The Next Great Starship Episode 1.7

The Next Great Starship, the modding competition that gives fans a chance to create a space ship for Chris Roberts' upcoming epic space sim game, Star Citizen™, is about to get real for 16 teams!
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Sandi Gardiner: Phase 1 of the competition is drawing to a close as the judges look at the final five concept designs.

Will one of these starships be immortalized in video game history?

Welcome to *The Next Great Starship*.

Sandi: Hi everyone, we are here is Austin, Texas for episode 7 of *The Next Great Starship*.

Chris Olivia: Right now I'm just showing the process of how we give feedback on some of the concepts.

This is for the alien Vanduul Harvester, which is a ground based vehicle.

My main focus on the feedback is the general look and feel of something and its aesthetics and consistency of

everything else that's related to that particular asset. Then what usually happens is there's more feedback when it

goes to Mark Skelton, making sure that things are following the line with upgrades and weaponry,

and following the specs it's supposed to follow to get into the game.

Mark Skelton: Since they're gonna be so small on the screen and holotable,

their silhouette read needs to be big enough to be able to read the variation from component to component.

Chris Olivia is more the overview guy, he works with the concept guys to get the look and feel in a certain area.

Then what I do, I'll take that look and feel, and I will have the artist implement it into 3D.

Honestly, some of these things, like they're all up front right here, then you've got a couple back...

Then I will take the concept and the 3D that they give me, and interpret it.

Every time it seems like what happens inevitably is that you have a really nice concept,

and then when you put it in 3D and walk around it, there's some things that come up that aren't necessarily

thought through on the concept. So that's where I come in.

I look at it and evaluate what they've given me, then give feedback.

Sandi: I'm Sandi Gardiner, and here are our judges. We have the LA couch.

David Hobbins: Hi, I'm David Hobbins, I'm a Concept Artist here at Cloud Imperium Games in Santa Monica.

Chris Roberts: Chris Roberts, Project Director of Star Citizen and head of Cloud Imperium Games.

Also in Santa Monica, but very friendly with Austin, used to live here.

Sandi: Not as friendly as the couch over here, the Austin couch.

Mark Skelton: Austin couch?

Chris Olivia: The better looking couch.

Mark: The better looking couch, right. The nicer dressed couch.

Chris Smith: The nicer dressed couch... Chris Smith, Lead Vehicle Artist. Based in Austin for Cloud Imperium Games.

Mark: Mark Skelton, the man meat in the meat sandwich that we've got goin' here, and the Art Director in Austin.

Chris O: Chris Olivia, Chief Visual Officer of Cloud Imperium Games, in Austin.

Sandi: Alright guys, this is the last episode of the concept art phase, all the teams had to do the mercenary gunship.

Let's check out the specs to remind everybody.

So guys, how are you feeling about the concept art phase, what we've seen so far, what we're gonna see today.

Chris R: I've been really impressed by what we saw in the last two episodes. It think the quality of work is fantastic.

And also the fact that they only had 19 days from the time we told them to us seeing the work,

considering a lot of these people have other jobs, it's not easy.

The Mustang which everyone saw in episode 4 was 2 full weeks of concept development, that's all you were doing.

David: Yeah.

Chris R: So that's, I'm super impressed. I'm really excited to see what we have this week. It'll be fun.

Chris S: It seems like it has been getting better and better, so, I'm looking forward to it for sure.

Chris O: There better not be any phone ins in this one.

Sandi: Alright guys, ready to see the last five teams?

[*Agreement*]

Sandi: Let's roll the video.

Eris: What we usually do first is to do several sketches to visualize the subject and have something to start with.

Our main inspiration for the ship was basically the name itself.

"Mercenary" and "gunship" are two very explosive words,

mix them together and you can get an excellent idea of what the ship does and how it looks.

The hardest part was to place every specification in place without missing or misinterpreting anything.

Once we had a better version, we made a basic low-res model to work on the shape and details,

doing paint overs and sketches.

The ship has 8 thrusters, each with its own movement, making it perfect for space and atmosphere.

The thrusters are strong enough to lift the ship vertically and make fast deployment landings.

