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Droid Gunship

Next up in my Star Wars-series is the CIS HMP Gunship. It is one of the less known CIS vessels, as it was only featured briefly in the movies (during the invasion of Kashyyk), but it was a playable vehicle in Battlefront II, and in my opinion one of the coolest ground vessels in the separatist army. The best part about this ship is that it's generic nature means that it can be used in a variety of different maps not related to Star Wars.

Its scale is large when compared to the spaceships, but quite small if you compare it to most ground units (which you propably want to do). As a ground unit, i use it with the scale 1.4. Like with the other models, it looks cooler if you set the turning speed low and the object interpolation high, for more smooth movement. This one also comes with sprite attachment points, which means it will start burning when damaged (remove these in magos model editor if the effect is not desired).

If you want it to have a laser attack, use "attack 1", and for a missile attack use "attack 2". There is also a barrage animation named "spell slam". Tomorrow i will upload a custom missile model for this.

Keywords:
Gunship, hovercraft, CIS, star wars, separatist, trade federation, kashyyk, missile, laser, space, fighter, ship
Contents

Droid Gunship (Model)

Reviews
12:21, 22nd Mar 2015 Misha: one more superb CIS model, i see :)
Level 4
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
73
I dunno why, but i just wanna say 'delicious' in regard to this model :xxd:

Because it looks like a donut. Donuts are delicious, well most of them. and this is a gorgeous and dangerous one.
Again, omg. awesome work in it! The polies shape looks very smooth!
wonder what program you use to make these. If it's MAX, well, it may justify its price hehe.
Keep up the good work!

5/5
 
Yeah, i make my models in 3ds max 5 (unwraps that require pelt mapping i do in max 2010), but i can't say i've payed for it, hmmm.... none of those versions are even up for purchase anymore, so there is no legal way of getting them AFAIK.

The reason it looks so smooth is that it uses phong shading. Basically, you are aligning the lighting normals of the polygons in such a way that the shader can interpolate light values in a smooth way. In 3ds max, you do this using the "smooth" modifier. You can use it on any model which looks edgy, and it will appear softer without adding polygons! Here is an example of what i am talking about.
 
Level 2
Joined
May 15, 2013
Messages
19
Because it looks like a donut. Donuts are delicious, well most of them. and this is a gorgeous and dangerous one.
Again, omg. awesome work in it! The polies shape looks very smooth!
wonder what program you use to make these. If it's MAX, well, it may justify its price hehe.
Keep up the good work!

5/5

its not 3rd max who is good its only fingolfin who is great.
 
Level 4
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
73
The reason it looks so smooth is that it uses phong shading. Basically, you are aligning the lighting normals of the polygons in such a way that the shader can interpolate light values in a smooth way. In 3ds max, you do this using the "smooth" modifier. You can use it on any model which looks edgy, and it will appear softer without adding polygons! Here is an example of what i am talking about.

I've tried many times to use such tools, but then a 150 poly model ends up +300...
3DS MAX 5? omg that's ancient! but i'd say it's better, current MAX is way too complicated... Something like passing from wc3 editor to sc2 one...
Well, i'd say the practice makes the master, practising some years may be best way to know how to end up with quality models like this.
 
a nice ship fin, I particularly like how you made the mesh. I think it flows real nice, a dinosaur of the star wars CIS lore for sure, but I fondly remember these owning wookies, dropping tank droids on top of peoples heads, billions of missiles, dropping droid troops down like commandos in the clone wars -- and who could forget the space battles!

not a fan of that texture, feel like those black lines could be nicer, also feel it could use an HD skin with higher resolution/better color grey.

not much complaints, 8.5/10

could be a 9+ if you did some more stuff to it, one thing I really wish you had done was to animate/detail the guns/missiles more, you have red glow lights on the eyes, why not use this same tactic to make a triangular cone shaped glow for the main middle laser cannon? perhaps you could replace those particles of ''barrel flash'' with it. for reference check out blizzards in game terran marine model, and how it has barrel flash made not of particles but of vertexes.

why didn't you make the missile attack animation have some (1 or 2, 5 or 6) missiles actually leave the craft? similar to how I rigged Minimage's ''Hammerhead Sub'' to shoot torpedoes during attack, that vanish some short distance in front of the vehicle, instead of ''just 'some' smoke'', things like this may seem little but add so much ''life'' to a model. if its ok with you I will be making some of these changes my self for my mur'loc map.

a great addition none the less, I had been waiting for this one. glad to see it and I thank you for it.

