Released 20 gun privateer schooner

[Captain Armstrong]

Yes,I checked that beforehand, as I said it wasnt a problem I had encountered before. :? But I did find a way around it! I just finsihed up the hull( try to ignore the maya transperency bug on a few parts) here are the pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6785177825/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6785177987/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6785178305/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6785178133/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6785178597/in/photostream

 

[Armada]

Wow, that looks beautiful! I like the blue wood for the inner hull; never seen that before. Great job!

So how did you avoid the problem, then, if it was unrelated to the previous one?

 

[Captain Armstrong]

I thought that blue would go well, thanks! And im not sure what caused the problem or if it was related, but the same fix wouldnt work. I seperated the affected parts and made them their own component, (which luckily worked out because I just combined all the black parts for the inner hull) so there is in fact an object each for deck+masts, gratings+bell etc, and the black parts. I did create my own new texture with multiple wood colors for the gratings and such, hopefully that isnt a problem? :? I plan on using it for all my other ships, its very useful.

 

[Post Captain]

There are only two problems with the texture (and I'm only nitpicking), but blue paint back then was very expensive and rarely used on ships, and probably wouldn't even have come in that shade. Also, the deck would have been bleached to a very light color by the constant cleaning and sunlight. In my personal experience, I've never seen a deck that dark.

Don't take that the wrong way; the non-history nut part of me likes it, and I would say just keep it unless you're going for complete, absolute accuracy.

edit: the gratings, pins, etc., all look very good, color-wise.

and if you're planning on multiple pain schemes, you might want to do something like the following picture, or something similar to Pride of Baltimore II.
I think they would look particularly good on the Prince.

 

[Post Captain]

Sorry for the double post, but edit wasn't working.

I know I should of posted this before you started texturing, but all the exciting stuff happens when I'm gone. This might be useful in he future, at least. Generally you can't see very much of the grain on anything left as bare wood. everything besides the deck seems to darken, with the oil or slush in the case of the mast creating a very glazed look that is on the verge of being shiny.

Since I don't have a good still image, you can skip to about 2:55 here: My link Unfortunately, the rest of our rigging is in horrid shape, and is going to be redone this year. You can ignore that.
That is how the unpainted portions of the masts look like on nearly every tall ship I've seen.

 

[Captain Armstrong]

THe blue paint I found in the texture files for the build mod, and I thought it would look nice. If I were going for absolute historical accuracy I would have painted the sides a yellow ochre like a royal navy ship (cause that is historically how the Prince seems to have been painted) so I decide to just go with this more generic american scheme. besides, there really isnt much choice for whats ingame already, royal navy red or puke-green like on the constitution. As for the deck Im just using the "standard" deck texture ive been told to use on my ships, though I feel like some ships ingame might use a lighter version?
As for the masts, I was thinking of texturing them similarly to the constitution http://www.flickr.com/photos/41887594@N05/5906750453/ or if not the standard wood like is used on the surprise or many other ships ingame. Whoever took that video seems to have no problem with looking down! quite interesting really to see a ship from that perspective, I can imagine standing atop the highest yard there and pretending I'm Jack Aubrey when he outmanouvered the Acheron :

 

[Armada]

I did create my own new texture with multiple wood colors for the gratings and such, hopefully that isnt a problem? :? I plan on using it for all my other ships, its very useful.

That's fine, especially since you're making it a standardised texture for multiple ships.

Also, the deck would have been bleached to a very light color by the constant cleaning and sunlight. In my personal experience, I've never seen a deck that dark.

Interesting. That deck texture is what most ships in the Build Mod now use, because it appears to be the most realistic version so far.
We do have a brighter version, but have so far limited its use to some warships in the late periods; would you say it should be more common than that?

As for the deck Im just using the "standard" deck texture ive been told to use on my ships, though I feel like some ships ingame might use a lighter version?

Maybe try using 'dek3.tga'? That's a much brighter version with clean planking, which is used on ships like Bellona and Victory, and is compatible with your UV mapping for desk.tga.
Speaking of which, I think you should try to split the deck UVs into two or more sections lengthways, if possible, so they can overlap on the deck texture.
The reason for that is the deck currently looks slightly stretched along the ship, so by splitting the UVs you can create a repeating pattern which doesn't look distorted.

 

[Captain Armstrong]

How does this look?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6791671785/in/photostream

and a quick question, would it be alright if I seperated the ropes into a seperate object from the rest of the masts put kept them in the same file? just so I can texture them better.