The mercenary gunship is a big, bulky piece of metal, it packs quite a punch.

Having two manned turrets, one on top, and one on the bottom, gives the ship excellent offensive and defensive capabilities.

Plus a pilot controlled turret, two missile pods, and two extra hardpoints on the front side,

making it an excellent multipurpose combat ship.

That was our mercenary gunship, I hope you like it, and to see you next time.

Why don't we have at the LA couch kick that off? David Hobbins?

I think my main issues with it are that it feels a little blocky chunky and toy-like in proportion

so I would go and revisit a lot of the big surfaces and start incorporating secondary surfaces,

just to make them a little more sophisticated.

But some of the earlier silhouette illustrations are really interesting,

and honestly to me some of those other thumbnails were more interesting than what they actually went with.

Chris R: Seeing their process and how they went about it was the right way,

you know start with silhouettes then start to block it out

zone it around then do some of the 3D simple blockouts

so you can sort of get proportions and do some paintovers

so all that was good

and I also like the way they were

figuring where the thrusters would be

where the various spaces were

I'm not sure I'm in love with the actual shape

and I don't see it and go "I want that" for some reason

I think partly is to do with the proportions

like the front thruster things is so big that it

I don't know it's just sort of

David: And they line up with the cockpit section

so it really felt like either it should be back or front

some sort of variation

Chris R: Yeah technically the process and the rending style

even though it's a little too graphic comically for me

I think though this would look good in a Marvel or DC comic basically

but I sort of want something that's a bit more

feels like it's been industrially designed a bit more real world

so good but not in love

Sandi: proportion issues on this couch?

Chris S: yeah I mean

Chris O: proportion issues on this

Mark: what does that mean Sandy

bowed in the middle bit

Sandi: Subconscious

Chris S: Yeah I thought it was okay

It has some interesting stuff in it

I kind of like the aggressive stance of this ship

what it does with the guns kind of sticking out is cool

the main thing I think about it was the big shapes on the front and the back

you know make it look cartoony

The rear thrusters kind of bother me the most

they look a bit like an air vent that you see like, coming out of a building.

CR: Yeah I mean I actually wouldn't mind seeing like some more

like bunch of details of the thrusters gonna work

because they sort of look like the idea was they were sort of big vents

that like would move around or something a little directive thrust but

Chris O: But there's secondary smaller I mean I saw the big ones

but I'm trying to look for like any

CR: When he was talking about it sounds like

they were thinking about how it's gonna work

so I think when you do that it would be nice

in the concept have... like we talked about, a little block out animation

or at least some... put in bunch of details

to say okay this is what happens when you're in VTOL

this is what happens when you're trying to pitch the ship

this is what happens when you're trying to roll the ship

this is what happens when you're trying to yaw the ship

Chris O: They have a very crude drawing to start talking about that

but they should have like CR:taking it further CO:yeah

MS: I think it's pretty safe. It's kind of a safe design.

They didn't really... like...

If they would have pushed it like those front things in particular

there's too much surface area and not enough like breakup for size

if they would have maybe broke that up a little differently

and if they would move them forward or move them back to weight it a little bit

because like in the middle it throws the whole weight of the ship off

and it's not as interesting

DH: There's like a row of equal proportion

MS: I think that's what I'm responding to

It's that those arms were about the same width as the cockpit and the other arms

so you got these elements that are all stacked in about the same

DH: And it just becomes really static

MS: Yeah. It's weird. Your eyes just like kind of get stuck there

because you are like... it's all just kind of washover

CS: And the whole silhouette is really boxy like a square kind of...

Sandi: Chief Visual Officer?

CS: He agrees with me.

CO: Yeah I agree with the...

Wait, what did you say?

Sandi: He said you agree.

No I agree with most everybody here except Chris Smith.

MS: Yeah. I was going to say that too.

Chris O: Yeah. When you look at it from the top view

it really showed the flaw in the design

as far as like boxy; four big boxes and the centre

from three quarter view it kind of have a nice aggressive view

they didn't go droopy. It would sort of like forward momentum looking.

