Thanks OHT and Jay.

I want to put nose art on it but all I have are topless pinups. But I have the perfect title to scroll over the image. It would read - My Kinda "Toaster!" or Harlequin of DOOM! haha

I don't think any of the Vipers ever had nose art or squadron insignia did they?

I think I read they only had 3 full sized mock ups of the Viper and they did not use much CG in the original series, so nose art would have been problematic (although why they could not use some kind of removable decal eludes me).

The original series had no nose art on their vipers.
On the BSG 75, there were three instances that i know of of art on the vipers.
#1
when the galactica first found the Pegasus and boarded the pegasus for the first time, there was a commend about Marking kills of Cylon raiders on the sides of the vipers, and showed a viper with the raider silhouettes on it one for each kill.

#2, the Laura (Stealth ship that Cheif teryl designed and build on the galactica. The word laura was scribed on the nose in fancy lettering to commemorate the president of the colonies.

#3
the laura was signed by each member of the Galactica Flight crew who assisted with acquiring parts for it, or assembly
( as a side note if you pay attention you'll see both Richard Hatch's signature and Edward James Olmos's signature on it was well, story is they snuck on the set right before fimling the scene and signed their real names on the Laura Prop unbeknown to anyone at the time.

I have never seen it, but have heard of a scene that was cut in the original series that was a flash back scene, that was supposedly a scene of Commander Adama from the original series as a Nugget, what had nose art on his viper in the form of his call sign " Husker" at the end of the nose, not in the normal place below the canopy, again i've never seen this though.

G-man

Thanks Legend!

I thought about nose art and spent some time researching but could find nothing ( I keep having to find creative ways to avoid actually opening photoshop up lol).

I kinda would like to put something on it even if it's just squadron markings of some kind. I have been collecting and making lots signage like rescue, no step, warning - ejection seat, etc., in illustrator (which I like a lot more then photoshop - go figure).

If anyone comes across some squadron markings from BSG or wants to make up a pattern please post it here and I will try to include them on the model.

PS. I was just playing around and stuck some naughty pinup nose art on the model (well I thought it too naughty to post anyway. I used to play mech warrior a lot and had made a bunch of pin up nose art for all my mechs, certainly not appropriate for a Viper), just to see where it could be placed, and because of the configuration of that notch in the nose and the laser canon it would be a waste to put the art under the cockpit. But to be honest I have seen lots of Vietnam era thuds with their nose art way up front. The best places on the Viper would be up in front of the missile bay doors, or on the engine nacelles.

Cheers,
ctbram

markings for vipers actually went according to their battlestar mate.

there was a separate marking for Galactica, Valkyre, Pegasus, and atlantia, presumable one for the other 8 battlestars as well, But these were the only ever actually shown in either series Be it a flash back scene or otherwise.

The Marking for the Battlestar Galactica in the new series was actually the BSG 75 logo that is always used to represent it. Ect ect. Squadrons of Vipers / raptors were ctually divided up according to Color, Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green " Tough in the show you will never head anyone say " Green 1 on my wing" or anything ) there were not true differentiating markings on the vipers themselves.
Though, other then the leaders of each squad, the squads viper wise were set up so that Red would be all mk vii's Blue woudl be all Mk II's Yellow was all Raptors, and Green was...well i'm not sure the make up of green honestly as it was only ever mentioned when looking at the Flight board in the briefing room.

This help any mate?

G-man

Yeah very helpful Legend. So do the stripes on the top of the nose and on the wings and tail correspond to anything or were they always the orangish red color and are the grey stripes on the nacelles and at the tip of the nose always the same?

grey is always the same,
original series had a more orange color on stripes, BSG 75, had a more reddish...no real significance that was ever explained.

G-man

Okay since this is a learning process I thought I might share some stuff as I go along.

In the little bit of texturing I have done so far I tried adding a bump to the panel lines. However, I now realize that trying to add bump in the end is probably not worth it for a few reasons.

From almost any camera distance the actual bump is imperceivable and from any angle where you can make out the bump the panel lines appear to be cavernous. My map for the nose is 4k x 4k and the 1 px panel line is still almost too thick. Finally, when rendering computing bump adds unnecessary time. So in the end I am going to just use color, diffuse, and spec for panel lines.

I find the panel lines are a good guide to determine the minimum area of your texture map though. For any map they tend to be the smallest visible thing at just 1px, so sizing the map so that they look correct from the closest distance you plan to render from pretty much insures everything else will have plenty of texture space.

Have to put texturing on hold for just a bit. I have to watch some photoshop tutorials and play with PS a little bit more.

I really loathe photoshop with all my heart. The disjoint vector / raster workflow (by design so they can bilk more money selling two packages) so they can claim the two packages are different drive me insane! I used illustrator alot but the reason why the EXACT same vector functions in photoshop (a package made by the same company) has different control keys and workflow is infuriating!

Between maya, ps, and illustrator by the end of the night I feel as though I am randomly pressing keys because I am getting the hotkeys for the the packages all scrambled.

It's worse then that actually as I use several other packages and they all have their own hotkeys and workflow.

But I am starting to get it. Problem is, two week without using it and I will have forgotten it all again (.

Hi ctbram
Im not saying you are wrong to hate ps but I think they have cramed some much in to it, it will allways be complicated. that is the price you pay for diverse package. I dont like zbrush for some of its tool but I will still keep using it as it get the result. look farward to seeing you progress ( and teach me UV mapping)................dave

Is there no way to customize the hotkeys in PS and illustrator? Surely they would let you set them up yourself to be more intuitive. I could be wrong though. I love maya for that.

in photoshop it's in edit > keyboard shortcuts
or alt+ctrl+shift+k

can't say why the keys are different, but if you get infuriated by that then i'd take a guess that you get infuriated by how you don't use space bar to pan around a scene in maya as you do in photoshop... i've tried doing it sometimes by mistake... haha, it's great fun forgetting that the keys for navigation is different for each package