Ark (spaceship)

[matsta]

Ever had a 200ft long french loaf out in space that you just didn't have the facilities to cut into?! Well have we got the solution for you!

NEW! SPACE BOARD!

[neo0.]

Ever had a 200ft long french loaf out in space that you just didn't have the facilities to cut into?! Well have we got the solution for you!

NEW! SPACE BOARD!

Please keep this kind of thing out the thread. Try and be constructive..

[Silmä]

Well, the design is a bit boring.

I understand the concept of having huuuuge spaceship and the rationalization of it being shaped like that, but it really isn't that picturesque in any way. And, being in a forum called "artwork", the looks of it is a rather important feature.

I would strongly advice you to do something of a much much smaller scale, then you could add relatively bigger features in your design and make it look interesting. Or else model a smaller "shuttle"-type spacecraft right next to the behemoth (and zoom the camera right in to that smaller detail) just to give the viewer some reference point on the immense scale of the thing. Right now the only interesting thing in your design is the scale, and you can't really get a grasp of it.

btw. if you have a ship that's huuuuge, you cant see any of it's surface texture from that far away. Take a look of something similarly sized in, say, Google Earth, and look what kind of details you can and cant see from that distance. Certainly it wont be individual metal plates it's made of.

[matsta]

I meant to say great work! Undoubtedly your best work to date! Keep it up man.

[neo0.]

Well, the design is a bit boring.

I understand the concept of having huuuuge spaceship and the rationalization of it being shaped like that, but it really isn't that picturesque in any way. And, being in a forum called "artwork", the looks of it is a rather important feature.

I would strongly advice you to do something of a much much smaller scale, then you could add relatively bigger features in your design and make it look interesting. Or else model a smaller "shuttle"-type spacecraft right next to the behemoth (and zoom the camera right in to that smaller detail) just to give the viewer some reference point on the immense scale of the thing. Right now the only interesting thing in your design is the scale, and you can't really get a grasp of it.

btw. if you have a ship that's huuuuge, you cant see any of it's surface texture from that far away. Take a look of something similarly sized in, say, Google Earth, and look what kind of details you can and cant see from that distance. Certainly it wont be individual metal plates it's made of.

Thank you for the feedback. I will see what I can do.. although it's been kind of hard to add details with taking away from the sense of scale.

[Borgleader]

Scale is relative, you should be able to easily maintain the sense of "hugeness" of your ship by giving us some visual clues as to how big it actually is by putting other stuff near it.

(Click for full scale, all rights reserved to CCP / Eve Online)

For example here, the titan class ships (the 4 biggest ones) appear to be really really big because there are other much smaller ships beside them, if there weren't we'd have no idea how big they are. My suggestion to you is this, add scenery around your ship that indicates how big it is. This way you can have a really awesome ship without losing the sense of scale it currently has.

[neo0.]

That sounds like a neat idea. I'll look into it!


Just for the sake of it, I threw together a quick render showing some of the detail that is there so far

[matsta]

That's not really detail. Detail is there to enrich your artwork, really not trying to be mean but it seems like you are seriously reluctant to try something a little more difficult. Break out dude. That ship could be modeled in a minute by anyone who knew a thing or two. Just do yourself a favor and start again with a better design.

[neo0.]

I can try but the hard part is coming up with a basic shape that really looks like it could be dozens of miles long.. I have an idea.. maybe I will try to get it modeled out tomotow. Im trying to stay away from the stereotypical "spaceship" look.

[matsta]

Perhaps start your process away from the computer, do some drawing man. Just basic silhouettes to get the shape you want. Often its easy to tell which designs started in the modelling program and were born in the right side of someones brain.

[Silmä]

I kind of like the no-nonsense feel of it. It's a ship meant to transport a billion people from place A to place B, and that's it. No need for fancy design (like, what's the point with all those saucers in Star Trek?). I think one of the problems is that while it has some idea of being rationalistic, it's not rationalistic enough. It still has a design (albeit a very boring one), and the functionality is built inside the design, instead of the design being built around the functionality.

For example, any spaceship is going to need a fuel reserve that takes up half the volume of the ship. There's no need to design a fuel tank to look like the rest of the ship. You already have some kind of segmentation in your ship (the forward area with that dent, the striped area in the middle (living quarters?) and aft area. Come up with functionality for those areas and design them accordingly.

Take a look at the spaceship in Avatar. There you have a design that's both rationalistic and interesting.

[CTZn]

Great input from Silmä ! I'll bump on Matsta an Borgleader inputs: as an exercise, try to block out the Eve speceships in no more than 5 strokes each. Then start doing this without the references to end with your own designs. Each stroke should look like the portion of a circle, really simple stuff. A tanker here ? One stroke.

Now, that would be for another spaceship !

Did you play Homeworld ? The exilees are transported in similar ships than your actual one. Got position ligths btw ?

[neo0.]

Very interesting ideas, guys. Well, as far as purpose goes, the ship isn't simply transporting people, it's an artificial world (one that's under it's own power.) Not do I want to create something that looks like it can transport billions and billions of people, but I also want a very robust design that looks like it could also protect them from the dangers of space. So, I a more rational look would be great, but I would probably want to avoid exposed fuel tanks, because of things like meteorites. Same thing with solar panels. Plus, when you think about the size of the solar panels you'd need, it just doesn't make sense to use them.

By making the ship so flat, it makes it look pretty fragile..

[neo0.]

Ok, so after a bit, I have modeled out a very rough (~15 mins) outline for the design. This would basically be like several hundred mile long modules that are attached to each other.

[CTZn]

heeeey, great improvements with the new design !