The Stilletto

thomas7g · October 28th, 2003, 02:24 PM

Hi everyone! A while ago I met Richard Hatch and volunteered to do a mesh for him. He handed me a interesting design from our own viperman. And I took it, and added a little to the design and meshed it. Then Mike McAdams added a new great little texture and altered the wings slightly. The result is what you see below!

This is the Stilletto, from the Great War of Magellan. It turned out that this would be one of the main fighters in the trailer. And it was shiny watching her fly!

David Kerin · October 28th, 2003, 07:41 PM

Boy do I know that fighter.

I didn't know you were involved in making the mesh though.

Since I started animating for Richard I've become quite intimate (nothing strange) with that fighter.

I've spun it, twisted, dove, lifted off from a carrier deck, even mapped myself as a pilot into the cockpit. I've also blown it up many a time too. I built in an escape pod as well that luckily jettisons just in time to save our trusty heroes.

Very cool fighter and a pleasure to use.

If you want to check out some of what I've done with it look at the gallery pages on my site. (under the visual FX)

https://www.soliumstudios.com/

I'm so glad Richard premiered the GWoM trailer... if only I was there to see it. I'll have to wait until it hits a con near me.

I hope too since the initial cut of the trailer is done that this will give us something new to get behind and look forward to. (not abandoning the true Galactica though)

All the best,

Dave

p.s. I'll be adding a video compilation of some of my Magellan work to my site tonight some time.

thomas7g · October 28th, 2003, 07:51 PM

Oh wow! I was completely blown away with the way you animated this puppy! Seriously! It was better than any other fight sequence I EVER saw in any space battle scene! The way you moved this puppy was better than Bab5, Trek, or even Star Wars!

WOWZERS!

everyone check out his gallery page! There is a movie containing the dogfight with this puppy!

hey David, got a better resolution file I can see?

David Kerin · October 28th, 2003, 08:07 PM

I'll see about rendering a better res file of the dogfight/chase sequence... and maybe a couple of my favorites.

Thanks very much for the kind words too, it is very appreciated.

Aside from the VFX/misc video that's on the site now I'll be adding a specific GWOM video file tonight. After that I'll check the server space and see what I can add.

On a side note, I have to thank Richard for pushing me in all the animations I've done. So many times I'd render a shot, think it is the greatest and then have Richard tell me how it should be changed. While the human response is at first aggravation, I realised he pushed me to better myself. I've learned so much from working with him on this project, and try to use the same critiques/encouragement practices where I work. Criticism is a hard thing to take at times, but if you take it right and work with it you can even surprise yourself.

On the other hand some people who criticise are idiots and you have to learn when not to listen to them. (different occasion... certainly nothing from this project) With those people you have to learn how to make it look like you've made changes, just not the bad changes they wanted you to make.

Whew... that was a little long winded.

I'll try not to be so preachy in future posts.

Dave

David Kerin · October 28th, 2003, 08:37 PM

Just added the GWoM video to the "DEMvideos" section in the gallery.

jewels · October 29th, 2003, 06:25 PM

Thomas, Viperman and David: great fighter!
And the animation was OUTSTANDING, David. Richard's got a good story to tell but GWoM could sell on the space battles alone--WOW!!!!!! (Hito, if you're around, I think you would like the physics of how these fly and fight.)

the escape pod was an awesome addition (they have a small engine and a gun I thought I spotted too) nifty!!!

Stevew · October 29th, 2003, 06:37 PM

Bout time you got it out Tom LOL
Great stuff David
S

thomas7g · October 29th, 2003, 07:50 PM

YAY!!!!

I got lost forawhile. I clicked the homepage link under your post and ended up at an alternative site with no movies. But then I looked up and found that solium site instead.

I really enjoyed seeing the newer video! Damn that was fun. I noticed you were blowing jets out of various places on the ship. Were there any specific places you chose? i put a vertical takeoff thruster on the bottom, were you able to use that on too? it goes by so fast its hard to tell.

David Kerin · October 30th, 2003, 09:10 AM

Definately used the vertical thrusters to show the manuevering.

As for the other thruster ports I just kind of picked areas where I thought they would make sense. I didn't model any specific thruster mechanisms onto the model because I knew it woulb be so fast on camera.

Besides, I kind of picture control thrusters as small holes located in key places around the ship to begin with and would not strongly stand out.

Richard has some other ideas for ways to animate the fighter that we might add in. If so I may go back and re-texture the fighter so we can get in closer to the model and have the detail there. It will look the same but give more freedom to the types of moves. Really get us in there.

At least I hope.

Dave

thomas7g · October 30th, 2003, 04:27 PM

maybe you can remake the aft end of the weapon's pod into a thruster unit? That would work. And maybe drill a hole in the top of the nose.

I also added a missle bays at the bottom. The thing was meant to throw out a ton of missles. Also the thin frail third little wingy thing wasn't suppose to be there. That little stub under the main wing was designed to attach to stuff, like a booster rocket. or fuel tanks. Kill that winglet!