Pillar of Autumn - Anyone doing this?

[TonyG2]

Despite its popularity as a ship, the PoA seems to have been overlooked by the modelling fraternity. I know someone over at the Bungie forums was building a HUGE one from sheet styrene with full lighting etc but other than that if seen nothing.

I seem to recall it was discussed a while back at PaperStarships but if I recall correctly, no one knew how to extract the mesh from the game file.

With its generally slab sided and boxy/modular design, it looks like building a model - constructing that is - would be relatively easy. Couldn't say about the actual creation side of things though. My one successful model was an SR-51 Seahawk from Wing Commander that I created back in 2004 when I first ventured into paper and card modelling .

[Gearz]

Hey TonyG.. can't quite recall how I came by it ( maybe from the old lightwave group) but I have a .lwo mesh + textures here if anyone would like to tackle the PoA.... not sure of the status of the mesh ....I'll go check..

[Gearz]

My Apologies,, it is from the old lightwave group, created by infinityloop

Wooow.. Highly detailed mesh.. the textures are included, although they don't seem to load with the mesh in META. Uuuuuhh... My system doesn't have nearly enough grunt to handle this m.o..d...e......l. PM me with an addy, if you'd like to keep it for safe keeping Tony, someone might like to have a go at it.

[FlareBaffled]

N time right now...but I would love a copy of that mesh for futire efforts

I kind of assumed someone would have already taken this on.... but it seems not. Big task....but eminently possible

[TonyG2]

Thanks Gearz

I'll PM you. Would be great to have a go at that although I suspect I'd go insane before I got anywhere with it

[FlareBaffled]

The Pillar mesh is still available on Foundation 3D...which I am a member of... so I downloaded a copy.

It even makes my system slow when I try to view it all at once. It is a work of beauty.

The armour plates are all there to make up and lay on as layers. It's just sitting there screaming at me to build it...Will take many weeks to build, but I can just see it sitting there, about 18" long, on top of my desk. Soon as I get a window in my build schedule, this one is going to get done.

[Tars]

As a matter of fact I have already a simplified mesh of the Autumn ready and waiting to be properly textured and unfolded! I also have the textures, but unfortunately I'm not really into texturing, so I put the project aside to focus on other things for now... The model is in Metasequioa. Maybe there is someone who wants to join up with me and texture the thing? Just that part, unfolding I'd rather do myself because I already did some thoughts on that when simplifying the PoA model.

[NSCXP2005]

Hi mate,

Have you asked Skip, he is doing great things with Meta.

[FlareBaffled]

A lot of the texturing and colouring on the model is doen using Lightwave materials, rather than actual UV mapping. This stuff would probably not show up properly in Meta. It looks sweet in Lightwave though

I couldn't resist doing some tinkering and simplifying with a view to unfolding. The way Infinityloop has modelled it makes it very nice to detail up, and makes for a pretty good conversion to something that would unfold. Lots of layered parts etc.

Made some quite good progress on the engine section, and can see how this would unfold into a really nice large-scale model. Around 24" would be the ideal balance between size and detail.

The Lightwave mesh is made up of parts, which make life a lot easier to work on when simplifying. Saves having to load up the whole beast and kill the CPU. I was getting lag on the display with the whole mesh, and my PC packs a quad core and 4Gb RAM. Will post some pics of progress soon.

Next taks is to throw in some dummy blocks to get a scale factor on the project, so I can test build small sections. Going to have fun doing the engines!

[stackw]

You gotta be kidding!!!!!
I Re-started playing Halo 1 Yesterday and TODAY I see this topic!!!!!


It's a nice ship.. if there's something I can do to help to make the model, please, tell me!