But secondary shapes breakout would push it and help it

yeah it's just kind of too boxy

Sandi: Well. A bit of rework on the proportions, boxiness and the shapes of it.

Let's roll the next one.

Hi. This is Ben with Team Belafonte.

So this is the concepting portion of the contest that I'm working on.

So the process so far: I generated a lot of thumbnails

to try to nail down a basic silhouette

and then chose some of the elements that I like from these different silhouettes

and combine them into one design

from that I kind of did a small paintover

and then that kind over bled into my main concept which was this.

I'm not going to go into a lot of the details of it

I did make some notes on some of things that kind of stand up about this particular design

but also I made a secondary design, a variation of this one.

There's some other things that were slight different with it as well

and there's... have a little bit of explanation in that too.

I have a lot of fun doing the concept work

I'm looking forward to the next portion of the contest and gain some feedback on my work so far.

Sandi: Austin couch.

CO: I think that one three quarter view that it ended up with, something felt very weird about it.

Perspective, I couldn't tell the overall volume or shape of it.

It felt kind of buggy looking, like an insect. I wasn't in love with it.

I think it needed to be pushed a lot further.

MS: It felt like a helicopter without the rotary blades to me.

It was like a kind of a chunky safe sort of design I guess,

I mean they didn't really push anything out of the ordinary; they didn't experiment with anything.

CR: Right, it's him by the way; just one person.

MS: Him. I'm Sorry.

He said upfront that he's not a concept guy and I respect that,

but...I mean...

at least like block it out maybe in 3D

a full view of it so you can feel exactly what you are looking at

and feel the proportions from all different sides.

CO: I mean he was able to build like some really interesting silhouettes right off the bat

so he knew how to handle that but yeah he needed to...

DH: But...but he's more comfortable with modelling and he should design and...

MS: Right, I mean it's fine.

CS: That's what I thought based on the shapes that it have

I thought he would actually come up with something a little bit more interesting than he ended up with

I mean it look like he had some wing design that actually like

some of the designs he picked with are a little bit like the Alien Dropship in proportions

sort of fat and skinny, which is fine, nothing wrong with that

but it look like a helicopter without blades to me too. Some of the details in there were interesting,

he thought a little bit about thruster placement, but yes, a little underwhelming.

CR: Yeah I think team Belafonte's strength is in modelling more than the concept side

I was looking at it and going "that's pretty much a helicopter but without rotor blades."

I sort of felt like it was too literal and then definitely I agree with Chris that

there was something off like with the perspective and proportions of it

Maybe he was thinking "well this is concept and I have to draw concept" or something

Well we know, concept... there's plenty of people...

Ryan Church, who is world-class concept artist who has done a bunch of our stuff,

he does not draw it first, he actually blocks out really basic shapes,

and then we sort of develop the shape, and then he's only doing paintovers later on,

and we have some people that have use it, like 1bit Amoeba,

like "I can't draw at all, but I'm pretty good on the model side"

and he sort of blocked it out, and we liked it.

So maybe on this, go back and try to sort of block out a bit more of the shape,

and then do a little bit of drawover, paintover, whatever; I think that would help.

DH: I was pretty underwhelmed in general, I think that he needs to go back and do

I mean almost a complete rethink. I wouldn't even continue...

All: (laughter) Whoa

CR:Whoa, you are a mean judge.

You are like "you know, he just isn't very good."

DH: No, I feel like... I just... I mean

his sketch where he design within the silhouette

CR: That was kind of sort of like comes up softly behind and then the knife - oh what's happened

DH: You know I felt like there should be a little bit more variation on the silhouette.

From the illustration he produced, there was one interesting element to me,

and that was from the vertical tail surface, there was a strut that connected it back to the lower fuselage,

and I thought that could be kind of interesting, and so he may want to

CS: You like the strut...

CR: Okay just redo everything saves for struts.

DH: It is universal for strut.

MS: Start over except for this right here.

DH: No... Yeah, I felt like that was the element that kind of pull me in,

I thought it was unique, and I feel like he could exploit that.

CO: To sum up what you said; start over, is that what you're saying?