 

[craiggbrown]

I like it allot. It looks very nice and clean while remaining historically accurate from what I could tell.

 

[Post Captain]

THe blue paint I found in the texture files for the build mod, and I thought it would look nice. If I were going for absolute historical accuracy I would have painted the sides a yellow ochre like a royal navy ship (cause that is historically how the Prince seems to have been painted) so I decide to just go with this more generic american scheme. besides, there really isnt much choice for whats ingame already, royal navy red or puke-green like on the constitution. As for the deck Im just using the "standard" deck texture ive been told to use on my ships, though I feel like some ships ingame might use a lighter version?
As for the masts, I was thinking of texturing them similarly to the constitution http://www.flickr.com/photos/41887594@N05/5906750453/ or if not the standard wood like is used on the surprise or many other ships ingame. Whoever took that video seems to have no problem with looking down! quite interesting really to see a ship from that perspective, I can imagine standing atop the highest yard there and pretending I'm Jack Aubrey when he outmanouvered the Acheron :

That was actually me. After the second or third time up you kind of disregard the height, like you're at ground level. And I specifically made sure to replicate that scene from the movie with one other guy on the crew.

As for the colors... you're right about the puke green, I guess. However, one common misconception is that the black and white Nelson Checker is an American scheme. It was equally common among the other nations, as it was begging to become more in style than the Ochre and black. Constitution was actually painted with the ochre checker at one point. Generally, paint was captain's prerogative, so you would have seen all sorts of paint. (The whaler disguise in Master and Commander actually would have been a viable paint scheme for a Man o' War, and actually appeared on both the Shannon and Chesapeake. Personally, I think it suits Surprise's hull better than the checker.) I definitely know that you would generally have the inner bulwarks painted in the same colors as you would find on carronade slides

One way to make the puke paint look good is doing it like the Niagara, with both the puke and blood paints. It looks rather christmassy and Great-Lakesish. I think the Rose-prise uses a lighter deck texture.
not my video this time, but it gives you a good view at about 1:35. Niagara
The Niagara is a pretty good match for the Prince above the water line.
Keep in mind that I have absolutely no idea how hard that stuff is.

I like how the masts are done on Constitution. They're pretty good generic man o' war.

And to Armada: A lighter version is probably far more accurate. Every tall ship I've ever seen from a replica barque of the late 1500's to an 1850's early windjammer has bleached decks. Take for example the Niagara Video from this post. Sometimes, a deck will look exactly like the darker version if it is wet, (fairly common) like in the other video I uploaded to youtube but didn't link to.

edit: unrelated, but you guys might enjoy this.
Carronade fire

 

[Captain Armstrong]

Haha Nice! that mustve been fun.
I mean the green on the real constitution isnt all that bad, its just the texture I would have to use from the ingame one is off. Im just going for an AMerican looking scheme here to fit with other american ships ingame, there plenty of models and prints of the Prince out there with ochre sides I couldve based my color sheme off of, but the general consensus is that american ships should have white sides and bbritish ochre and french red and so on, just for easy identification. I cant say I agree with this entirely, but for this ship at least im sticking to the current scheme. I think the shannon and cheasapeake mightve had an ochre rather than white stripe below the gunports, but that probably depends on the painter and the source of information. Anyways I will get more creative with my frigate(s), and I willl probably make quite a few color schemes for the Revolutionnaire. Ive actually been aboard the Niagra once or twice, when there was a tall ships festival in my hometown. Quite a pretty ship

 

[Post Captain]

I've also heard that Shannon and Chesapeake had off white stripes. It's a shame how memories and records of specific things like that fade with time. That way we wouldn't have any trouble with the ocher/white/red debate.

 

[Armada]

and a quick question, would it be alright if I seperated the ropes into a seperate object from the rest of the masts put kept them in the same file? just so I can texture them better.

Yep, that's fine. It's common for the ropes to be a separate component and use 'Rope_U1.tga' rather than 'desk.tga'.

A lighter version is probably far more accurate. Every tall ship I've ever seen from a replica barque of the late 1500's to an 1850's early windjammer has bleached decks. Take for example the Niagara Video from this post. Sometimes, a deck will look exactly like the darker version if it is wet, (fairly common) like in the other video I uploaded to youtube but didn't link to.

