WIP HMS Bellona (1760 version)

[Armada]

Are you going to replace the generic cabins/decks with the ones resembling the actual player/enemy ship this way?

For ships that have cabin interiors and lower decks, yes. We might have to use the generic cabins for ships that don't have them, but we could also use similar ships' cabins with the doors closed.

For example: a different 74 without a cabin interior (e.g. the Superbe from the NH mod) could use its own deck for most purposes, and load the Bellona's cabin when you approach the doors.

 

[Captain Armstrong]

She looks amazing indeed! Very clean, and the new textures look damn near perfect. I'll certainly want to use them for the Southampton in NHR, and I daresay they could be the basis of a standard.

That last image shows a capsule of the same dimensions as the character collider in New Horizons Remastered (1.8m tall). As you can see, it's a tight fit under the deck beams, and it looks like I'll need to adjust the doors slightly to accommodate the extra height. What this means is we'll probably have to disable collisions with the deck beams so characters can walk freely beneath them without getting stuck or needing a "crouching" stance.

Perhaps a crouching stance will be simpler, in the long run? This problem will surely recur on other ships, especially smaller ones. Though not making colliders for the deck beams will help either way!

I'd say your to-do list looks spot on, though those carvings sound daunting!
I think i have a Pin model on the FTP with LODs which I made for the Southampton(thought that is simple enough to make of course). Same goes for the Stove- I know the one from the Hebe should be up there, but that is of course to a french pattern. If the model isn't already up there, I can export and send you the Southampton's stove!

 

[Armada]

She looks amazing indeed! Very clean, and the new textures look damn near perfect. I'll certainly want to use them for the Southampton in NHR, and I daresay they could be the basis of a standard.

Thanks! I'll gather the textures together and upload them later. I'll probably include the coloured versions I'm currently using as well as a neutral grey version that can be recoloured easily.

Perhaps a crouching stance will be simpler, in the long run? This problem will surely recur on other ships, especially smaller ones. Though not making colliders for the deck beams will help either way!

It could be done by dynamically changing the size of the character's collider, but we'd need to create a crouching animation or find a suitable on the Asset Store. We'll see how it works without the deck beam colliders first (there's not really any reason to have those, anyway).

I'd say your to-do list looks spot on, though those carvings sound daunting!

I'll have to see how well I can fake some of the intricate carvings to keep the polycount down, which will be interesting.

I think i have a Pin model on the FTP with LODs which I made for the Southampton(thought that is simple enough to make of course). Same goes for the Stove- I know the one from the Hebe should be up there, but that is of course to a french pattern. If the model isn't already up there, I can export and send you the Southampton's stove!

I downloaded the assets you had on the HoO FTP a while ago, and there's definitely a stove, though it seems a bit small with a short chimney. There's also a high-poly stove from Wedori, though I'm not sure which ship it's from.

 

[Captain Armstrong]

Smart idea for allowing easy coloration! I'm sure there will be plenty of hues people will want to make. Perhaps I underestimated the work involved for the animation, and given that not creating beam colliders is in fact making less work, thats surely the thing to try first!

And now that you mention it I think the stove on the Southampton is Wedori's from the Sphynx-I was thinking Bava had already made it as part of the ship, but looking at the pics it's a match. I wouldn't be surprised if stoves designed for frigates didn't scale up well for a 74!

 

[Martes]

Oh, I would also like to try those textures, if it is possible.

 

[Armada]

OK, I've uploaded the textures here: http://piratesahoy.bowengames.com/NewHorizonsRemastered/Assets/Textures/New_Bellona_Textures1.zip

The zip file includes the following 1024 x 1024px PNGs:

• Hvide_Planks2 (hull planking) in 4 colours plus grey (neutral) and normal map
• DealWood2 (softwood) in 2 colours plus neutral and normal map
• WoodPlain (generic wood grain) in 5 colours plus neutral and normal map
• wood_2b (mast wood) in light brown plus neutral and normal map

If there are any other specific ones you'd like, please let me know.

For best results, I recommend using these with a PBR shader in your 3D package, if supported (Maya has Stingray PBR). Use a Metallic value of 0 and roughness of around 0.3 - 0.4.

 

[Martes]

Thanks, @Armada!

 

[Armada]

I visited the National Museum of the Royal Navy yesterday, and among the numerous exhibits and ship models, I found this hidden gem:

Spoiler: Show images

It's a cutaway section of HMS Dragon, one of Bellona's sister ships, showing how she was loaded with supplies in 1769.
I'm only modelling the Bellona's interior down to the gundeck for our needs, but these photos show a lot of detail in the lower decks that could prove useful later on.

Either way, I thought this was a really cool visualisation. It makes a change from trying to make sense of profile drawings and sketches.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Brilliant, @Armada!!!

What museum did you go to? The Portsmouth one?

 

[Armada]

It's in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, right next to Victory. I went there last summer, but one day out isn't enough time to see all the exhibits, so I came back this year to fill in the gaps, which included this museum.

Lovely weather for it, too:

Spoiler: Show image

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Holy crap, looks like you got all the sunshine in the South that wasn't here in the North!

Indeed I was at the Dockyard in Portsmouth for about a day, but could have easily stayed for a week.
Truly impressive amount of nautical awesomeness they've got there!

 

[Martes]

HMS Dragon, one of Bellona's sister ships

The visualisation is indeed great, as is the idea of such diorama

Interesting, did the Dragon have the figurehead of her namesake?

 

[Armada]

Interesting, did the Dragon have the figurehead of her namesake?

