Modeling the Spaceship

During the process of Team Project 2, it was advised by our 3D Lecturer J.J. Quinlan to make a distinguishable environmental feature to tie in with the narrative.  He gave us examples such as an Aztec building or a statue.  With this we designed a Spaceship which in a relation to narrative fits perfectly as the island caretaker has to get on the fantasy island somehow.

Creating the spaceship - V1
Upon creating the spaceship for Haven, the spaceship was designed in Photoshop.  Using this design the spaceship was created using a box object in 3dsMax and was edited in the Editable Poly modifier to get the desired shape of the design.  Thrusters where then added by using the extrude modifier and they where then beveled to get a vent like appearance.  The door was then detached from the rest of the ship by selecting Polygons where the door should be and then in Editable Poly with polygons selected, clicking detach and naming it as a separate object.

Problems: There were various problems with this approach, one being the normals inside the ship where not present.  This would mean we would not be able to see the inside of the ship.  Originally we were going to do this, but later on decided on having an interior.  The options where to use the Shell Modifier to add a layer to the inside, but this raised the poly count and created a weird lighting deformation in Unity.  The other option was to model the inside by hand, but this raised the poly count significantly even without the interior objects.

Creating the spaceship - V2
I had no choice but to start again.  Using the same technique as the last time, i created  a box object in 3dsMax and was edited in the Editable Poly modifier to get the desired shape of the design.  To make the Thrusters, i modeled them separately as the bevel in the last version didn't look very neat on the inside.  I then used Pro Boolean to create a doorway.  Pro Boolean subtracts an object from a selected object and leaves the shape of the picked object in the selected one.  I then modeled a door separately and placed a walkway.


Here are the developments of the spaceship: