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[Erick Doe]

There's only two in a wing though. 

[Nanao-kun]

Seems to be one of the "over-engineered" Corvette Wings, like the Excalibur Wing in Valkyrian.

[Pelly]

Seems to be one of the "over-engineered" Corvette Wings, like the Excalibur Wing in Valkyrian.

My term was 'overcompensating flyboy wings'

I really like the orange ships HELMUT, and think the rail gun idea for one of them would really work.

[Uomoz]

Definitely too big to be a fighter...

[ValkyriaL]

I'd say, indeed, corvette, or small frigate

comparing it to my gunship.


They do seem similar sized, so id say Gunship as well.

If we are comparing it with other corvettes, here is my Excalibur, which is as large as they get IMO.

[HELMUT]

gunnyfreak, yeah shading is the way to make it less flat but first you need to have parts that are supposed to stand out of the main hull! Also, in your Dominus example, the shading is mirrored, while it help showing stuffs that stand out, it's also wrong, here's an example:

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(ps: Meso, that's why i'm not hand drawing my ships )

Here, there shouldn't be any shadows on the left side of the ship, because it's supposed to be lightened.

Also i think the Dominus is probably one my best attempt at making a ship with coherent lightning, the problem was more with the Caesar. I re-used Shellster modified version as the more pronounced contrast was, i think, better. The idea of a built in mass driver was also very interesting and fitted better with my idea of this ship role and the faction combat doctrine.
By doing this, it also forced me to move the bridge and finally give the Caesar a part that properly stand out, add a bit of shading and voila! Not perfect but better than the previous version in my opinion.

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Erick, very good corvette, it's true that it's a little big but that's not that much of a problem, if you still want to shrink it, maybe cutting a few pixels in the middle part like this?

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Shouldn't even be needed honestly. Also while it's very heavily armed, it doesn't wield weapons as powerful as your corvettes Valk. And if it doesn't have shields, its size will make it a very easy target.

[ValkyriaL]

If it lacks shields, or has weak shields, that size works just fine, since size with poor defence is nothing but a drawback for any ship class.

The mix of weapons also matter, my corvette is bordering to overpowered due to the lancers combined with its hard flux venting, i did plan to swap those out for the Ex, since it already has a good lineup of weapons for a fighter/corvette, and it kinda overshadows the helia right now, which is basically the same corvette but weaker.

make it a fairly expensive corvette to deploy, it will reign supreme while its fielded, but it can't be fielded for long. much like the top end vanilla fighters.

[Uomoz]

Mmhhh... That directional lighting kind of bother me in your orangy sprites Helmut (given the ships will be forced to rotate in game). Is that a test or is it a definite choice?

[HELMUT]

Nothing is definite, i can always change stuffs.

The thing with lightning is that it's hard to get it right. Yes ships will rotate but that's also one reason i try to make the shading relatively discrete so it doesn't look too weird when the shadows are "statics". I will never get it perfectly right, for now i try to content myself with "good enough", maybe in the future the solution will finally appear as i improve.

[Doogie]

Helmut, the main problem I see with your shadow technique is that it ignores the fact that the shape of the top of the ship should be cast on the side. With your original sprite, you kind of just had the right side darker and it looked weird.
Here, I made a sample to showcase what I'm saying.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[theSONY]

HELMUT changes source of the light bit earlier than this Yellow destroyer so i dunno whits the big deal
i think he should already know that his bashing looks a bit odd when comparing  to the vanila ships

[HELMUT]

i think he should already know that his bashing looks a bit odd when comparing  to the vanila ships

Eh?


I think what irked people was the color change on one side. Hmm, should be better no? New one is on the right.

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[Erick Doe]

Definitely too big to be a fighter...

But it's not a fighter. It is a corvette. Still small enough to fit in a launchbay. Keep in mind that fighters are also inflated in size, just like this little fellow. Still, would be possible to turn it into a tiny frigate.

[Doogie]

i think he should already know that his bashing looks a bit odd when comparing  to the vanila ships

Eh?


I think what irked people was the color change on one side. Hmm, should be better no? New one is on the right.

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Yes, that is much better.

[xenoargh]

HELMUT:  It definitely looks odd, vs. Vanilla ships.  None of them are lit that strongly on the left; in fact, none of them are lit primarily from the left.


If we compare these, we can see subtle differences:

1. Eagle's lighting pretty much matches the Blade's; both are largely lit from the top and front.  I've put the Blade next to it and you can see that both are lit very similarly; although there are some minor inconsistencies, given the styles, and the greebling is certainly different, the overall lighting is very similar.

2.  Dominator has confused lighting sources, which make it feel a bit flat in places- the engine highlights indicate lighting from both sides and largely the design looks like it was simply mirrored, but the turret positions indicate that the light comes from the top and front. 

The other greebles on the Dominator also indicate both top and front lighting, but some details can be considered as lit from the side.

3.  The medium tanker has lighting from the left and top (that's a greeble he re-used in several ships), but the body is mirrored and has side lighting, except for the gun locations and portions of the front... where they aren't mirrored.

So the lighting there is quite confused; if it was consistent with the point sources, we'd see shadows from the tanks on the body, which we don't.



I think a lot of your confusion about Vanilla lighting stems from he fact that David's lighting hasn't always been consistent, by design, which he said earlier. 

That's an interesting artistic choice- sometimes it works, by bringing out details, but sometimes it makes designs look flat because the lighting is unclear.  I don't think it works on the Dominator, personally, but it's subtle enough that the forms are still clear.

That isn't saying that it's definitely consistent as a strong directional light by any means, though, more that he's intentionally left it inconsistent. 

You're kitbashing, so you're stumbling into all sorts of parts that have strong side-lighting, but that's not like looking at the wholes.  I can understand why that might be confusing; you need to look at whole ships and go through the details to see that it's not consistent and is very often mirrored wherever it saved time, which increased the inconsistencies in places.

What you're doing there is inconsistent with any of the Vanilla artwork, though- for your lights to cast those shadows, they'd have to be quite low and to the left.  Instead, presume three light sources to the right, left and front- so you'll see soft shadows on either side of tall things and deeper shadows on the rear of them.  All of the lights are quite high up, so the shadows will be relatively small.

I really think you should go through that tutorial I wrote and attempt to light that ship in a way you feel is Vanilla; you're trying to arrive at definite conclusions from art that is pretty deliberately not going to give you any