Not sure, though I do know the current HMS Dragon has one painted on her bow:

Spoiler: Show image

 

[Armada]

More updates: I'm midway through replacing the masts and yards with lower-poly versions that conform to the plans more closely. I imported the Rossiya's masts and upscaled them to give me a starting point, but I've basically ended up replacing everything from them except very minor components. So far, the bowsprit and mainmast are complete, with the other two soon to follow.

Spoiler: Show images

Below, you can see a comparison with the mizzen from the Rossiya (albeit larger and with new yards). The stunsail booms aren't fitted on most yards yet.

You might also notice she now has stern lanterns, too. I find they add a bit of style to the stern, and that's without any carvings on there yet...

Spoiler: Show image

Below deck, I've fitted some pumps, including handles either side. I'd somehow left out this rather crucial component before now, and I'm not sure the crew would appreciate that.
There's also a table in the wardroom now, though it still needs chairs around it.

Spoiler: Show images

I added another light source to show the detail on pumps slightly better:

Meanwhile, lighting wasn't playing ball in the wardroom, so you'll have to excuse the darkness:

Speaking of crucial features... behold the very latest technology in sanitation!

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These luxurious facilities include space for four men to do their business simultaneously, and efficient waste disposal directly into the ocean!
(Warning: use is not advised during rough weather...)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Amazing detail, @Armada!

 

[philipjn]

Wow, really impressive mate. The bar has bee raised again, you have really gone all out on her.

 

[ESW]

I've given this ship some attention again lately, and I've made a pretty big change to her appearance. The model has been given a complete texture overhaul with physically-based materials, which gives it a more consistent look and allows me to preview the materials almost exactly as they will appear in Unity.

Spoiler: More images

The hull planking texture might look new, but it's actually a heavily modified version of the original texture I used (see the first page), which was provided by @Bava. I reduced the contrast and turned the texture a neutral grey so it could be easily recoloured, and along with a new normal map and specularity, the result looks more painted-over than it used to. Some screenshots above show the hull in different lighting conditions to highlight the detail (apologies for the shadow quality).

The list of new parts is quite short, but includes boat booms across the waist, capstans, opening doors to the main cabin, tiller ropes on the wheel, and beams across the break of the poop deck, quarterdeck and forecastle.

Spoiler: Show images

That last image shows a capsule of the same dimensions as the character collider in New Horizons Remastered (1.8m tall). As you can see, it's a tight fit under the deck beams, and it looks like I'll need to adjust the doors slightly to accommodate the extra height. What this means is we'll probably have to disable collisions with the deck beams so characters can walk freely beneath them without getting stuck or needing a "crouching" stance.

By this point, you might be wondering how much longer this ship can possibly remain a "work-in-progress", and I don't blame you!
To give you an idea of what's left, I'll share my current to-do list (in no particular order):

Spoiler: Show list

• Stern lanterns
• Anchors (imported)
• Rigging (stays & shrouds)
• Binnacle details
• Captain's cabin furnishings
• Wardroom furnishings
• Reworked upper stern (mesh needs reshaping and tidying)
• Galley stove and chimney
• Hammock netting/cover
• Figurehead
• Stern ornamentation
• Replacement lower-poly masts
• Doors to quarter galleries
• Rigging pins
• Tiller adjustment (it clips the deck beams)
• Seats of ease
• Cut hawse holes
• Boats (imported)
• Guns (imported)

That's pretty much it, with the exception of LODs. I've only got lower LODs for the hull and a handful of components, but I may have to skip this for the rest of the model to save time. They do need making eventually, but I'll reduce the polycount with new masts and a few optimisations for the first game-ready version.

Please let me know what you think of the new textures. I'll upload them if anyone else wants to use them, but remember that normal maps and specularity don't apply to Storm Engine games, so they can only be used in NHR.

Why the chimney?
Let's not add things do like:
Chimney.
And different things like that..
Because in this game time of Late 15th, early 16th century, and then the middle of the seventeenth, more than the reality must be romantic, able to swim at archipelago, etc
Otherwise, you can just insult the feelings of some people in relation to this game.
And I hope you don't want that..

 

[Armada]

So... now that this has been announced, I thought I'd share a new incarnation of the Bellona: a low-poly version!

Spoiler: More images

There's an interesting story behind this model. Last year, after my company released its first game, we began brainstorming our next project. At the time, we were thinking about developing for the then-new Oculus Go VR headset, but it's not particularly powerful, so any game made for it would have to be stylised to look good and run smoothly. I was also working on the high-poly Bellona in my spare time, and began to wonder what an ultra-low-poly version would look like. That ultimately led me to pitch a low-poly pirate game to my colleagues, which could potentially scale up to PC VR headsets like the Oculus Rift as well. It turns out we were all keen on the idea, so I began making a heavily stripped-down version of this ship in Blender for our first prototype.

I was still learning Blender at the time, so this was a good chance for me to hone my skills. We tried a few different iterations of the model, and eventually settled on the version you see above. It sits at just under 25,000 triangles (including guns), which is about one tenth of the high-poly model, and it served as the basis for the rest of our ship models in what has now become Buccaneers!.

Despite hating Blender 2.79 when I first moved to it from Maya, I'm now very comfortable with the new 2.8 version, which finally does what I want it to do without confusing the heck out of me . I rendered the above images with the new real-time Eevee renderer, which is fantastic for previewing models with game-ready materials before exporting to Unity.

Don't worry, the high-poly model still exists! I haven't really worked on it since starting the new game, but I've imported it into Blender and will share some new renders soon.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Good luck and winds to your back, with your new game, to you @Armada and your collages!!!

It certainly looks interesting but unfortunately I don't have a VR headset in order to view it's full potential but it's also non VR!!!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

She looks lovely, @Armada!

Is it an intentional part of the stylization that there's no smoothing applied to the model?
While at first sight that surprised me, somehow it does fit the 'blockiness'.