Good to see the forums back again.
I know there isn’t a contributions system anymore, but I wanted to have a place to post Infinity-inspired concept art, models, or whatever, and discuss them.
All are welcome to post their work here.
To kick things off, here’s a reboot of the old SF Cleaver…
Fire away!
And it’s awesome 
I like it a LOT. It FEELS Star Fold, what with the massive amounts of greebling, somewhat-brutal shapes, and “just-enough-tech-to-work” feel. It’s definitely not a box with thrusters.
Assuming they get enough funding for it to be a thing, I’d buy that off the mod-store in a heartbeat.
Actually, I stand by my opinion on the old forums about Timmon’s concepts.
First, they are awesome.
Second, they look too utilitarian even for Star Fold, what with the radiator bits, antennas and bits and bobs. They feel like they are from a far more ancient technological level.
The logical conclusion being, they should be used as old Geodesian (and possibly early Deltan) ships, and should be used as such in the MMO. Generously. Old, myserious wrecks floating in lawless space, collection ships, maybe even what’s left of Geodesia, scattered in the deserts under a bloated sun…
For I:B, now I really hope we’ll reach the mod tools stretch goal.
I’d argue that the Star Fold are the kind of people who would prefer using lower-tech, lower-maintenance technologies in place of more “modern” systems when they can get away with it. A radiator winglet is always going to work no matter what and is practically maintenance free. A heat pump needs energy to work, can malfunction, requires regular maintenance, and is potentially full of complex mechanisms and/or hazardous chemicals. A radiator will work, albeit at reduce efficiency, even with holes in it. A heat pump would in the same situation would, at best, freeze up.
A cheapo fighter like this, the radiators are the logical choice.
I do agree that he takes a LITTLE too far sometimes, though. The Star Fold are pragmatic, not anti-tech.
All of the following is, of course, assuming that the faction guidelines didn’t change since the old forums.
“Lower-tech” isn’t the only thing defining the Star Fold. It’s also sturdy-looking, armoured, with right (and obtuse) angles instead of curves or sharp angles. Also, “lower-tech” is relative, it isn’t supposed to look as if it was from a long-forgotten millennium compared to the other ships (I’m thinking about this splendid concept from the old forums with the giant round tanks).
The above concept is actually closer to SFC than what I remember being Timmon’s style. But the winglets or what looks like an atmospheric-capable radiator on the wing look like one shot would tear them apart. Which is definitely not something I’d associate with SFC.
In fact, this mix of archaic (relatively speaking) and recognizable Infinity styles, at varied proportions, is precisely why I love Timmon’s style. For me, it’s exactly what Infinity’s historical ships should look like. This concept, for example, may have fought the Independence war, depending on how the timeline turns on.
Nice topic!
Have been thinking about doing some Infinity-related art for some time, will see what I can conjure up =)
The new SF Cleaver looks good!
For me, all the radiators, antennas, flaps, and dishes are less about trying to be So Real, and more about making each part of the ship look functional and identifiable.
The right side of the ship is the power plant, so it’s all boxy and battery-ish, with electrical doodads and radiators. The middle is mostly the propulsion system, so it’s got lots of plumbing and intakes and tanks and such. Then the left side is c&c, so the canopy, antennas, and receiver dish go over there.
Also, I want to rely as little on paneling for detail as possible. The plating needs to look like it was applied last, and is just sort of squeezed in around all the actual ship parts.
As for being fragile, well, at this scale, every cubic foot of the ship is filled with something important, so any direct hit is going to be a mission kill anway.
And besides, all the bits that stick out are just begging to be blown off during gameplay, then you can limp back to your station on 4 HP and be all like, “Dudes! Check out my gnarly battle scars! I’m gonna keep it that way! Hell yeah! :)”
Good stuff, keep them coming. I’d replace the dish with a hard point if it was me though.
It’s a pretty nice SFC design. Quality of the concept is definitely on par with what we want. While the finned radiators look cool, they’d really only be used when entering atmosphere capable of the required convection to dissipate heat I think. Also, they might have to be removed during modeling to meet tri budget, as they might not be a good candidate for normal mapping, hard to say at this point.
I’d replace that satellite dish with something else, radar/sensor dome of some type.
There is also a very odd thruster arrangement, specifically the ones on the cockpit, but we are making a game, and for our development team, what looks cool usually will trump technological realism. Except for aerodynamic control surfaces like wings & fins on space vehicles. The fins on this ship are fine as they do not look like aerodynamic surfaces for flight.
All in all, with some minor changes, this is a design that to me fits well as an SFC fighter/interceptor (Edit: actually looking at the scale it’s a bigger ship than that…). Though it would need some hard points, probably on top & bottom of the “wing” that connects the cockpit to the engine portion of the hull.