DH: (Agreement) CO: Except for the strut.

DH: No, I mean I just think that...

MS: Strut. Don't touch that strut.

DH: clearly this guy has modelling skill set

and I think you might be far more comfortable to interpret the silhouettes in 3D

and be able to change the proportion, shape, weight at various places,

and I think he found a silhouette he thought was interesting

but his struggles with illustrating and perspective may have thrown the design off.

He may have better ideas but they are not communicated.

Sandi: Alright, interesting feedback on this one. Let's play the next one.

We start by gathering as much information as possible.

We proceeded with basic sketching and blockouts to find out shapes and engine positions.

I guess hardest part was intergating the engines in this package.

After the blockout there were various issues that had to be dealt with,

such as turret placement, and space which it covers.

Here is the final version.

I wish I could explain all the features added in the ship

but hopefully the design could be read by itself.

As you can see, all weapons sink into the hull, or maybe just fold like the twin turret.

The ship itself is quite modular as you can see, and we have created for ground combat.

The cargo bay has been upgraded to 15 tons for troop deployment.

The interior has been designed to provide basic life and all needed ship access.

Here are the animations as you can see; fully closed with a much more fluid shape for atmosphere re-entry.

So that's it, this is our ship, I hope you guys like it, bye.

Sandi: Alright, well, Chris Roberts, how was that process for you?

Chris R: I thought that was great, it was awesome. It was basically everything we talked about wanting from others.

Like how do the thrusters work, where are they, how do you get in, where are the people, where are the stations.

Chris S: Docking.

Chris R: Yeah, even getting in and out.

I think this is the one of all the ones we've seen so far that has had the most thought as far as that goes.

For me this would be a gunship that I would quite happily fly around and I think it would fit inside the universe really well.

The one thing that I noticed that doesn't match up with the specs was that the 2 side turrets look like class-4 turrets.

They looked unmanned, remotely controlled, there needed to be two manned turrets,

but they all looked like they were remote or unmanned.

Chris S: On the nose and then...

Chris R: Yeah, it had one on the nose and one on either side. But that was it, the thrusters looked...

The details they had on the thrusters, they had front thrusters almost, so I'm not quite sure where they are in

terms of center of mass and whether they would work perfectly well for rotation,

but that was probably on of the better ones in terms of deployment and everything.

It actually looked cool in the VTOL mode as well as up. So yeah, I'm a big fan of this one.

Other than working out the manned turret issue, for me, I don't have a vast amount of feedback.

Sandi: David Hobbins, no need to start again on this one?

David: No need to start again. I thought this was an excellent job in general.

I just thought proportionally and surface wise, I thought they did an excellent job.

It got me excited, I want to fly around in this. Previously we had a design that drooped towards the front,

and I felt like that's fine, there needs to be some pay-off there, but I also felt like something needs to counteract that,

and that huge instrument boom that they have coming out the top...

Although it's a very small piece, it still is so different from

the others that it still creates a visual balance that counters the drooping nose.

My one critique--

Chris O: Uh oh.

Mark: Sharpening the shivs.

David: Yeah, I know. I do feel that I like some of the gratiated 3D models better than the final textured illustrations.

In the end, part of that has to do with the angle that they selected.

Chris R: You're right, whatever the angle, just didn't give me the same sense of...

David: Yeah, and also the illustration style, some of the lines may have been painted a litle too thick.

Chris R: Yeah, maybe a little more graphic and less...

David: Yeah, there needs to be that variation of big forms and very small forms.

I mean it's a decent size ship.

Sandi: Guys?

Chris S: I thought it was good. He had no block-out animation, but in the drawings he explained it pretty well.

Chris R: You could see how they would rotate and how they would work.

Chris S: Yeah, he did a good job illustrating that in the drawings. I liked it quite a bit actually.

Mark: Yeah, I did too, it was really cool.

They put a ton of work into blocking out interior and stuff like that.

You could tell that they were really thinking about the interior and the way it fit,

and the way that the ship fit around it, which is super important.

I do like that big boom, like you said, because without that, it would feel really off balance.

But that big boom that came out weighted it for me,

'cause you've got those big elements in the back, and then it goes down so... It's like a stinger.

David: And also, it's intimidating, it serves a function.

Chris R: When you're doing the mustang and working full time, it was two weeks, 10 work days.

This was 19 days and some people probably were working on it fairly full, some weren't.

But the other thing, this is a much bigger ship. So there's a lot more stuff to figure out.

David: Especially internally.

Chris: Right, to concept something like the Idris Corvette takes much longer to do than a single seat fighter.

So the amount of work they put into this, it was really impressive.

Sandi: Chris O?

Mark: Yeah, quite an amount of time for sure.

Chris O: I thought it was beautiful. I really liked it.

It had a very cohesive feel. There was a nice balance of all the pieces.

I loved the way the main thrusters, the way they connected to the body.

There were these rings that looked really functional, chunky, and hardcore. It looked like it would work perfectly.

I think the weakest part was the cutaway showing the interior.

It was sort of hard to read some of the interior spaces.

I think there's an art to showing the different insides.

Chris R: Yeah, if I remember, I liked the cutaway and the interior,

but how do you go between the different compartments?

Chris O: Right.

Chris S: He had some cool interior illustrations of the cockpit and stuff, the seats and everything.

Mark: I liked it.

Sandi: A lot of love for this one, but let's roll the next one.

TRUE: I was able to concentrate fire of all turrets on the ground,

or on the top side of the ship where you are going to board.

There are minimal blind spots, the pilot is able to cover more angles during attack or retreat.

Gunners have their own cabins, there are sleeping pods for everyone, pilots, gunners, up to six marines.

In similar variants there will be space for a pilot cabin as well.

Our ship is not so pretty, but it is solid, and will serve you for a life time.

Sandi: Alright, Mark Skelton.

Mark: The ship is pretty cool. I like it, I like the 'bug' feel to it. It's kind of like a beetle.

It feels like thick and heavy armor, like you could really take a punch.

There were a few elements that I would push around a little bit.

Maybe give the silhouette a little more interest, but honestly, it feels super utilitarian.

So as it is it's pretty cool. It definitely feels like you could beat the crap out of it and it would take it. Pretty sweet.

Sandi: Do you agree?

Chria O: I do. Silhouette wise it is a bit simple, plain,

it could use some secondary pieces to add more visual interest from a distance.

But it did look heavy, beef, and powerful. The landing gear,

I think they should try to explore a little bit more, the way the landing gear was, I wasn't real happy with that.

Mark: Yeah, I agree. It feels kind of spindly or how big the sucker is.

David: It felt a little linear. Four equally spaced.

Mark: [*Tink, Tink, Tink*]

Chris O: A little tacked on, but I loved the way the engines were placed into the overall shape. it was kind of cool.

Mark: Yeah, they fit in nicely, tucked away.

Chris S: I quite liked this one as well, and I liked that he did little preview animations for the thrusters.

It was cool, and interesting how they moved, although they're pretty long.

I don't know about any secondary thrusters to make the ship move even quicker,

'cause it seemed like there would be a lot of articulation the way he had it.

Mark: Sea Cucumbery.

Chris R: Although honestly on the gunship it's ok to be--

Chris S: It's a bit slower.

Chris R: Yeah, 'cause the idea is it's not super nimble and maneuverable.

Right, it's sort of out there, it's got a huge amount of fire power, and it can take a lot of damage.

But its downside is it's not going to be zipping around.

Chris S: But you don't want it to be a huge passenger boat, too slow.

Chris R: No, but you've got to have these things balanced, 'cause otherwise,

something with that firepower that can keep up with a Hornet, why would you have a Hornet?

I kind of actually want... I mean that was one of the reasons when we were doing the specs,

I suggested four main engines that also double as maneuvering jets on the back,

then four maneuvering jets on the front. It just takes you longer to get your thrusters into position,

which means you'll have more of a delay in changing the vector of your ship.

Sandi: David?

David: I liked this design. I felt like it looked like it could take a lot of fire.

It really communicated its function and I felt like it had a lot of character.

