WIP 17th century Dutch Frigate project

[Post Captain]

The diameter of the stays looks good. The lowermost stays would have been even thicker. Depending on how much tie it takes, you could even stop there.

The running rigging does look way too thick at .05. Generally, the largest lines you would see in a vessel were at around 3/4 inches thick. You might see 1 inch line, but only in two or three applications out of 300 or so. It could be conceivable that lines of around one inch were used on braces and halyards on ships of the line.

Line sizes were fairly uniform- to an extent. Small vessels of under 60 feet or so, depending on their rigs, would have used smaller lines to lift the lighter loads that their rigging produced. Lines on a vessel came in a huge variety of thicknesses, and thinner lines were preferred for light loads, such as stays'l halyards.

An example: The t'gallant halyard of a 60 foot packet ship might be of 1/2 inch line, while the same halyard on a 112 foot corvette might be composed of 3/4 inch line.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Adding more ropes does have an impact on fps as a lot more detail is added. So I don't think making the stays out of 8 or 12 bundled ropes is a good idea. Making the ropes thicker makes them easier to see and looks better with less AA and AF. The downside to that is when on deck they are too thick.

So, what do we want? 0.03 to make them look not too thick on deck, or thicker to make stays fatter?

I will try 0.04 just to see what they look like.

 

[Post Captain]

I guess we'll just have to choose whatever looks best in 3rd person. By the way, has anyone ever thought about replacing the original deck textures? I don't know how good photo texturing looks, but Pilgrim's decks were just redone and would be perfect for a new texture. I could get some pictures of the new deck surface, and I may have pictures of the old worn deck as well. (I brought it up because I was going to make a "first person doesn't look quite as good" comment)

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The original deck textures have been replaced. You're going to upset Armada there. As I see it, the biggest problem with better decks, or anything generic, is that it looks out of place on the older ships. Other than that, sharper is better.

I've been sailing different sized ships and have gotten uncomfortable with 0.05. 0.04 is the best overall compromise. That setting is not obviously wrong on deck and the stays still look ok.

 

[Post Captain]

Huh... I hadn't noticed. It's been awhile since I last updated CoAS.

 

[Armada]

The original deck textures have been replaced. You're going to upset Armada there. As I see it, the biggest problem with better decks, or anything generic, is that it looks out of place on the older ships. Other than that, sharper is better.

Well I updated the PotC textures, at least. I'm open to believing that it's still not perfect, though.
I have considered using the PotBS deck texture (like I'm using on the Rossiya) to improve the PotC texture, but never got round to it.
I could try using a photo reference if one is provided, and if that doesn't work out, then I reckon the PotBS texture could be tweaked to work well.

I've been sailing different sized ships and have gotten uncomfortable with 0.05. 0.04 is the best overall compromise. That setting is not obviously wrong on deck and the stays still look ok.

OK then, hopefully that should please all parties.
Pieter, could you adjust this value in rigging.ini for the next update?

 

[Post Captain]

In that case, I'll definitely take some pictures tomorrow. I know of some areas that may help as references. If you decide not to use them, it won't be a big deal; it should only take me a couple of seconds.

 

[Post Captain]

I didn't get those pictures today. It rained here for once (and it's a good thing it did- it's been really dry the past few years) so the lighting was horrible, and the decks were drenched. On the bright side, we managed to finish unbending the last of our sails before the downpour started. I'll upload stuff that I already have that shows the coloration, and I'll get some pictures next time I'm down there in the sun. The forecast says next Saturday will be clear.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

OK then, hopefully that should please all parties.
Pieter, could you adjust this value in rigging.ini for the next update?

Done:

; rope width
fWIDTH = 0.04    // Petros: stock value is 0.025 - LDH set back from 0.05

 

[modernknight1]

Well it seems that this topic has turned towards the La Licorne. One word of caution on the ropes is that when I was solving some of our GOF crash issues in Eras my loggers went crazy with rope errors, so hopefully this doesn't add to that. It does look good though.

Now back on the topic of this thread...

So I noticed that there was some discussion on the evolution of Frigates and what was properly a frigate. I will try to be brief. For those that don't want a history lesson or don't care about naval etymology please skip ahead to the last paragraph...

