The Opulence Class Freighter
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After much testing, several iterations and countless WIP stages of development, the first Capital Ship for Full Spectrum Overdrive is ready to leave the docks!
The Final Form
Learning the shape language of a new kind of spaceships took me a long long time. The concept art of Brennan Massicotte was a great start, and he helped me through the process with overpaints and hints to get to a final shape that made sense.
The detail language too was very challenging. It's easy to do random greeble, or very generic panel lines, but finding a density of elements that still make sense when looked at is really, really hard. Of course I can't claim that the details will make sense for everyone, but them making sense to me is a pretty good starting point, I'd say.
The engines, in particulare, were challenging, because they HAD to convey a whole lot of meaning.
What are the two cylinders, above and below? Aside from the print issue on the top (it was an autosupported test print), they can easily be read as fuel cells, symmetrical to the engine layout.
The big muzzles, too, are easy to read and remind of modern time spacecrafts, while surrounded by shapes that remind of the smaller ships.
All in all, it's a good case study for the design of the ship as a whole, I think.
Multi-part
As I mentioned in previous posts, the game of Overdrive works with Capital Ship consoles, each describing a ship systems, each with unique actions requiring a cost in crew and energy.
I wanted to be able to portray that in the final models, to the individual system. This means that most of the components of the ship that have optional choices of systems need to have a modular slot where the different systems can be 3D printed and glued on. Players build their ships, and play with them, with each looking unique in their loadouts.
This, of course, was a whole lot of extra technical challenges, but I think i got the modular parts right at this point. It's quite some, and I will definitely need a small instruction manual on how to assemble the pieces. it's fairly easy, but still.
...and here we are. A finished piece, highly customizable, and fairly good looking.
Trust me, I went through a lot of different experiments and variations before landing on this one.
...and I mean a lot.
Jack