SS GB - a few screenies (big pictures - beware

Hi,

Just a few odd screenie's from the development of SS Great Britain for those who are interested (see gallery for more details). Different stages of development, but what I am trying to show here is the water effect.

First ocean tests.
www.smartscreenuk.com/ssgb/ssgb_oceantest001.jpg

Shadow demo with ocean.
www.smartscreenuk.com/ssgb/ssgb_011.jpg

Early ship and ocean.
www.smartscreenuk.com/ssgb/ssgb_007.jpg

Early ship with ocean and now land mass (early version)
www.smartscreenuk.com/ssgb/ssgb_008.jpg

Almost final version of ship viewed from high off port side for ocean effect to be seen properly.
www.smartscreenuk.com/ssgb/ssgb_006.jpg

Shots from the final simulation - although not from the correct camera view - again just for the sake of getting a slightly better full view.

www.smartscreenuk.com/ssgb/ssgb_009.jpg

www.smartscreenuk.com/ssgb/ssgb_010.jpg


View the screenies in order to get a feel for how this developed over the months.


I want to say a few thanks...

I should say Shawn Swifts shadow system looks fantastic in this and adds a massive leap in realism on viewing with and without. Nigel Brown - thanks dude! His help on the serial port code made life much easier (actaully possible would be more to the truth). Barliesque whose flares worked a treat even under great cpu pressure). Mousey for his support and encouragement as always. John Blackledge for his thoughts and encouragement during the development of this project. Particle Candy worked a treat too - thanks Mike!

As with all things code of this nature, there were a number of significant challenges with this project, but we got over most of them and the overall final effect of the sim is very nice - well I am proud of it anyway.


IPete2.

..looking nice...good work

Very pwetty.

Is it me, or are the shadows in the first pic leaning *towards* the sun? Prolly just an artifact of it being an early pic...

LineOf7s,

Well spotted! Yep you are quite right - I think I'll put a couple of shots to show the very first dev piccies as these were hilarious compared.

I changed the skybox but not the position of the light source for the sun! Lol! You'll also notice that one or two of the rigging sections are lit when they shouldn't be. Gile[s] fixed this in a jiffy with the fabulous 'flip' command from the menu - wow what a life saver! :)

IPete2.

Excellent job, and sounds like a great project overall (here for anyone that hasn't read about it).

It's looking very nice and it is a very good sea effect and the SS Great Britain seems pretty detailed, Brunel would probably approve of it :).

The one thing I would suggest though is looking into using a lightmap style texture for showing windage on the ocean, as there doesn't appear to be light/dark patches from those screenies.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the effect I mean, but when you're out there localised wind pockets change the appearance of the water, especially in shallows. You can pretty much "see" wind at sea... If I recall (it's been a few years) stronger wind makes the water darker.

well done.

:)
Very well done. A fine example of what can be done with b3d.

hey IP... if you get a free second, could you give us a lil bit on how much is Blitz and where is it implemented...

no need to go into great detail or anything...

yes... without reservation, this is one of the most professional looking application of Blitz3d i've seen so far...

--Mike

Thanks for the comments guys!

@Mike, and anyone else who is interested, it is all Blitz 3D, with a lot of care and love heaped on to many aspects of development to create something which I am very proud of. The development of this project took a few months of hard graft, especially on the steering control side, but the result was absolutely worth it.

The main applications used to create it:

Blitz 3D (of course)
3D Studio Max 6.5
Gile[s] (what a fantastically useful product this is!)
Photoshop

There were really two or three really big headaches with this project...

Shadows (quite a few problems to iron out there! I should say not with Shawns code but with how to implement shadows falling on to a moving receiver - that's a no no!), serial port connections (control of what comes in and what is sent out by Blitz 3D - Nigel Brown to the rescue), good enough resolution for large projection of a low polygon model and high resolution textures, enough frame rate to make it work smoothly - this remains a close run thing, it could do with a better PC and graphics card.

All in all a fabulous project to work on, and I am looking forward to more of this type of work in the near future.

IPete2.

thx IP... that's amazing... all Blitz3D...

well, i think you've got every reason to be proud of this baby... it really looks great...


--Mike

interesting stuff man...nice work :)