I see. The colour change when the deck gets wet certainly makes sense, but it's a shame we can't simulate that in-game.
Ships are therefore stuck with either a 'wet' or 'dry' deck, it seems. Maybe I should make the film Surprise's deck texture the standard one instead, because it is slightly brighter and cleaner.

BTW, I liked that video of the carronades! That's actually very useful to compare with the damage effects we use in PotC, so we can see how realistic they look.

I mean the green on the real constitution isnt all that bad, its just the texture I would have to use from the ingame one is off. Im just going for an AMerican looking scheme here to fit with other american ships ingame, there plenty of models and prints of the Prince out there with ochre sides I couldve based my color sheme off of, but the general consensus is that american ships should have white sides and bbritish ochre and french red and so on, just for easy identification. I cant say I agree with this entirely, but for this ship at least im sticking to the current scheme. I think the shannon and cheasapeake mightve had an ochre rather than white stripe below the gunports, but that probably depends on the painter and the source of information. Anyways I will get more creative with my frigate(s), and I willl probably make quite a few color schemes for the Revolutionnaire.

How far off is the 'puke green' texture? If you can provide a reference image, I can modify the texture to reflect how it's supposed to look.

Also, how many is "quite a few" colour schemes? I'd say three is a good start, but we don't want too many variations, especially for the same nations...

 

[Captain Armstrong]

alright, heres a pic of the interior of the constitution's bulwark http://tomsworkbench.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/kdk_0491.jpg
As for the Revolutionnaire, I will make at least three, one for France, England and America each, and then I might make another version or two if I can make my ideas work, but I guess any extra ones could be quest only or something if its really that important. Not sure what the big deal is when many ugly stock ships have far more versions than that...and there seems to be no limit on black pearl retextures and the like...
Good to know about the ropes, that makes it much easier!

Oh and ive finished my upgrades to the constitution
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6798026675/in/photostream

I guess the mast still need to be scaled, and the locators fixed. do you have a file with the masts? or should I try and export them on the gmviewer?

 

[Armada]

alright, heres a pic of the interior of the constitution's bulwark http://tomsworkbench...08/kdk_0491.jpg

Thanks, that's perfect!

As for the Revolutionnaire, I will make at least three, one for France, England and America each, and then I might make another version or two if I can make my ideas work, but I guess any extra ones could be quest only or something if its really that important. Not sure what the big deal is when many ugly stock ships have far more versions than that...and there seems to be no limit on black pearl retextures and the like...

I think you'll find that we've massively cut down on ugly stock re-textures in Beta 2, mostly because things were a bit out of hand, admittedly.
Now almost every texture has a specific purpose, whether it's to represent a national colour scheme or real ship etc.
The Black Pearl actually only has three textures at present, with a fourth 'damaged' one delayed due to the damaged model not working in TOOL.
Anyway, there's not really a specific limit to the number of textures per model, but 3-4 is the average now, I think.
Still, if you have something special planned with your textures, I don't see why we can't have, say, five versions maximum... how does that sound?

Oh and ive finished my upgrades to the constitution
http://www.flickr.co.../in/photostream

I guess the mast still need to be scaled, and the locators fixed. do you have a file with the masts? or should I try and export them on the gmviewer?

Nice work! The carronades look great in place of the old guns!
I don't have the masts or yards exported to OBJ format yet, so you'll probably have to do that yourself (remembering to sort out the normals/smoothing etc in Maya for each model).
Two questions:

1. How many polygons does she now have (out of interest)?
2. Do you think you could do something about the ship's wheel? I've never liked it because of the awkward, not-so-circular shape...

Anyway, once you've finished with the model completely, could you send me a copy of the files?
The reason is that Iron Roger Flint gave me a new tool which can convert locators from GM files across to MB files, which means they can easily be scaled to the the ship's new size in Maya.
I haven't tried this yet, and I'm eager to see if it works well, and if the model can later be exported to GM successfully...

