[WIPz] Akaviri paddle wheel ship

[auryga]

My real world project is almost done, so I'm back to modding again. Beside playing Skyrim of course

Started this project long ago, even before Rimmen as far as I remember. I wanted an Akaviri ship for my Fuyohin island project back then and while searching for ancient japanese or chinese ships I found this Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_history_of_China. Never knew the chinese already invented paddle wheel ships in the 5th–6th centuries AD ...

Here's the one of the pictures that mainly inspired my mod: http://www.authentischermodellbau.de/LT_Dschunke/LT_Dschunke2/files/page18-1001-full.html. Lot more pictures of model ships on that website. And those model ships are all very detailed, almost perfect as samples.

Currently it's still an Oblivion mod but I'm changing textures now to those from Skyrim. As soon as the Creation Kit and the "Blender to Skyrim" scripts are availiable this ship will become part of the next Akaviri invasion to Skyrim

Some screenshot out of Blender; looks a bit better in Oblivion but my Oblivion installation didn't like the changes I had to made for Skyrim

[ResolveThatChord]

Wow! looks great.

If you want to set up a nice prievew shot in blender without rendering, turn on GLSL shading. It'll display lights, shadows and normal maps in real time.

[auryga]

Never tried GLSL before, many thanks! Looks really better now, although I couldn't set up the lighting (as bad?) as in Oblivion. It now looks very much like Skyrim objects. And I will have to improve several parts, can see much more errors now than before

Needs a lot more work to update the materials to Skyrim than I had expected. So many new features now in the material settings of Skyrims NIF files. They look as confusing as Blenders material and texture settings to me. Seem I have to learn much more about this things first.

[jaysus]

well the akavirii are kinda like the whole south east asia area, many different cultures with many different styles, but a djunke is quite ok i think, but id also check the japanese and korean ships for inspiration, ...and add sails

those ships mostly had rowers for more maneuvarability but also sails for support or prolonged journeys

the imperial fleet of admiral Zheng He which is supposed to have traveleed the world up to south america and back could give alot of inspiration too, lots of awesome ship designs

not sure abut the texture yet, would be nice to see some close up screenshots, maybe even a render, and a model view with the topology/edges visible so we can give more tips

if you wanna use i ingame i also suggest to split the exterior from the interior and delte the other side... kinda like the buildings in skyrim/fallout/oblivion/etc, in exteriors you just see the exterior and once you activate a door you get inside

saves alot of performance which you can put into details or better textures... details!!! lots of em

for example check how they jointed the wooden planks and so on and either put it into your textures or if they have a visible shape that aint fakeable in 2d then model em

........anyway, love the whole idea so far

i just dont fancy the huge rudderwheel thing, that feels too much like a mississipi cruise imo even tho they might have had it, but well, maybe i just need convincing

[ResolveThatChord]

I'd say the paddle wheel is a neat solution for working within the limitations of the engine. I think the textures need work if you want it to fit in Skyrim; tiling repititions are immediately visible. Of course it may just be the lack of lighting that makes it look that way.

[jaysus]

@tiling

ya but there is no real way against that, making a texture that spans the ntire object would result in one thats much too large and tiling wont be as visible closeup anyway, beth does all the huge objects like that too... however you cuold break up the tiling by inserting objects with different textures between elements with the same

[Ysne58]

I wonder if some of the beyond skyrim projects would be interested in something like this as a means of transport over water or between mods.

http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/forum/120-beyond-skyrim-discussion/

[Porscha]

Wow this is awesome . Keep it up!

What do you have planned for it? A home? Separate docked ship with bandits or ancient Blade members?

[knight_phoenix]

This looks really cool. I was liked the ship homes in Oblivion.