I liked the thrusters though, like you Mark, when it swung out all the way, I was a little worried,

so you may want to think about some alternatives, but I'm sort of on the fence.

Maybe if I saw it from another angle, it could be really visually interesting and

break that silhouette up in a really cool way.

My critique would be to focus on, and I think this would go for a number of the designs,

focus on the cockpit and the mullion break up of the cockpit.

The support structure, the pillars, like in a car you have A, B, and C,

this would be the pillar structure of the cockpit canopy.

Chris S: I would say it needs more exploration.

Daivd: I feel like it's a focal point, our eyes go there because typically there's action, it's where the pilots would be,

and it's also an inherent material change that you're typically going to go from some metal to glass.

So your eye's gonna be there and I fell like if you really spend time working there, it's gonna pay huge dividends.

Otherwise, great design, and it just looked like it could do the business.

Chris R: I really liked this design, 'cause I think we had in the previous episode, we had Vision Cut.

We said that their gunship was ugly, but wasn't quite embracing the ugliness.

So I feel like that's what this one does. It's ugly in a good way.

That sort of compact, tough, looks like it can really take the damage.

It just says 'gun platform,' the way the turrets are set up, having the missile rack come out from the inside,

so you can bring it down and load up some more missiles if you have them in storage..

Chris S: Like the Constellation?

Chris R: Yeah, like the Constellation, we're doing that exactly on the Constellation. And the turrets on the side.

So it just felt like it really could, as everyone else said, take a lot of damage, and it felt beautiful in an ugly way.

[*Judges laugh*]

Chris R: So for me, I felt that everything is moving in the right direction,

but what I would want to see moving to the next round of concept is, I think we all like it, but start to polish it up.

Where's your detail? 'Cause I would say the details on this were not, like we just saw on the Shard Collective one,

they had figured out the fine detail, so I would say that's missing from here,

but the general approach, stance, feel of it was really good.

It was great to see the block out animation and the line drawing concept.

Chris O: It would probably be good to explore different variations of those maneuverable thrusters.

Chris R: Yeah, that would be one of the other things. Also be aware of the front thrusters.

I also liked the way they thought about what a gunship does.

They sort of thought, I'm making a gunship, this is what it needs to do, and you could

definitely tell in their final design that they achieved what their specification was, which was also really good.

Sandi: Alright, some good feedback on that one, let's roll the last one.

IXM: Hello Star Citizens, today we're speaking not from our I-X-M headquarters in Gratz,

but as you can see from the Great Wall of China.

For size reference, we took the class-5 turrets of the Constellation to get an image of how big the ship would be.

This meant we would get to a size roughly of 45 meters, thus being between the Constellation and the Freelancer.

We tried to align the two turrets so they both would be able to fire forward and at the same time,

each turret supports a 360 degree area around the ship, as well as the lower turret protecting 195 degrees of the

lower hull and the upper turret protecting nearly 200 degrees of the upper hull.

The overall look of the gunship somehow felt like a good mix of being aggressive and elegant at the same time.

It also provided a better layout of the internal rooms,

and more space at the side of the front part of the hull to fit the class-3 hardpoints.

The class-4 hardpoint would also have a better positioning,

and it would not interfere with the visibility of the gunners for the main class-5 turrets.

Finally, we made some variations of the hull coloring for both variants, and added some rough concept art.

This concludes our concept stage so far, thanks for watching.

Mark: Hmmm...

Chris O: Hmmm... Are you looking at me?

Sandi: I am looking at you.

Chris O: I'm not a big fan of this. He said it was aggressive and elegant,

and I didn't really think it was aggressive or elegant.

I'm not sure how to constructively critique it other than, maybe start over.

[*Judges sigh*]

Chris O: Well I learned it from you man.

David: I thought I was the mean one.

Mark: I learned it from watching you dad.

Chris S: Not as subtle as he is.

Chris O: To take a chance on a very different shape was nice, but to me it didn't say gunship.

Mark: It looks more fast than gunship. It's too sleek, it doesn't look like it could take a hit really.

I guess the design feels smaller than what they're trying to make it,

'cause of the big blocky shapes that they have, and the big swooping shapes.