 

[Captain Armstrong]

I think you'll find that we've massively cut down on ugly stock re-textures in Beta 2, mostly because things were a bit out of hand, admittedly.
Now almost every texture has a specific purpose, whether it's to represent a national colour scheme or real ship etc.
The Black Pearl actually only has three textures at present, with a fourth 'damaged' one delayed due to the damaged model not working in TOOL.
Anyway, there's not really a specific limit to the number of textures per model, but 3-4 is the average now, I think.
Still, if you have something special planned with your textures, I don't see why we can't have, say, five versions maximum... how does that sound?

sounds good, for the two i didnt specify, I was thinking of a sort of generic version that could be used occasionally by the countries there arent specific textures for, and then one that I just think looks ccool, maybe it could be assigned to a nation though too. Just rough ideas really at this point,

Nice work! The carronades look great in place of the old guns!
I don't have the masts or yards exported to OBJ format yet, so you'll probably have to do that yourself (remembering to sort out the normals/smoothing etc in Maya for each model).
Two questions:

1. How many polygons does she now have (out of interest)?
2. Do you think you could do something about the ship's wheel? I've never liked it because of the awkward, not-so-circular shape...

Anyway, once you've finished with the model completely, could you send me a copy of the files?
The reason is that Iron Roger Flint gave me a new tool which can convert locators from GM files across to MB files, which means they can easily be scaled to the the ship's new size in Maya.
I haven't tried this yet, and I'm eager to see if it works well, and if the model can later be exported to GM successfully...

Alright, according to maya she has 82557 faces right now, not sure if that means polygons?
And i might be able to replace the wheel with the one from the movie suprise? it looks pretty similar. might do something about the capstan too, my capstan was based off of the one on the real constitution so it might work

 

[Armada]

Alright, according to maya she has 82557 faces right now, not sure if that means polygons?
And i might be able to replace the wheel with the one from the movie suprise? it looks pretty similar. might do something about the capstan too, my capstan was based off of the one on the real constitution so it might work

Maya seems to count 'faces' as polygons and triangles combined, so the number probably reflects the tri-count in this case (I used the term 'polygon' very loosely ).
Anyway, 80k should be fine. It's roughly 20k more than it was before, but the cannon models are much better now, so it's worth it.

About the wheel on the Surprise: if you're referring to the one provided in my modified MB file, then yes, use that wheel.
I changed that model slightly to use a better texture and look more realistic, so it would look great on the Constitution.
A better capstan would be welcome, too, while you're at it.

Now, back to the green bulwark texture; how's this?


Much less puke-coloured and with a much better wood texture, don't you think?
Shame about the crappy deck texture, though. It needs improving, but due to the UV mapping, it always looks stretched and low-quality. :urgh

 

[Post Captain]

Now, back to the green bulwark texture; how's this?
[attachment=8120:Constitution_bulwarks.jpg]

Much less puke-coloured and with a much better wood texture, don't you think?
Shame about the crappy deck texture, though. It needs improving, but due to the UV mapping, it always looks stretched and low-quality. :urgh

Beautiful. And a quick question: When you were improving the Constitution did you do anything about the water line? It always seems to be sitting far to low in the water even with an average load of stores, and seems to have a distinct forward tilt not as apparent on the real vessel.

 

[Captain Armstrong]

hmm the guns mustve added a fair bit cause I cut down a lot of the bulwarks which shouldve taken off polys. well im glad its still a reasonable amount. and sounds good! ill make those changes then. the new green is definately an improvement maybe the deck from the movie surprise could be pasted over the current deck on the texture file?

@post captain-really? i was under the opposite impression, and I actually lowered the model in the water to be about where the waterline of the USS president was recorded when her lines were taken off in 1815. In Maya at least the ship looked like she had all her guns and stores offloaded she was riding so high.

 

[Post Captain]

hmm the guns mustve added a fair bit cause I cut down a lot of the bulwarks which shouldve taken off polys. well im glad its still a reasonable amount. and sounds good! ill make those changes then. the new green is definately an improvement maybe the deck from the movie surprise could be pasted over the current deck on the texture file?

@post captain-really? i was under the opposite impression, and I actually lowered the model in the water to be about where the waterline of the USS president was recorded when her lines were taken off in 1815. In Maya at least the ship looked like she had all her guns and stores offloaded she was riding so high.

I did take that into account, but with my usual load of supplies the waterline is a bit too high up on the hull. I think the president would have had a reasonable amount of stores and weaponry, lowering its waterline. When stocked with stores ingame the model should have the same water line as the President, I suppose.
That all depends on the circumstances Presidents lines were taken under. (loaded or no stores/guns) With standard provisions, the constitution should probably have the waterline at the top of the red paint, or a little bit above.

and an afterthought: when empty the model seems to be the same as the present Constitution when both are without stores. The stores might just have a little bit more drastic of an effect on the waterline than is realistic.