Concept artists walk through designing the Crusader Mercury Star Runner, a data-carrier courier ship: thumbnail silhouettes, asymmetry, beetle-wing shapes, a deployable scanner, and a ventilation-based interior layout. They also cover the 3ds Max and KeyShot workflow and the Carrack's cartography room.
So with the Mercury, we tried out a lot of different, varied shapes of this. This was just off the back of the Hercules, so we kind of knew what direction to go in, but we also wanted to have a little bit of a different spin on it. So we took that and just ran with it, and we ended up with quite a lot of varied, different shapes and ideas. We always had an underlying feeling like this for us is our next step in Crusader Industries. And it was like a courier craft. What do we want out of this, ultimately?
TL;DRThe team borrowed the Starliner's raised midsection and anvil-like top shape and the Hercules' air-intake inspiration, and explored asymmetry, which is why several of the designs are asymmetrical.
Well, we looked at the base shape of the Starliner, and it had almost like a hump in the middle section, and then it kind of looks like an anvil from the very top. So that's what we did with a few of these. We've had this midsection that's slightly raised in the middle and then kind of just spread out further towards the back. So it kind of gives that same appeal as the Starliner. And the Hercules had these sort of air intakes, and we got some of the inspiration from that from real life aircraft. So that's what we did for these ones. But as you can see, we did quite a lot of investigation work with these because originally it was going to go really far out, because we also had in the back of our minds asymmetry as well. So that's why there's a few of these that are asymmetrical, because it's what we wanted to go for.
Well, asymmetry, I think silhouette-wise, it's a good thing to stand out from the rest of ships, which is quite nice. I know the Caterpillar is quite a nice example because that's slightly asymmetrical. I absolutely love asymmetry. And also, it was just a point of interest for us to just investigate it and see. That's actually how it looked. And as it turned out, it looked quite nice.
Well, it's mainly beetles, because they also have their wings encased in an exterior, and then they're deployed outwards. So like this one, which is like a sweeping wing. I use a lot of ladybirds' wings, which are quite delicate, but they fold out into such a cool shape.
TL;DRThumbnails are very quick first-idea silhouettes made in 3ds Max and doodled over in Photoshop, aimed at giving a ship an instantly recognizable shape and purpose even from far away.
So a thumbnail is just getting it on the paper as quick as you can. It's like your first thoughts of what you're thinking internally. And these are done very quickly in 3ds Max, and then I put them into Photoshop and just literally doodle over them. And as you can see, this is number 73. So these are very fast, but they're just initial ideas formed off everything else that's come before it. And then we obviously get feedback and then they change.
Just to find that initial silhouette. Historians might remember the old spotter cards from World War II, when they would just have the silhouettes of planes so that soldiers on the ground could identify which plane was overhead, whether they were friendly or foe. The silhouette is your first read of a ship, and thumbnails are super important to just get that initial first glimpse, like, yes, that's how we want the ship to feel, before you go into all the crazy detail that comes throughout the process of building the ship.
Yeah, and that's why asymmetry works quite well as well, because you'll know instantly, even if it's in silhouette, exactly what ship it is. That's what I want. I want an instant read, even if it's miles and miles away. I want people to know exactly what it is when it's approaching you, because that way, like you said, you can identify its purpose as it's approaching.
Data carrier as its main objective. However, I like to have little surprises on my ship. I gave it a ventilation system as well, with compartments in the ventilation system for sensitive data, or if you've collected anything in particular that you want to stay hidden, shall we say. It evolved actually into something much more complex, and for me, I want it to be a really fun experience when you're on a ship. So it's almost like a level. So you can run around, and if you're getting hijacked or whatever, you can actually get out of that situation by what you've got on your ship, in terms of placement of objects and how the flow of the ship is. Which is what I did with this.
That's an excellent question. It's something that's still being developed, still being worked out by our game and systems design teams. When we have more information on that specifically, we'll of course do a segment on that stuff, but I would encourage you to check out the original promotion page, which will have the available information we have on those game systems there. Luckily for concept artists, they don't have to worry about things like how the game systems have to work.
TL;DRDesign metrics like landing pads, landing gear, ramp angles and docking ports are both fun and sometimes frustrating, since they limit what the artist wants to make but still lead to something enjoyable.
