Here is a space station I am working on and need some input on the textures. Do the windows work with this? I'm concerned it will look weird when you fly around this beast of a model. If anyone has made a station for a space sim and wants to give me some tips, I would appreciate it. Also, what is a decent poly count for such a huge item. If you look close, a normal space craft is roughly the size of 2 of the windows maybe 3. I havent decided exact measurements yet on it. Next question, will glow effect work on the windows without bombing the frame rate?

Well, for starters it's VERY basic at the moment. I know it's WIP, but you'll need to add some sort of significant detail, because at the moment it's just a death star with some chunks cut out of it. It would be more impressive if there was no such thing as the death star, but there is, so it's not (if you see what I mean).

I made a small edit showing one example you could use to snazz things up a bit:



By putting some connecting rods between the different layers, it becomes much less like a sphere, and more of.. well, a station.

Also the windows do look a bit odd, mainly because they're white, and wouuld probably look better in yellow - obviously they would also look a LOT better if you gave each window it's own lighting effect (I have no idea if that would work, but it would look good!) - this would make a big difference to how "real" the ship would feel, because when you're up close (like in the example you posted) the windows look very clearly painted on, whereas a lighting effect would need no details at all, to look realistic.

Also as to the formation of the windows (on the panel), it does look a little bit random - from a distance it appears something like static, which also feels unnatural. As you place each one on the texture, imagine that there's a real building behind the wall, with groups of living quarters, offices, control rooms, etc, and then create rows of lights accordingly. Typically an entire floor might have lights on in every room, and another might have one or two, or none at all. A big room could have 6 or 8 windows in it, so there'd be lots of small clumps like that.

I'd generally experiment with adding some additional details to the craft, to give it a real identity and character - treat it like you would designing a human character, and it'll end up feeling a lot more "real".

Hi, I was wondering whether you had considered that the proper direction
of UP in space. If you meant to consider that your station would not have
the orientation as you have drawn. If the disks were spinning then the
people inside would be standing on the windows. It is okay if you intended
to use your representation of space.

I think space structures shouldn't have windows in general. Instead of
windows you might have thrusters that allows the station to move.

WAI
I agree with your statement,

Hi, I was wondering whether you had considered that the proper direction
of UP in space. If you meant to consider that your station would not have
the orientation as you have drawn. If the disks were spinning then the
people inside would be standing on the windows. It is okay if you intended
to use your representation of space.

I think space structures shouldn't have windows in general. Instead of
windows you might have thrusters that allows the station to move.

But look at the Starship Enterprise. They are able to walk around in it and do as they please, but it does not spiral around like an arrow. Some physics have to be over looked in order to produce something that looks graphically good. All space stations would have to be designed to look like a frisby spinning rapidly. We HOPE that onlookers are not exactly catching that fact or know how it is not physically possible to travel in space and walk around without some sort of gavity producing machine allowing it. Most people do not catch those details you pointed out. Look at Star Wars, people are running around in space ships with no problems. :P


JonL, thanks for the opinon on modification of the window texture. Do you think it has to many windows per panel? This thing is a pain to texture and look good. There are other details modeled that are not shown in the screen shot that make it look much better.

I like your idea of having dark windows showing unused rooms. I do not think I can produce an image within the glass to reflect what lies inside that room. The area is much to small to pull that off.

I tryed the yellow light look and found it looked strange. White seemed to pop a little more.