Fan and Community Art: Official Thread

Glad more people are starting to contribute:

slightly crappy air picture due to goofy height range. I still wish Air was just a little bit higher off the ground. Seriously looks like they are skimming the surface trying to ram themselves into the commander.

None the less. This tank commander is in no safe haven.

This thread inspired me to finally take a crack at Blender last night; it was both less intuitive than I thought, but also pretty rewarding/entertaining. Here's a really crude idea for the tactical nuke launcher I'd like to mod in (I wish it looked better, but I was figuring out Blender as I made it so... yeah):



@sirmantron your stuff looks great, any good Blender tutorials or PA specific tips you could share?

HOW did you get that good at Blender in one night? I was on it for hours and only managed some slightly mal-deformed cubes that wouldn't go where I bloody well wanted them.

Same here!

I'd say blender is easier to learn than 3Ds MAX, GMax, Alias Wavefront, Maya or mudbox.
Tho i found blenders right click interface can be counter-intuitive.

I've found 3Ds MAX has the steepest learning curve but is the most rewarding 3d modeling software out there as it has by far the most extensive set of "Properly Working" plugins for the import and export of models.

I use Maya sorry, I've only used Blender enough to be a teaching assistant on a short course once, which means I learnt how to fix all of the common bugs and that's pretty much it.
But seeing as its a free program I'm sure there's plenty of great resources online.

As for PA specific tips, just take a lot of screenshots of the game and keep then open when designing and modelling, and keep referring back to them to make sure everything looks right.

Edit: Actually I do have a tip that applies to all programs: Save literally every ten seconds, and every time you make a good bit of progress make a a new save. Trust me on this.

I don't know, Maya is the industry standard for a reason
(not that it matters cause Autodesk owns all of them anyway)

Yay for art thread being sticky again!

We must celebrate this!!! The almighty gods of Uber listened to the requests of us, mere mortals, and granted us stickiness of this amazing thread that was brought to us from heavens!

hehe, you guys are too cute ^_^

As for me, I didn't have too much trouble mastering Blender - but I had the benefit of the many video tutorials off of the main Blender site. The Argonaut (and my avatar) are just some of the many thing's I've made in it, and far from the most impressive (here's a little showcase of some of the cool stuff: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/352/a/b/keirion_shipyards_by_tohron-d6yee52.png)

Y'know, say what you will about T1 units and their usefulness, they still make badass looking armies.

*those three guys that decide to clip through the rock and ruin the picture should've been first to die*
*that planet rise though*
Also, this picture was taken in my first large multispawn game (4 planets, 2 asteroids, against 4 normal AI)
It was actually pretty damn fun, the invasion problems are definitely there, but only on planets.
I actually found it relatively easy to invade asteroids, but invading the final enemies planet was nearly impossible, I ended up having to use an asteroid to take it out.
Overall impressions on multispawns (w/ AI): Good stuff.

It got stickied again! huzzah!

Another T1 army picture, this time with 1000 doxen.
(This time taken on max settings for your viewing pleasure!)

I just love how uniformed the formations make armies look.

Another more aerial picture to show the scale of 1000 units


EDIT: Oh damn, I broke the 1 image/post rule, sorry about that :[

That rule has been broken about a million times by now, don't worry about it.

Inspired by the fourth faction, "The Revenants", I decided to assemble a bit of poetry. If it gets enough positive feedback, I will include it somewhere, somehow in my short story/fan fiction thread.


Rebirth of Old Hammerhead

Artillery pounding
As the wind was howling
All over the battlefield
Debris covering soil like a shield

As the army was marching
Enemies repealed
Mercy they were craving

At the shores, stationed the fleet
Raining death to anything on retreat

Onward the army marched
Above them explosive shells arched
Enemy lines breached
Destination nearly reached
Onward the army marched

Up in the sky overhead
Aircraft stormed ahead
To the old Hammerhead
They go for him, to behead

There shall be his eternal grave
On which they engrave:
Hammerhead the fallen,
Reborn among Revenant, flaw-ridden

Picture of Mercury that I thought would be a cool moon biome:

EDIT: I don't think this image is pseudocolored but that's just like, my oppinion man

It's definitely false-colour, mercury is as grey as a grey thing, to human eyes. I don't have anything against a moon-like world with a bright-but-tasteful colour palette though.

Even if Mercury doesn't look like that, a biome with those kind of colours could be pretty cool looking, especially when viewed as a closely orbiting moon from a larger planet, and I would imagine that kind of thing would be pretty easy to implement.

Nasa took the image and they say otherwise:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2455.html#.UzDIHPmUa0d

Glad I added that disclaimer.