Shameless plug alert!! My entry for the last design contest can be seen here:

http://mmiski.tripod.com/raven.gif

(note: if the link doesn't work, copy and paste it)

Yeah I know, it's not 3D, but I think having multiple views like that should suffice.

Ohhhh... I can't wait to get back into Vendetta when all the older ship models are redesigned or updated.

:-o~

Arolte....I hope your back for good!

yes.. me, too :D

..here's a little something I splined up in Lightwave a while back.. it was a school comp, though, so I all I have is the .lwo and the output... no way to do anything with it :C..

http://cyonisp.net/~thurisaz/vendetta/starswept_1.jpg
http://cyonisp.net/~thurisaz/vendetta/starswept.jpg

...I even tried importing into Blender, but it can't handle un-frozen splines or sub-patch weight-maps, apparently

I guess I could return to my capship design plans. I have a cool idea for an Itani capship. Maybe I'll impliment it.

thurisaz: that's because Lightwave tends to handle splines slightly differently from other programs. But if you want to edit the mesh in a different program, just shoot me an email at k(dot)ichinaga(at)sbcglobal(dot)net, and I'll freeze and export your mesh.

I might as well throw in a ship design :)

I call it; Talon
http://pad.phalnet.com/view.php?imgid=907

myko - cool - reminds me of an American A-6 Attack Fighter.

Arolte - the Raven does look kinda like a Vulture. But Faster. Something I could RACE perhaps in the Deneb run?

thurisaz - that "Starswept" looks like the good ship that you can get in Escape Velocity - but I forget the EV ship's name.

tkjode - The talon looks like it was ripped from the pages of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". Very 50's-ish Buck-Rodgers feel for it.

I like all these designs. I can't wait until the devs can produce a ship-creation program that can accept .3ds or .max uploads. If your design is approved, it's added in the next update. Watch the number of ships available EXPLODE.

Interesting idea... there, installed Blender once again. :)

Just an observation: for the sake of science fiction you should probably avoid adding things that look like air intakes (unless designing an atmospheric craft).

tk's ship kinda looks like a clock radio. very cool though.

Here's one from a while back, my Serco Gunship. Little more than a layout for the moment.

Hmm... I'm assuming that the top is forward? Interesting... It'd need a lot of elaboration and tweaking to work in 3D, though.

/me has a fun little Serco gunship of his own brewing on his computer.

Just gotta give it a paint job and it'll be done.

Okay, chatting with Waylon, and he's suggesting a 2200-2500 triangle limit with 512x512 textures.

well, with those kind of limits...

http://www.myklittle.co.uk/stuff/elite/vultRes.jpg

did a polySmooth, fixed a couple of the texture issues, resampled the texture down to 512x512 (i love the bake texture command in Maya :) ) 2208 tri's

Well this is my concept for a 3-man Serco Gunship. I was originally trying to be consistant with Vendetta's textures, but I decided that they're pretty inconsistant themselves, so I went with a scheme that I thought was fun, and easy to do.

So as I said, it carries 3 people, and has two dual s-port turrets, and two fixed l-ports. The pilot controls the ship and the two l-ports, and the two gunners man the turrets. The nose turret can depress down for strafing runs, and has a wide firing arc to protect the top of the craft. The belly turret can depress forward for strafing runs, and can be fired directly behind the craft as well. The gunship is slow to roll, but has extra thrusters to make it quick to pitch and yaw, features that are useful for low-level strafing runs. The gunship is designed for both space and atmospheric assaults.

For the heck of it, I threw together a scene involving the gunship.

http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/vendetta/assault_craft_mosaic.jpg

1816 triangles

OMG! Nice work!

Hilarious comments on the talon guys! :)
"Sky Captain" 50's look and feel, clock radio.. I guess it scores points for "Oddest Source of Inspiration". Getting it down to 2500 polys will be.... trouble :P

These are all some awesome ship designs. Everyone's individual styles will add some excellent variety.

Let's see some more! :)

tkjode: well let's see... you could reduce the fuselage to oh, 17 polygons, each wing to 8 each, reduce the faces on the cannons, use only textures on the joints to the wings and to the cannons, and probably get it under 300 polys.

me see's another spaceship with wings, look forward to my ship soon(tm)

Here's my first textured ship. I've got a number of others, but they aren't textured yet, since I find modeling much more fun than texturing. :D (hence the semi-lousy job texturing)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/Dimpfinator/Sepat.jpg

314 Triangles. 157 faces untriangluated.

Edit: yoda, does this have short enough wings for ya? :P

~Seldon

Here's my first attempt, done in Wings with a few touchups in Photoshop because Wings' renderer did some weird clipping.

http://qsfclan.org/members/mooncaine/VO/long-range-scout-concept.jpg

[edited to make the link display properly for you]