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KJCs Work

kjc733

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*Taps the microphone*
We are now on the final run up to that busy time of year. I probably won't be about much now until after Christmas, so I thought I'd get in early and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Now it's time for a speech.

Recently we had the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, and like many others I got a little caught up and wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. However while I was trying to decide what exactly to do, I realised that it was actually of little importance to me. It's just a number, I wasn't even around when it first aired. I realised that what was more worthy of celebration are the communities which keep it alive.

MSFC is one such community. MSFC has been here for over twelve years, and while many of us came here for the free downloads, we end up staying for the community. After nearly ten years here, this little corner of the internet has almost become a second online home.

Now I know precisely one thing about making speeches and that's that shorter is better, so I'll try to wrap this up quickly.

All hands, Attention.
Majestic and Hellkite, front and centre.
Whilst MSFC has a good team of admin staff (who generally don't have to do much :lol2:), I think we can say that the continued existence of this site is down to the perseverance of these two people in particular.

Majestic and Hellkite, you two are the cornerstones of this site. You have kept it going even through your own personal troubles and I salute you for it.

Time for the grand unveiling. This one is for you guys, I hope you like it.
Merry Christmas.
 

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CABAL

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Agreed! Big thanks to @Majestic and @Hellkite!

who generally don't have to do much
No kidding. The vast majority of my uses of staff powers have been to occasionally pin a thread or to edit my own posts past the usual expiration date, primarily the big list of multiplayer games.
 

Hellkite

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Well we do have a lot of good folks here that make it what it is ... a extended family.

Thank you Kjc and have yourself a Merry little Christmas.
 

SciFiFan

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That is beautiful work @kjc733

I agree about Hellkite and Majestic. I also agree with Hellkite on the members here. Makes this the easiest job ever. Now only if the guys I work with IRL were as well behaved.
 

Jetfreak

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Some damn fine work kjc and a fitting tribute! Well done buddy, the kjc-spec fleet finally has their flagship.
 

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Damn beautiful work KJC, as always. Sending many happy holiday wishes to you all and a very Merry Christmas.

I still love seeing that such a tiny couple of games like Armada 1 and 2 could bring together such a fantastic community of folks from all around the world.
 

kjc733

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Thanks all. I was away a little longer than expected, but I hope everyone had a good time.

--------​

Another beautiful render by Jetfreak. I requested it for a friend of mine - and he very much appreciated it so thank you Jetfreak.
 

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kjc733

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So I got the old XP machine with Maya v5 fired up. Unfortunately it seems I've tweaked a large number of the later models in Maya 2012 which aren't compatible [insert swearing here]. Today I've been fighting to get my exported Midway and Tempest to behave (they had been massively rescaled and lost material characteristics) and I found that I can sometimes get away with a 3K render with draft settings. So I don't think there will be any work on the level of the Wyvern for a bit... at least until I bite the bullet and decide to go on the monthly subscription license and Maya 2018 LT.

Anyway, pretty Midway picture. And yes, I reused the background, this was just supposed to be a quick experiment but instead it took four hours!
 

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Majestic

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I'm a bit late to the party. Thanks KJC, I appreciate the mention. The members and staff deserve the credit though I do bugger all these days lol.

Loving the redesign Midway, love the inclusion of the hangars, aft and around the saucer. The design is certainly more carrier like now. :)

Excellent work mate.
 

Jetfreak

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It's heartbreaking to hear the software troubles man, feels like a train wreck of bad luck.

Just when things were getting good!
 

kjc733

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Thank you. A low poly version of the Tempest runabout (a Hellkite design) is available in the downloads, the Midway isn't yet.
 

Majestic

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Great work mate. :)
 

kjc733

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Switching to "glass half full" I've decided to work on the principle that losing Maya on the new PC leaves me no worse off than before - running Maya 5 on the XP PC (well, technically it leaves me around a grand worse off, but I've been playing a lot of World of Warships and STO looks great on it, and I'm considering Subnautica, so maybe not wasted).
Anyway, I'm now revisiting the low poly version of the Midway.
Good news - most of my Midway work was done on the old PC, so only the final version of the mesh is absent. Even that may not be too bad as I exported it as .obj for Jetfreak so I should still be able to recover it, I hope.
Bad news - the high poly Midway had some seriously rejigged textures, so I need to remap large parts of the low poly hull. The (partially) mapped low poly saucer also didn't have the hangers.

Question 1 - is there interest in a low poly Midway? I haven't yet tried to install A2 so it would probably be released like the Tempest Runabout, with some assembly required.
Question 2 - Would there be interest in a Midway without the saucer hangers? I can do this, it just means yet more mapping work on my part.
 

Majestic

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I would love to see a low poly version of the midway with the hangars. Ultimately it's up to you if you want to put the work into it or not. I know how tedious mapping is. It's probably the sole reason I take huge breaks from my own modelling endeavours.
 

Jetfreak

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Sorry to say but I don't even have the earlier obj versions backed up sorry kjc. But maybe you can double check the attachments you made on the PM conversations from before.
 

kjc733

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I have an obj of the final Midway on my DA Staash (let me know if you want the link).
I have mostly remapped the low poly Midway. So far it'll work out at about 8k polies, although there is still some fat to trim. That's also including the physical phaser arrays, which will save me about 800 if I texture them in.

EDIT
Down to around 7k and I missed some arrays, they are about 1600 polies. So I can get down to about 5500 polygons if I texture them. Any thoughts?
 
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Jetfreak

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I'd say 5k polys is pretty good, but if she's going to be a one-off hero unit anyway. You can just leave it at 7k and save yourself from extra texture work.
 

kjc733

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As a compromise position I have removed the physical groove from the phasers but kept the arrays as physical objects. That has brought it down to about 6100 polies.

EDIT
And the final count is 5988.
 
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Majestic

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As a compromise position I have removed the physical groove from the phasers but kept the arrays as physical objects. That has brought it down to about 6100 polies.

EDIT
And the final count is 5988.

That's a good count for todays standards especially if people aren't usinf stock A2 but FO as the base of their installs.

My Constitution is like about 4800 and it's a massed produced unit.
 

kjc733

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So the Midway is now in Milkshape and has 66 hardpoints - well actually more as I forgot I needed to rotate them. I've also created a preliminary odf. So now it's just a texture update (the low poly hull has a few slight geometry differences) and I need to convert my glow map to an alpha map. I'm hoping I'll get it done in the next few days.
 

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FlowRellik

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Whoa that looks gorgeous! I assume she's a carrier type, like the ArkRoyal right?
 

kjc733

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She's a battle carrier, it's a "reimagining" of the original Midway class which was used for a RP on this site (see the Midway part of the forum).
 

Hellkite

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Midway Class

317affe1a6fa9b44e54a6a434ed8b161.jpg


well the the original Midway
 

FlowRellik

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Oh my goodness. Defiant + Akira + Sovvie = Gorgeous!
Plz tell me it does pulse phasers?!
 
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