Frigatte or Fregatta is Italian and/or Catalonian. The first ships referred to as being fregattes were a type of new smaller hybrid Galleas developed during the 1570s/80s (after Lepanto). The Galleass was a gigantic oared warship with hundreds of rowers and often with a large round castle-like turret on the prow full of guns. They often had one or two drawbridges for boarding and landing troops.

The Galley was of course the lightly armed oared warship that was the mainstay of Mediterranean warfare for over a thousand years. At the great Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the combined navies of Christendom defeated the Ottoman Turks. The first use of large Galleons intermixed with Galleys and Galleasses made a huge impression. The high freeboard Galleons with their large formidable stable gun platforms were almost invulnerable to the Turks. Everyone knew the end of the oared warship as the dominant species was at an end. The desire after Lepanto was to build something that had the best attributes of oar and sail combined. This medium galleasse or "Fregatta" was larger and faster than a galley with more guns. She carried a combined square and lateen rig. She sometimes retained the round tower in the prow, but it was cut down to a single deck. Her development was short lived and as hostilities and naval conflict increased in Flanders, the Netherlands became the hotbed of naval development. The next ship that was given the designation of Fregatte was the quick and nimble hybrid pinas-ship of the Dunkirkers, Oostenders and Sea Beggars. At this point after - the word Frigate was now used as a generic term meaning "Fast and Maneuverable Warship". I discuss a lot of this in my story on Piet Heyn and his encounter with the Iris.

These frigate designs could be single or double decked and no real classification came about until the Second Anglo-Dutch war when during De Witt's massive naval reforms and the rebuilding of the Dutch Navy into a larger more organized force that could better challenge the heavier English warships, the five Admiralties of the United Provinces agreed that future Frigates would have one continuous main gun deck open in the waist with smaller secondary gundecks above on the castles. However, with most shipbuilding privately contracted, and the VOC building ships with higher freeboard to better withstand tropical weather, there were still many ships built with two full gun-decks for decades after the admiralties classification - that were still classified as frigates (just as the one that's the subject of this thread).

Kris picked it up from here with his explanation. However even after the common 18th century codification, there are still numerous later references to ships as frigates that clearly were not by the standards of the mid and late 18th century.

End of commentary:

So Craiggo is hard at work on skins and as usual they are very nice, but he has also been tutoring yours truly on Photoshop. I am nearly done with my own first skin. What do you think? MK

View attachment 9166

 

[Armada]

That looks beautiful MK! The only think that looks odd to me is the black and yellow pattern on the windows, but it's probably due to weird UV mapping.
Sometimes it can be a pain to make it look right via texturing.

Thanks for adding to the frigate discussion. It's been a long standing source of confusion because of the changing definition, so it's good to finally make things clear.

Sorry about the Licorne discussion going on a bit. There's a separate thread for that now.

 

[Thomas the Terror]

Scheme is good. But like the work of Craiggo... it seems too airbrushed. You need more weathered wood and try to recreate the feel that it's painted on rather than wood with a green colour. You could do this by adding scratches or bladdering spots where the original wood colour would pop up.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So Craiggo is hard at work on skins and as usual they are very nice, but he has also been tutoring yours truly on Photoshop. I am nearly done with my own first skin. What do you think? MK

Very good! Especially for a first go at it!

 

[Post Captain]

I like the upper part of the transom.

 

[modernknight1]

Thank you for the comments. Thanks Thomas for the recommendation on the rendering/weathering. I had some neat effects with the fiber option. I am still working on that texture, but decided in the interim to go with one our own modelers textures.

What I would really like is a really good clinker texture. Does anyone have or know where I could get a really good clinker texture?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

This is the closest thing to a clinker texture that I know of is this one from the FWzP.

 

[modernknight1]

Thanks Hylie, I don't know why I didn't think of that.

After all the FWzP is currently my favorite ship in game.

MK

 

[modernknight1]

Just an update on this project. I have made another skin (almost finished) and Craiggo has made a couple also. He just finished the rigging. He was able to get three sails per masts like I wanted, However unfortunately he wasn't able to change out the masts. He says its beyond his ability.

If anyone thinks they could model new correct masts for this ship please let me know. I will make it worth your while. I am also willing to learn to do it myself if someone thinks they can teach me. MK

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I recognize those masts. That ship is based on this one.

The masts from a pinnace or fluyt might fit except for those big mast stumps sticking up. It would probably take some one who knows Maya to remove those stumps.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I was unable to find a donor ship. No other masts fit. It will take someone who knows Maya to rebuild those masts.