Space ship designs, finally finished

[Waylon]

Hey, everyone. Well, I started designing these three ships last August. We finally just released the designs to the public, so I'm free to post them as I please. They're for a mmorpg space game I'm working on called Vendetta.

http://www.guildsoftware.com/products.html

Anyway, enough outta me, here's some art.

http://waylon-art.com/galleries/2/SercoSmallFighter.jpg

http://waylon-art.com/galleries/2/ItaniSmallFighter.jpg

http://waylon-art.com/galleries/2/NeutralSpider.jpg

Any comments or critiques, I'd love to hear them. I won't be changing these designs any more, but I have plenty of work still ahead of me.

The concepts for the ships are as follows:

The first one is built by a militaristic faction who only have about 300 years of ship building experience. They don't have force shields or anything, so it's plated like a tank.

The second one is built by a faction who's had space flight for over a millenium, but never had cause to fight anyone (until recently.) They're in the process of converting civilian craft designs into fighters.

The third one is built by sort of a nomad faction. The ships are hacked apart and put back together in different configurations as the need arises.

So that's what I was aiming for with the three designs. Like I said, any comments or crits would be greatly appreciated!

http://www.waylon-art.com

[soupface]

they look good, i like the third the most. when designing ships, i think there are a couple things to keep in mind...

each class of ship needs to be identifiable quickly. make it so that just the silhouette of the ship will be enough to differentiate it from other ships.

for each 'race' have a certain style. you've done this pretty well so far, but stick with it. the ancient ship builders (2nd image) should all look sleek and round - maybe all of them have blue decals on them as well.

there should be an obvious front and back, especially for fighters. have big exhaust pipes, or windows or something to make one side the stern, the other the bow. the first image kinda lacks this...

symmetry is over-rated. your nomads' ships should be awkward or un-conventional for sure.

your project is pretty ambitious. reminds me of escape velocity (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/all.html) (old mac game). good luck on it, looks like you've a good start.

[davi]

very cool, very nice to see the last one finished!

[Waylon]

Hey guys, thanks for the comments!

soup: Good points, all of them. I've been subconsciously trying to achieve all of them, but now that you've spelled them out, it should be easier. Couple comments...

The front and back will be obvious in-game, since you'll see bright glowing exhaust trails coming out of the back. I should have included them in the render, since it really IS part of the ship design, but I'm lazy.

I think you're right about the symmetry too.... but I just can't design cool-looking asymmetric ships! I guess that's what practice is for.

And yep, a lot of people have compared Vendetta to Escape Velocity. Haven't played it myself, but I watched one of my coworkers play it for a little while. Oh, how much simpler it would be to make a 2d game!

Davi: :) I agree. It took me long enough!