Ahoy mates, I think it's about time to reveal the details of an upgrade project for our Constitution model.
You may have heard about Captain Armstrong's work on the ship, which involved rescaling the model to a more realistic size,
cutting down the bulwarks to match the real ship's current state, and adding a new helm, new capstan, new cannons and carronades.
He gave me the model to finish off and export to GM format, and now I've finally got round to working on it (in between with my other projects).
I decided that, since the model was in Maya anyway, it would be a great opportunity to reorganise some of the UVs that I didn't adjust before.
I'm hoping this, along with several texture changes, will give the ship a much more authentic and realistic appearance.
However, the biggest obstacle of this endeavour is the ship's locators. Seeing as the whole thing is about 24% bigger than the current version, the locators would need to be redone.
One easy way of doing this is to import them into Maya (using a tool that Iron Roger Flint gave me), scale them to fit the ship, and export them with the model.
This seems to have failed, though, since I still cannot export any locators with any model. I thought that would bring the whole project to a standstill...
... Until today! Thankfully, I managed to find a way to import the locators into Excel. There I could quickly scale the X, Y and Z coordinates, and export the lot to a text file, which TOOL can read from. This does seem to have worked, and now I can apply that method to all the remaining locators to get the ship in-game much more quickly!![Pirate Dance :dance :dance](/styles/emoticons/danse1.gif)
Anyway, the best part is, I'm nearly finished with the model (try to ignore the rendering glitches):
![Constitution_upgrade2.jpg Constitution_upgrade2.jpg](https://www.piratesahoy.net/data/attachments/2/2106-b8003f2207bd600e27def20c858daca3.jpg)
The new details (carronades, helm, capstan) are what Captain Armstrong added, and the texture changes I've made are as follows:
Before I go ahead and finish her off, though, I'm keen to have some feedback on the progress so far.
To all you enthusiasts out there: is there anything left to do to make the ship even better? Anything I've missed out or could improve on? :hmm
UPDATE 1st October 2012: The upgraded Constitution and Battle Frigates are now finished and available for PotC and CoAS.
![New_Constitution_Textures.jpg New_Constitution_Textures.jpg](https://www.piratesahoy.net/data/attachments/2/2765-264e24fc16306863927c613f23d921b1.jpg)
UPDATE December 2014: To anyone wondering how to get this ship:
It's included in the PotC: New Horizons mod in the later eras for various countries, and also in the GOF2.5 mod for Age of Pirates 2.
You may have heard about Captain Armstrong's work on the ship, which involved rescaling the model to a more realistic size,
cutting down the bulwarks to match the real ship's current state, and adding a new helm, new capstan, new cannons and carronades.
He gave me the model to finish off and export to GM format, and now I've finally got round to working on it (in between with my other projects).
I decided that, since the model was in Maya anyway, it would be a great opportunity to reorganise some of the UVs that I didn't adjust before.
I'm hoping this, along with several texture changes, will give the ship a much more authentic and realistic appearance.
However, the biggest obstacle of this endeavour is the ship's locators. Seeing as the whole thing is about 24% bigger than the current version, the locators would need to be redone.
One easy way of doing this is to import them into Maya (using a tool that Iron Roger Flint gave me), scale them to fit the ship, and export them with the model.
This seems to have failed, though, since I still cannot export any locators with any model. I thought that would bring the whole project to a standstill...
... Until today! Thankfully, I managed to find a way to import the locators into Excel. There I could quickly scale the X, Y and Z coordinates, and export the lot to a text file, which TOOL can read from. This does seem to have worked, and now I can apply that method to all the remaining locators to get the ship in-game much more quickly!
![Pirate Dance :dance :dance](/styles/emoticons/danse1.gif)
Anyway, the best part is, I'm nearly finished with the model (try to ignore the rendering glitches):
![Constitution_upgrade1.jpg Constitution_upgrade1.jpg](https://www.piratesahoy.net/data/attachments/2/2105-17107dc495239113bde46f951f2457e9.jpg)
![Constitution_upgrade2.jpg Constitution_upgrade2.jpg](https://www.piratesahoy.net/data/attachments/2/2106-b8003f2207bd600e27def20c858daca3.jpg)
The new details (carronades, helm, capstan) are what Captain Armstrong added, and the texture changes I've made are as follows:
- Deck, masts, wheel and capstan all use dcUS.tga (a modified version of dek3.tga which I designed for Captain Armstrong's own models). All their UVs have been modified to fit the texture and to match the real ship as closely as possible.
- Bulwarks are a darker shade of green, and the texture is more detailed.
- Cannons and carronades use a brand new version of Inzanagun1.tga (I've also made a yellow version, for those interested).
Before I go ahead and finish her off, though, I'm keen to have some feedback on the progress so far.
To all you enthusiasts out there: is there anything left to do to make the ship even better? Anything I've missed out or could improve on? :hmm
UPDATE 1st October 2012: The upgraded Constitution and Battle Frigates are now finished and available for PotC and CoAS.
![New_Constitution1.jpg New_Constitution1.jpg](https://www.piratesahoy.net/data/attachments/2/2763-f80ba7685f44c38b52604a7356774d79.jpg)
![New_Constitution2.jpg New_Constitution2.jpg](https://www.piratesahoy.net/data/attachments/2/2764-316066cdd6f8850cafe55ebc81049fbc.jpg)
![New_BattleFrigate1.jpg New_BattleFrigate1.jpg](https://www.piratesahoy.net/data/attachments/2/2762-950141ca11b38473f9ac3ae0f1fe2b8e.jpg)
![New_Constitution_Textures.jpg New_Constitution_Textures.jpg](https://www.piratesahoy.net/data/attachments/2/2765-264e24fc16306863927c613f23d921b1.jpg)
UPDATE December 2014: To anyone wondering how to get this ship:
It's included in the PotC: New Horizons mod in the later eras for various countries, and also in the GOF2.5 mod for Age of Pirates 2.
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