Suggestions:

if you are devoted to using emitters during ''attacks'' and ''spells'' I think you should look into making fiery flame emitters for the missiles launch on the crafts model its self, if the missiles lack this emitter them selves you could add it to them later, I think bland smoke is boring, and fire in my opinion would be cooler. it also makes it easier to understand whats happening from a distance, something I always thought Olofmoleman's Hellfire droid was missing (it has super smokey attack animations, but no fire)

add some more vertexes to finish the semi sphere for the side guns, so they can have bones to rotate them, this could allow them to move which could add a lot of ''life'' to the model, by giving the dual side cannons some even basic left to right movement during attack the side guns could be swiveled forwards to shoot forwards along side the main middle gun. which could also involve the side guns having red flashes as well.

I think the biggest problem with this model to me is how it moves, I feel like its too wobbly, the HMP always seemed to be pretty stable when not moving, hovercraft-esk,mars attacks UFO reminiscent, yet pretty stable when it was moving, you have it bobbing and weaving zigging and zagging all over the place like a drunken Indian.

beyond my fan girl feelings for starwars this model could be one of my favorite of yours so far. ever. so kudos to you.
 
Thanks for the review! I appreciate the feedback, adding fire particles to the missile launch is a good point and i will see to it that this is done. However, i disagree on the idea of adding missiles - although you did a great job on animating the hammerhead, i think adding missiles into the model kinda limits it to use only that missile model, and also there is the issue of users being forced to sync your projectile launch point to that of the animation, and even then it might look off. Something i could have done though is to make the "tip" of the missile dissapear from the pod when it launches, but i decided against this in order to save space. Having the gun spheres swivel would also be cool, aswell as add some more motion to the animation, but consider that it is hard to add proper shading to them if they are to be moving, and i also feel like it is too late now. I can also understand criticism on the textures of all my starwars models - i opted for a cartoony style simply because it is easier and faster to produce, but i realize that this has many drawbacks in terms of fitting in.

About the animation: even though the gunship is very stable in most renditions of it, it is important for animators to add motions even to motionless things, especially in strategy games where they will be seen at a distance. This is often evident in blizzards models - the undead air barge and goblin zeppelin are good examples.
 
''i think adding missiles into the model kinda limits it to use only that missile model''

ok granted I had assumed this would only shoot its model built missiles. didn't think you'd need to to shoot other kinds of missiles.

''and also there is the issue of users being forced to sync your projectile launch point to that of the animation, and even then it might look off''

I didn't have this problem, but then, you can use math for the beginning missile projectile x/y/z for its birth in the unit data combat I think, I messed around extensively with the nightelf chimeria, which has very, very, very odd projectile birth co-ordinates, so usually I just use the 0/0/100 tactic, the one hundredth of a second was never ''really'' off. that ones you're call my personal preference. I guess it does take a few in game tests to get it right.

''but consider that it is hard to add proper shading....''

pfffffffft shading shmading it looks beautiful as it is even with swiveling guns with no textured shading. I think it looks quite nice.

''Something i could have done though is to make the "tip" of the missile dissapear from the pod when it launches, but i decided against this in order to save space''

well, I found you have most of you're un seen ''space'', in those under side tubes, perhaps those could use some simplification, bare minimum some welding, because jesus 800 polys for those tubes? DAAAAAAAAAAAYUM
 
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