OT: Battle animation WIP

[The Axeman]

OK, so not strictly Trek but I do value input regardless. Over on the Stardestroyer BBS I was watching a couple of guys getting to grips with Sketchup, using which they were making mainly fighters or unfeasibly large battleships. I helped out with a bit of advice and managed to talk them out of making everything 10 miles long with thousands of tiny guns. Now they're a slightly more manageable 900m long and have 10-12 big gun turrets with some smaller point defence turrets and missile launchers

Due to them being Sketchup models, they were untextured and unable to do any decent renders, so I helped out and converted their models to lightwave and knocked out a few renders. From there it became a bit of a debate about which would win in a battle, since both ships are of different design philosophies. The Warlord is a heavily armoured, unshielded and uses powerful projectile weapons and lots of point defence. I has a larger crew and good damage control. The other un-named ship uses shields, a few advanced plasma guns and missile launchers, with more automation but less resilience.





Anyway, for something to do I thought I should try an animation and see what I could come up with. I figure I'll make the two ships fight it out with a nice backdrop and see which looks like it will win. Good practice for me, the guys get to see their Sketchup models do battle. I've already started doing some tests to work out shooting effects, backdrops and so forth...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p03QxE1TJjg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZyzHTzspns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvEO09ZDnJw

My current thinking is to set the battle next to Jupiter or Saturn & a moon or two so I have a backdrop that is not just the usual (and very wrong) highly coloured nebula. I'll have them blow lumps out of each other for a couple of minutes and then for the ending one of them will bite the dust. Beyond that I have no clue. Maybe I should make two endings to keep it fair?

What I would like from you guys is some comments and ideas. Anything obvious that should happen? Any shot I should try and include? How do i get them to meet? Who would win between these two? FIGHT!

 

[sojourner]

First, I like the ship with the "t" tail better from a visual standpoint. As far as combat, are you going for a "broadsides" type exchange? I think that would look great with these two ships. For the ending, have one ship take the brunt of the damage, then as it's breaking apart, have it get one last missile launch that devastates the other ship and they both end up basically being destroyed.

Maybe with one of the ships actually blowing up while the other ship tries to limp away but the drives/lights flicker and go out and it finally starts to tumble - a lifeless hulk.

I also always thought it would be cool to show a reactor failure as more of a runaway fission reaction. Having the ship melt from the inside-out, so you would get a section of hull turning red-hot wit the ship eventually breaking into 3 parts. Front, aft, and a circular-izing molten section.

 

[The Axeman]

Yeah, this will have to be a broadsides exchange. The guys have designed battleships in the classical tradition, and stuck big gun turrets in positions favouring broadside attack. The T-tail ship is technically the more advanced, the tiger-striped Warlord is the less advanced, more heavily armoured opponent.

Some good input there, I can use some of that. Interesting idea for the reactor melt-down, but I think a horrendous explosion would have to be involved at some point soon after to please the crowd. Maybe it would be the explosion shockwave that knocks out the other ship, leaving it flickering and listing?

Another thought I just had; how about one ship ambushes the other and eventually wins, but just after the victory an entire fleet from the other side appears and launches a huge barrage of missiles at the already damaged ambusher? Might make a nice finale.