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WIP - HMS Shannon (1806) 38 guns

Not much progress to report. Been trying to model the capstan and wheel, several abortive attempts later Shannon still lacks them.

Been looking for details of how Shannon would have been painted around the time she fought the USS Chesapeake. For the moment I've been using colors from the Trincomalee, but obviously this is a later ship and I don't even know if her current scheme is accurate.

So atm black hull/white strake, white trim, red edges to the gunports, blue-green inner bulwarks, interior/underside of decks white. Masts plain wood lower, black above the tops and black spars. I quite like the scheme HMS Java is often shown in, with the white strake extended all the way to the front of the hull, might adopt that if there is no evidence to the contrary.
 
To my knowledge Captain Broke had the Shannon painted with an yellow/ochre or white stripe underneath the gunports, to match the scheme of several american frigates (Chesapeake and President) then in Boston which the Shannon was blockading. The idea being that American ships attempting to run the blockade would be lured into a false sense of security, thinking the Shannon was one of the American vessels. I've read in several places that this is backed up in contemporary reports.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h63000/h63177k.jpg
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h63000/h63179k.jpg
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h63000/h63178k.jpg
Otherwise she would likely have been painted with a standard yellow/ochre nelson chequer scheme. the strake, be it white or yellow, would be generally be carried all the way forward, except for the bolster(see link below and final link)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66606.html
and on either of these schemes, the paint on the upper and lower cheeks should be the same color as the headrails, rather than turning black when they meet the hull. http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/1/8/2/7/9/2/a2967571-65-DSC09204.jpg
 
Certainly distinctive, and I dare say even elegant...

(I stole the water from someone else's sketchup model :D)

Thanks for the detailed explanation :)

Might do several different paintschemes on this ship then, I like this, but would also like to have an example with the strake carried forward to the bow, and perhaps even model the Trincomalee with her straight headrail. Maybe one with a buff strake too.

Not terribly important at this stage, but do you have any idea what the bulwarks and internal colors would have been?
 
Alex Connor said:
Might do several different paintschemes on this ship then, I like this, but would also like to have an example with the strake carried forward to the bow, and perhaps even model the Trincomalee with her straight headrail. Maybe one with a buff strake too.

Not terribly important at this stage, but do you have any idea what the bulwarks and internal colors would have been?
Click to expand...
I'd say red for the interior of the bulwarks, and white belowdecks, like the bottom sides of the decks. I forgot to mention that the vertical head timbers should be the same color as the headrails as well. It looks great by the way! :onya If you do end up making multiple paintschemes, I'd suggest making one of a nelson chequer or at least with yellow/ochre sides and trim, as that was the most common paintscheme in the heyday of the Leda class, especially in the Royal Navy. a yellow/ochre interior would also work with such a version. keep up the good work!:)
 
Wouldn't be complete without a Nelson chequer version :)

Can PotC/CoAS handle semi-transparent materials?

Was thinking about using a 25% transparent material facing outwards in the gunports to fake better lighting...



The crude lighting model in these games (probably no better than the one in Sketchup), combined with a lack of self-shadowing and made worse by people choosing bright interior colors can really ruin the appearance of a model.
 
Alex Connor said:
Can PotC/CoAS handle semi-transparent materials?
Click to expand...
Nope, sorry. I tried using a semi-transparent texture for the stern lights on my Rossiya model, but it just renders opaque in-game. :facepalm
I like how your ship is turning out, by the way! :keith
 
Armada said:
Nope, sorry. I tried using a semi-transparent texture for the stern lights on my Rossiya model, but it just renders opaque in-game. :facepalm
Click to expand...

I was looking at the Rossiya, trying to work out if you had used an almost completely transparent material or simply left the windows blank ;)

Ah well, plan B is simply using darker textures for the insides, adding as much clutter as possible to the open spar portion of the weather deck (term?) so this doesn't look odd when viewed from above. Plus more clutter for the topdeck so its harder to look in one gunport and out one on the other side.
Armada said:
I like how your ship is turning out, by the way! :keith
Click to expand...
:D



Still working on the rigging and deck details (and just about everything else)
 
Armada said:
Nope, sorry. I tried using a semi-transparent texture for the stern lights on my Rossiya model, but it just renders opaque in-game. :facepalm
Click to expand...
Did you also try making the material semi-transparent in Maya instead of attempting semi-transparency with an alpha map?
 
Alex Connor said:
I was looking at the Rossiya, trying to work out if you had used an almost completely transparent material or simply left the windows blank ;)
Click to expand...
For the renders I made, and any screenshots taken from the Maya viewport, I did use a semi-transparent texture.
The version used in-game is opaque around the edges and transparent in the middle. I wanted to have something that vaguely resembles glass, but the result isn't great. :oops:

Pieter Boelen said:
Did you also try making the material semi-transparent in Maya instead of attempting semi-transparency with an alpha map?
Click to expand...
I think so, but I'm not entirely sure. Either way, no extra material attributes seem to work, otherwise we could have specular maps for metallic objects etc.

However, one thing still has me confused, and that's the implementation of "col.tga" on the Lineship models.
Remember how I neutralised it ages ago to stop it from darkening the deck texture? It appears to be some kind of overlay or gradient that affects the colour of the texture beneath it.
Quite how Akella managed to pull that off with a stock ship, I have no idea, but it actually sounds ideal for what Alex is trying to do with the Shannon.
 
Armada said:
I think so, but I'm not entirely sure. Either way, no extra material attributes seem to work, otherwise we could have specular maps for metallic objects etc.
Click to expand...
Perhaps Alex can do a quick experiment with that then? That's the method I always used back in the ancient days when I did some ship modeling for Virtual Sailor.
There it worked. With a without textures applied. Never used any alpha maps back in those days. But... different games, eh? :facepalm
 
Probably easier for me to experiment on a stock ship in Maya 5.0, because Alex is using SketchUp and won't be able to export to GM quickly to see the results.
Looking in the User's Guide, I've read something about Layered Shaders and Layered Textures. That might be worth messing around with...
 
Ah, true that. I wished I had any clue on how Maya works, but I only remember vaguely how things worked in 3D Studio MAX.
There I would use materials to colour model parts and I could apply textures to them and change their opacity. :shrug
 
Well I just tried that once again, using an opaque texture and setting the material attributes to make it transparent, but it has no effect on the GM file. It's still opaque.
What's more, I've tried every method I could find to get a similar effect to the col.tga overlay, but nothing works. Sometimes the overlay texture isn't exported; other times it exports instead of the base texture.

Akella must have used black magic or something. :walkplank
 
Looks good. I'd recommend adding royal yards, since all our other similar frigates have them, and replacing the long guns on the quarterdeck and focs'l with carronades.
 
8 windows or 6? Seems to have been early Ledas with both configurations...





Also, got a question about gunports. Trincomalee seems to have removable rather than hinged gunport lids, is it likely an earlier Leda would be fitted like that?
 
Yes, I was thinking the Lacedamonian is probably going to be closer to the Shannon that the Trincomalee would be.

Could be wrong...

Hinged from the top or split in two?
 
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