Radiators can work in space, but more slowly. Of course a ship with a fusion power plant, warp drive, and multiple weapons-grade laser cannons is going to be generating way more heat than these puny fins can dissipate. They’re just there to nod at the issue of heat buildup and suggest that it’s being dealt with somehow. Also, I think they’re cool, so there’s that…
The dish would most definitely be mounted on a hardpoint. I wasn’t paying any attention to hardpoint sizes since this was mostly for kicks and I didn’t know if the old specs were still valid now.
There are actually three main LMK1 hardpoints over on the right, near the engines, marked with the yellow arrows. More can be dotted around as needed.
Asymmetrical designs are always a bit tricky, but the thrusters should be balanced for all translations, yaw, and roll. Pitch would skew the ship up and to the left, but unless you’re actually simulating thruster torque in the engine, it shouldn’t matter.
I wonder… would it be possible to have the radiators fold out, somehow, while in vacuum? In an atmosphere, sufficient airflow over metal ribs can dissipate a substantial amount of heat (intel pentium 4 processors allegedly generated more heat per volume than a nuclear reactor and I had one of those cooled by metal ribs and airflow), but in space said ribs would, as far as I can work out, have barely any functional value - after all, the only way they’re dissipating heat is by shining it off as IR (or visible) light, and if that light then hits another rib…
I mean, apart from the technical capabilities and limitations, would you be able to make a folding system look good?
PS: Oh hey, forums are back, cool. Any way I can switch it to a different colour-scheme?
Actually, in this concept, radiators may be the reason it feels archaic and fragile to me.
A while ago, on the old forums, someone (IIRC, he was a specialist in thermodynamics) suggested having heat management in Infinity. After some thinking, it struck me as the single most brilliant idea ever proposed on said forums. It would bring an easy to grasp, but more original and potentially far deeper mechanism in resource management than simply ammo/energy ones.
Possibilities include, but are not limited to, heat-sinks or coolant fluids that you can throw away, heating a ship to impair it (stun mechanics), trade-of between stealth and cooling (radiations), between heat and vulnerability (exposed cooling systems), better cooling in atmosphere, ejecting heat-sinks as decoy flares so running hot is actually an advantage for fighters… Maybe I should re-create a topic about it.
The point is, I did a bit of research and if you want to be even slightly more realistic than Star Wars or Galaxy Express 999, the most conservative numbers ask for such a radiator to glow blue at temperatures with nearly 5 digits. Note that it would definitely look cool (Oh god, pun definitely not intended), but it shouldn’t look like a piece of metal one expect to find in their 90’s computer. When tungsten would explosively vaporise, you need something somehow high-tech-looking.
In fact, IIRC, to have even remotely believable external radiators to really help (assuming the hull already radiates normally), you need them to be the size of sails. It would bring interesting gameplay - deploy them only if you’re safe, or they will be torn apart by the first volley, but it asks for more art, code and balance.
tl;dr : To bring things back to those radiators, they would look old even by today’s standard (still used, but out there for decades). They are also for immobile things in the air, not fast-moving crafts and definitely not for spaceships.
Especially not for spaceships that may want to go close to a star and would have to make sure it’s never facing said star.
So it would look very incongruous on an Infinity spaceship.
Other than that, as the fragile look is intentional, it does looks great. I’d expect it to be a cheap, light fighter, that can’t take a hit and may be a bit tricky to master, particularly in atmosphere, but can still pack quite a punch.
Hey, i am working on some capital freighter concept as a fanart project for infinity.
Here I uploaded the line art, because i am unfamiliar with the design language of the infinity universe. I want to make sure, does it fit?
Not bad. A little simple in shape for a Star Fold ship (box-with-thrusters is a no-no; your ship’s not quite that simple, but close enough for that to apply). The details are in the right direction, too, but not brutal and industrial enough.
I suggest looking here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4oT4WhsYIn6WkZ3dnhmWGlvQ3c/edit?usp=sharing
That’s the latest version of the SFC design guide. I also suggest looking at these links for other exaples of SFC concept art:
http://artofinfinty.blogspot.com/2013/11/visual-experience-of-infinity-universe_13.html
Thanks, that is realy helpfull 
@TerranAmbass - Could you be so kind as to post the links to the Deltan + Cent styles? I can’t seem to find it.
They’re all three at the bottom of the blog post I linked:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4oT4WhsYIn6WHJPVEhFb2NlZ0k/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4oT4WhsYIn6c2x4OUJvVDl3R0U/edit?usp=sharing
@IllOO I’m a big fan of the stumpy pencil brush for line work. It nice clean lines that have a pencil feel to them. You should try it out: http://stumpypencil.blogspot.com/
If you want to go full pencil with tilt support you should check out this pencil brush: http://andantonius.deviantart.com/art/Photoshop-Pencil-Brush-105284502
Thanks, it`s nice to have these brushes to sketch some ideas on the ps canvas… but it’s not realy my style, also i think it’s not “technical” enough for spaceships or still objects in general.