Void Destroyer: Hardware

Sneak preview of some naval hardware from Void Destroyer, this multi-role vessel is armed to the teeth with a good variety of weapons systems ideal for dealing with fighter squadrons and light capital ships. Like all vehicles in the game, the player can command this warship via tactical interface as part of his fleet, or assume helm control and pilot the ship directly.

The Aegis hull was designed around it's weapons and other critical systems (engines, etc) with armoured plates protecting vulnerable areas - there is an assault variant on the drawing board that will field heavy guns and massdriver arrays against larger vessels as well as armoured platforms and stations.

A Design Process IV: Final geometry

The first draft got the basic lines down, now it's a short step to finalise details. The shot below weighs in at about 4000 verts and already has some shared texture areas UV mapped to various components. These details immediately distinguish it as being Kautylian.

Final geometry with partial UV mapping

A Design Process III: First Draft

Our new tank is now pretty well defined in the abstract, time to start on the actual design. At this stage it's helpful to have a good selection of reference images featuring actual tanks and vehicles from reality - if a vehicle ever engaged in actual warfare then you can be pretty sure that it was functional and should look the part. The sense of realism we desire can best be achieved by emulating real objects to a certain degree.

A Design Process II: Start your engines...

So we've checked out some cool pics and watched some tank shows on Discovery. We now know enough about tanks to design something that might pass for one.

Next thing to consider is some parameters. Firstly the scenario.

A Design Process I: Keeping it real

This is the first post in a series describing the creation of a MAD unit from concept to finished asset. I'll be more or less building the unit as I go, so it may take a few posts. Before we start getting tangled up in geometry and textures however, we need to develop ideas and form some basic strategy.