelles at 70% of their original thickness.

[Starfox1701]

I like it better at 80%

[Bernard Guignard]

Same here 80% looks really good unless you want to try for 75% 
Keep up the great work 

[Centurus]

I think 75 would be a good compromise.  I might do 85 for the DN/BB engines.

[Centurus]

Well, not much has happened.  I have, however, converted the XCA over to editable mesh to get a poly count, and so far, the ship stands at 9930 polys as an editable mesh.  All that's left to do mesh wise is finish phasers, which is just making the turrets.  I may not even make them and just have them textured onto the phaser blocks that I have currently in place now.

Just thought I'd let people know of the poly count.

[Kreeargh]

Well, not much has happened.  I have, however, converted the XCA over to editable mesh to get a poly count, and so far, the ship stands at 9930 polys as an editable mesh.  All that's left to do mesh wise is finish phasers, which is just making the turrets.  I may not even make them and just have them textured onto the phaser blocks that I have currently in place now.

Just thought I'd let people know of the poly count.

Textures can cover smoothness so you can cut poly on the round parts ie bridge and impulse detail . Keep the saucer the same but any other details in the saucer mesh thats round can be cut and textures can replace it. (Ignore me] .
Good job 

[Bernard Guignard]

Show a wire frame images of what you currently have and then perhaps the experienced Modelers can give you suggestions as to how
to optmize the Mesh to get the Polys down 

Great Job by the way

[Centurus]

I like the poly count the way it is.  I was afraid I was going to end up over 11k on the XCA alone, and the fact that I have it under 10k, that's great for me.  Because I've worked with the mesh so long, I know where I can cut down polys, but I don't want to lose the detail. 

[Tus-XC]

I would say you probably could shave 2-3k off of it w/o loss of detail if done in the right spots

Look good though, espceially w/ the thinner nacelles.

[Centurus]

Ok, I went in and cut the poly count down by roughly 600 polys.  The only places left to cut down the poly count in large numbers are the impulse engines and the saucer itself, and those I will not touch at all for anything.

Question though, should I keep the phaser block placements and have phasers textured on, discard the blocks and put in turrets in their place, or turrets and blocks.  And if I do go with turrets, should I try and go with something different, or just the regular sphere shape.

[Starfox1701]

Phaser strips entered service some time between 2310 and 2320 so I supose you could try some kind of proto strip.

[Centurus]

The phaser arrays entered service circa 2330 at the earliest.  These ships predate that time period.

[Tus-XC]

could use the phaser turret 'track'

[FoaS_XC]

Is that the one that WZ made for his X-ship? I thought that was a pretty cool idea.

If you are in love with idea of the phaser bulbs, I'd say model them on. They don't take up too many polies, and the textured one's really show themselves to be just that: textured.

[Centurus]

The rail phasers are a good idea, and I'll probably use it on another project sometime.  I may even make a variant of this ship with them, maybe not.  I think I will include the turrets, but I think I want to make them more than simple spheres.  Give them a different shape.  I'm playing around with a few ideas in my head.  And I might keep the phaser blocks as well.