Yeah, it's very true, because you want the most bang for your buck, right? So you want to fit all this fun stuff in, but it's like, right, okay, because of the size of it, it does pose an interesting challenge. And that's where the fun comes in, because you're trying to plan this all out and make sure that it works, but you also want a great experience as well. And yeah, it is a lot of fun, but it can be frustrating at times as well, because you just want to put in...
Exactly, exactly. But as I say, you have to make sure that it fits on the landing pad, that the landing gear fits. There's so much to take into account that has to work on this.
TL;DRThe top-view scribbles plan a ship layout with good flow and multiple escape options, such as ventilation routes from room to room and the cockpit, so players face varied scenarios.
Like I was saying before, we wanted to make sure that you had an actual nice transition and flow to the ship. If someone was to come in here, you've got a multitude of options to basically escape. This also was planning out... I think we've got it on here. Yeah, so you can just see the beginnings of the ventilation underneath. And this is what we were saying: maybe if we had a ventilation in this room, you could sneak under and come out of this room. And maybe there's an area in here, which is the cockpit area, where you could pop out. And this is, oh, here we go. So this is the ventilation that you can see underneath at this very early stage. And this is what I want ultimately, a really fun experience. As you're playing, even on your ship, you don't know what scenario you're going to end up in. So it's good to have as many options as you possibly can.
Yeah, pretty much. I'm just like, I want to get the best angle for the ship, and I want to show it in its best light. So it's like you get a good overall shot. And I think we actually went with this one because it shows the avionics and then another room here. And then this door is open, so you get to see right through down into the bedroom on this side, and the chess room is here. So you get to see it all instead of just data pods, which are fine, but I just wanted to have that oomph.
I mean, from feedback that I've gotten off ship team, they would rather have more than less. So I like to give as much as possible, because it's fun, right? I like my ideas to just flow. I grew up with lots of sci-fi stuff that I want to put in. It's fun.
Okay, so this is what in 3ds Max we call X-ray vision. And this allows us to see the entirety of the ship, but we highlight certain sections of the ship that are of interest. So this is how we work out essentially where certain things are. And as you can see, ship items are actually in one contained area, which is easier for players to access, instead of them running around different sections of the ship from one end to the other. We saw through this X-ray that it's actually just better to contain them all in one section. And as I say, we can also showcase that everything does fit as well.
No, this is actually one of our... we have a repository that we get off. I think it's photobash.org, and we buy loads of imagery for our promotional stuff. And what you can do is, in KeyShot, you can set a backplate with the lighting direction, which is what we did here, and then we just add the effects in later. There's a few ways to get around an initial shot that you want. This is just the process that I use.
Yeah, this is just 3ds Max, and then we put it into KeyShot. But it's why our meshes have to be really, really clean and 100% really tight. Because in KeyShot, if your meshes are dirty or not very nice, all the smoothing groups can end up really, really horrible and you'll get artifacts and horrible geometry that you just don't want. And also it makes the ship team's life a little bit easier when your geometry is really clean, because it translates better over to when it goes into 3D. There's things like that that we have to bear in mind.
TL;DRYes, the Carrack's original block-out needed rework, with the back section reshaped to integrate better with the rest, the lines made to flow after feedback, and more detail added to the front.
I did, yeah. So this was what I was initially given, this initial block out. Again, we tried different ways of getting around this back end area, because we wanted to integrate this section a little bit better into what it was here. This is what we did to just quickly run through it. We wanted it to flow a little bit better in this back section, which is why it ended up the way it did here. And then here, as you can see, I got a little bit of feedback again off Paul and made sure that, because it kind of bends here, we want to make sure that this flows round again. So that's what I did here, just making sure that all the lines are flowing, trying to get into some of this original detailing that I had on the very initial Carrack, and also this front section as well, just breaking up little sections and adding detail, which the original had, but we wanted to make sure that it was a bit more integrated into the front.
No, because I played a lot of Mass Effect, and that map area was always so badass. You just want a cool vibe in that room. So after this concept, what you see in the cartography room currently does have that vibe, which is what we were after. It's really cool.