• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

Released USS Constitution upgrade

Armada

Armada

Sea Dog
Staff member
Administrator
Project Manager
3D Artist
Storm Modder
Ahoy mates, I think it's about time to reveal the details of an upgrade project for our Constitution model.

You may have heard about Captain Armstrong's work on the ship, which involved rescaling the model to a more realistic size,
cutting down the bulwarks to match the real ship's current state, and adding a new helm, new capstan, new cannons and carronades.
He gave me the model to finish off and export to GM format, and now I've finally got round to working on it (in between with my other projects).

I decided that, since the model was in Maya anyway, it would be a great opportunity to reorganise some of the UVs that I didn't adjust before.
I'm hoping this, along with several texture changes, will give the ship a much more authentic and realistic appearance.

However, the biggest obstacle of this endeavour is the ship's locators. Seeing as the whole thing is about 24% bigger than the current version, the locators would need to be redone.
One easy way of doing this is to import them into Maya (using a tool that Iron Roger Flint gave me), scale them to fit the ship, and export them with the model.
This seems to have failed, though, since I still cannot export any locators with any model. I thought that would bring the whole project to a standstill...

... Until today! Thankfully, I managed to find a way to import the locators into Excel. There I could quickly scale the X, Y and Z coordinates, and export the lot to a text file, which TOOL can read from. This does seem to have worked, and now I can apply that method to all the remaining locators to get the ship in-game much more quickly! :dance

Anyway, the best part is, I'm nearly finished with the model (try to ignore the rendering glitches):
Constitution_upgrade1.jpg Constitution_upgrade2.jpg

The new details (carronades, helm, capstan) are what Captain Armstrong added, and the texture changes I've made are as follows:
  • Deck, masts, wheel and capstan all use dcUS.tga (a modified version of dek3.tga which I designed for Captain Armstrong's own models). All their UVs have been modified to fit the texture and to match the real ship as closely as possible.
  • Bulwarks are a darker shade of green, and the texture is more detailed.
  • Cannons and carronades use a brand new version of Inzanagun1.tga (I've also made a yellow version, for those interested).
All I'm going to do before she's done is cut out some mast stumps, so that the damage effect when a mast falls is more realistic.
Before I go ahead and finish her off, though, I'm keen to have some feedback on the progress so far.
To all you enthusiasts out there: is there anything left to do to make the ship even better? Anything I've missed out or could improve on? :hmm

UPDATE 1st October 2012: The upgraded Constitution and Battle Frigates are now finished and available for PotC and CoAS.

New_Constitution1.jpg New_Constitution2.jpg New_BattleFrigate1.jpg New_Constitution_Textures.jpg

UPDATE December 2014: To anyone wondering how to get this ship:
It's included in the PotC: New Horizons mod in the later eras for various countries, and also in the GOF2.5 mod for Age of Pirates 2.
 
Last edited:
Looks good, but one thing I noticed was that the bowsprit and jibboom should be composed of two spars, not three. Also, all the spars also look a bit thin, but it could be an illusion created by the angle of the pictures.

1229oped_constitution.jpg

I had some changes that should be made to the sail pan as well, if you're to that point yet.

Edit: I guess two more long boats (arranged like the ones on Armstrong's 38 gun) over the main hatch would add some extra realism as well. The usual complement of boats for a vessel of that size was 5-6.
 
I wasn't entirely sure what to do with the bowsprit and jibboom; they were in three parts already.
According to this photo, it seems to me like they are composed of three parts. Is this a special case, or is it not technically three separate spars?

You might be right about the thickness of the masts. I reckon the white sections are too thin, but the other spars look about right, judging by your reference image.

Extra boats would be easy to add. It might be a tight squeeze to fit them next to each other, but I'll see what I can do.

As for the sail plan, I'm purposely holding back until the ship is in-game with all the locators in place,
unless there are any modelling changes you had in mind (e.g. longer yards).
One thing I'll definitely do is replace the spanker booms with a newer model.
The current version is still the original one used on the stock corvette, and is not the right shape.
 
She looks wonderful as far as I can tell! I'm looking forward to the day she's given some proper quest use. :dance
 
It might just look as though the bowsprit is composed of three separate spars in that picture due to the angle... I've never heard of anything like that before.
That's also really the only picture I've seen that would indicate that. I'd personally just go with two.

