Tales of the USCA : Ship of the Week

[christianboutin.com]

On May 7th I will take a six-months leave of absence from work to finish up Tales of the USCA. To celebrate the production kicking into high-gear, every Sunday up until release I will put, on this thread, a new ship featured in Tales of the USCA. The ship is rendered entirely in OGRE and the screenshot is completely unretouched (aside from the added caption). They will be posted roughly in the order that they're done, although much will be made to ensure equal exposure to the USCA and the Res Publica Bolivaria. Comments are welcome of course!

---



Cambridge-Avro's latest production fighter design, the Laser Shark is fast, nimble, and packs one hell of a punch. It features 3 cannons pods and 2 rocket packs.

[sinbad]

I'm not seeing a screenshot here...

[christianboutin.com]

Apologies. I updated the screenshot on gallery2 and strangely the new screenshot only showed up in Firefox (which is the one I used). Should be fixed now.

[christianboutin.com]

Persepolia's entry-level fighter is a cheap and effective way for developing nations to ensure the defence of their space-based interests. Sporting a pair of small cannons, their presence is usually enough to deter low-level threats such as pirates. Because of its price and availability, it is still used by larger armies such as the Bolivarian Commonwealth. Its vertically symmetrical design and on-the-fly reversible cockpit means the Quimera can perform high-G manoeuvres in both directions of it's pitch axis, giving this otherwise inferior fighter a small edge over current-generation designs.

[christianboutin.com]

The Terranova was the first and is still the only American-built and American-used civilian cargo transport ship in existence. It is also the only space-based vehicle of the Quebec-based Armand Aerospace.

It's not that the Terranova is a particularly clever piece of engineering, but it gets the job done cheaply and efficiently. And the newer designs were proven too costly for similar results.

32 standard container hooks capable of holding either material containers or passenger carts make up the outer shells of the Terranova.

[christianboutin.com]

Helicopters might have lost most of their appeal in the face of newer propulsion engines that allow most fighters to hover. However they remain to this day the most energy-efficient VTOL vehicles and for that reason they are still used by many developing nations. Armand Aerospace's BRH 44 Hyena is a solid and capable attack helicopter that can deliver both anti-air and anti-ground ordnance. It is compact and easy to move.

[christianboutin.com]

The main fighter of the USCA and a solid jack-of-all-trades fighter. The original swept-wing design brought upon the name Jackknife. Although the swept wings were later abandoned, the name remained. A pair of pulse lasers and rocket pods make it a force to be reckoned with.

[liamrudel]

Looks a bit like a cylon raider from Battle Star Galactica cool

[jacmoe]

Keep those ships coming! Don't stop.

Very entertaining - I like the attention paid to the details.

[christianboutin.com]

Thanks @liamrudel, actually designed that one before I ever saw BSG. It's a forward-swept "overreaching" wing design that's more inspired by early Wing Commander and Freespace games. I think the first one I ever saw was the Kilrathi Dralthi from Wing Commander (http://wcnews.com/ships2/wc1dralthi.shtml). That was a thing of beauty (but it doesn't make me any younger)!

@jacmoe Oh they are coming. Every sunday for at least 30 more weeks Brace yourself! Thanks for the cheer!

[christianboutin.com]

http://www.exequor.com/usca/?q=gallery&g2_itemId=381
You can visit http://exequor.com/usca/?q=gallery&g2_itemId=365 and rate all the ships of the week!

[christianboutin.com]

Remember to visit http://exequor.com/usca/?q=gallery&g2_itemId=365 and rate all the ships of the week!

[jacmoe]

Very nice!
However, I miss the descriptions!

[christianboutin.com]

Descriptions are all on the website. It's an incentive for people to go there and rate the various ships Also, not that I want to spoil anything (or barter in vapour), but a new shader material might be giving all those ships a facelift sometimes soon, maybe within a month or so if all goes well. I got some help! Not to worry I'll keep pushing ships here every week with the current shader until then.

[christianboutin.com]

Visit http://exequor.com/usca/?q=gallery&g2_itemId=365 to rate all 8 ships of the week, and to read more about every one of them! Thanks!

[christianboutin.com]

This week a pair of screenshots. Special thanks to madmarx, to whom I am forever indebted, who came up with an awesome shader to run my ships through, all the previous ships of the week are now rather obsolete and bland. To demonstrate how so, I'm including two screenshots of this week's Ship of the Week. The first one with the lame hack-job shader I had come up with and which was used on all ships of the week so far, the second one with the awesome madmarx shaders. Same model, same textures. Enjoy!





Visit http://exequor.com/usca/?q=gallery&g2_itemId=365 to rate all ships of the week, and to read more about every one of them! Thanks!

[jacmoe]

Wow, that makes quite a difference!

[christianboutin.com]

A bit early this week, enjoy!



Visit http://exequor.com/usca/?q=gallery&g2_itemId=365 to rate all ships of the week, and to read more about every one of them! Thanks!

[DanielSefton]

Wow, you have a sweet collection of ships!

I take it you're working on the gameplay in the background? Could you give us an insight into what the game involves?

Perhaps a video sometime?

[christianboutin.com]

Aside from the teaser (which is already 2 years old), there's this small vid I posted recently but it's on facebook : http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=lo ... 8118275866. Working on a trailer proper for this summer. All the gameplay modules are coded and there are already 2 playable levels. But lots of polish to do (lots of code to bring from prototype to production). Now I'm full time in final assets production. Which is why I decided to put on this Ship of the Week concept. Forces me to keep'em coming Gameplay is classic shmup in a 3D world. But it mixes most shmup types in a single game. More to come in that upcoming trailer, and gameplay videos which should start appearing throughout the summer. Cheers!

[christianboutin.com]

Happy Canada Day to all you nice people of the Ogre Forum. I thought I'd take that opportunity to give you a glimpse of the 3 protagonists of the game, as well as a small USCA teaser-promo celebrating the nation. Enjoy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oFaJ5e8cLw Movie is pretty low quality. I actually decided to make this promo just 4 hours ago, had to reskin and rename the ship, setup the fireworks and all. And I realized my version of Pinnacle Studios didn't export in HD. I upgraded and will have a sweet HD version tomorrow. Cheers!

* EDIT : HD version now up. I'm going to bed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaiIbq5y4ME

[xadhoom]

Hey!

Very nice artwork!
Do you already have plans how to integrate your protagonist into the game? Just as player to choose or also later as active parts in story cuts?

xad

[christianboutin.com]

Yes the artwork is quite nice, I can say it because I didn't make it . Very talented friend of mine did.

Despite being a shmup, it'll be one of the more story-driven shmups out there, akin to games like Panzer Dragoon Orta, for example. Each character has its own path and set of missions. I won't go into details about how the story is told, but Absolute Zero and Total Annihilation Kingdoms were inspirations here.

Granted, since it's a shmup (and for budget reasons as well) you'll hear the characters much more than you'll actually see them . I hope the script I wrote will give the players enough insight on their motivations and personalities.

Also, for the record, that Canada Day video I posted is rendered entirely in-game with Ogre and unretouched. So it's not some baked Blender render or anything like that. A good demonstration of the new shader used ( can also brag about that because I didn't make it either )

Cheers!

[christianboutin.com]

Happy Fourth of July to our American friends! As this is America's birthday, how about a ship-of-the-week that's the meanest, baddest, most powerful planetary USCA weapon ever built? Introducing : The Governor!



Visit http://exequor.com/usca/?q=gallery&g2_itemId=365 to rate all ships of the week, and to read more about every one of them! Thanks!

[spacegaier]

Hey, I like this one!!! Looks really neat...