Fortunately, all the other rigging problems have to do with the staysl's and jibs, so I don't think they will take any further modelling to solve.

Edit: I actually think the top and t'gallantmasts and the bowsprit and jibboom could be made a little thicker, in addition to the lower masts. Your call on this one.
I also noticed in a picture from a book that I have that there should be a hatch about two feet forward of the helm. (The of the same dimensions of the one in front of the foremast)
Oh... and there should be hammock netting above the rails and on the back of the tops (platforms on each mast). (see reference pictures for size and postitions)
 
Post Captain said:
It might just look as though the bowsprit is composed of three separate spars in that picture due to the angle... I've never heard of anything like that before.
That's also really the only picture I've seen that would indicate that. I'd personally just go with two.
Click to expand...

Perhaps i did it in 3 parts couse it was like that in the prints http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/5998/plano1v.jpg both this one and the "Anatomy of the ship " book



 
Still extremely odd and uncommon... Flying jibs are usually set from the fore royal stay, which should lead right to the end of the jib boom from right above the royal. I still say make it two spars to the same dimensions as the real vessel.
 
That is great news about the locators! excellent work, and I am definately interested in the both the yellow and red versions of Inzanegun1 :doff I cannot think of any modeling or texturing changes left to be done on this version, except maybe the boats and hatches like post captain suggested. I may eventually revisit this ship and make new headrails and quater galleries based of the original plan of the constitution and the plan of the USS President, to be used for the generic Untied States Class frigate, endymion, and Acheron versions, and with this model as the specific USS Constitution version, but that will be a whole new project, and may not happen for quite some time. Good to see you are still around ZarethPL! Your modelling on this ship was very well done, given the plans you had. (I still marvel at your patience in making those highly detailed chain-plates xD: )The Anatomy of a ship plans and many other show historical innacuracies like the high bulwarks that were added to the ship over the years, and there are no plans that show the ship from her war of 1812 era, so many are simply of the ship in her then-present state

Edit: Armada, the easiest thing to do for the mast stumps might be to borrow them from another model like the Movie surprise and scale them and adjust their angle to fit the constitution.
 
Captain Armstrong said:
the easiest thing to do for the mast stumps might be to borrow them from another model like the Movie surprise and scale them and adjust their angle to fit the constitution.
Click to expand...
Actually I was planning to use a different method that I've already trialled on a different ship, which gives seamless results. ;)
I'm using the 'Split Polygon' tool to manually cut each mast in two, and then adding polygons to the resulting stump to represent the inside of the mast.

As for your alternate version of the ship, it might not involve as much work as expected.
By the sound of things, you're pretty much only going to change the hull, so all other components (deck, cannons etc) can be left as they are on this version.
The Acheron also appears to have been based on the Constitution before she had her bulwarks cut down, so our current model is already very similar.
Still, a few adjustments to the stern would make her more distinctive, I guess.
 
that sounds like a good method too! :onya
and yeah, everything except the bow and stern will reamain exactly the same, I plan to make brand new quarter galleries, transom, all the windows and details, and possibly brand new headrails (If I cant change the shape of the current ones to match) so It wont be like building a new ship or anything, but still, it will be more work than what i have done with the ship already. (Hitting the Delete key is very easy :cheeky )
 
In some cases, it might be more efficient poly-wise to replace the components, rather than try to edit them.
This would be true of both the headrails and the stern, in my opinion (they're beautiful, but have you seen how many polys they have?! :shock )
 
oh yeah, I definately will be replacing the stern in my different version, I was only thinking of keeping the headrails and editing them because they are so detailed
 
My only complaint about the current headrails is that they're too detailed to fully appreciate them in-game. :shrug
The player would never know that the edges are smoothed, and if you're running the game without any anti-aliasing (like me), the thin white lines almost disappear in some cases.
(If I run the game with anti-aliasing, there's a massive framerate drop to the point where it's not playable. My PC is showing its age...)
 
Future proof it! Some day you will get a better computer and then you will appreciate what you are doing today. :onya
 
Fair point. There's some words of wisdom. :cheers
 
Armada, do you think you could upload the maya file of the latest version? I was thinking of getting a start on the new headrails and stern sometime soon:keith
 
Just cleaned it up for you: see here. :cool:
I've included the updated textures I think you'll need for the hull and cannons. All I have left to do are the mast stumps, but since your work is mostly on the hull, that won't matter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top