ATV Ship Shape: Drake Herald

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:15

   [Music] hey everybody on this week's episode of ship shape we're sitting down with what's your what's your title Josh uh 3D artist 3D artist Mr Josh Coons out of our Austin Studio how you doing Josh I'm doing good we didn't hear this ahead of time now Josh is normally out of our Austin Studio he's here visiting in La we do these syncs from time to time uh because for all the Skype conversations and all the emails sometimes there's nothing better than face to-face meetings so you're here in town and currently you're working on the Drake Herold correct all right now the Drake Harold's we we've seen work on the Drake Herold for some

2. 00:01:03

   time like we we we began building it last year yeah and then uh it got put on hold while other things were prioritized but now you know the wheel of development has swung back around we're we're back to working on the on the Drake now and that's Fallen to you correct so uh what can you tell us about the Drake Herold and what you're working on now uh Drake Herold uh so let me oh we did a constellation right after constellation we went Street to uh gon Scout so significant size decrease so now uh uh this one will be my first Solo solo Venture ship um so I'm doing the whole thing interior exterior uh Drake Harold is a technical single seater but you can bring a friend

3. 00:01:51

   along for the adventure um and it's a it's a data gather transporter um a data runners is what I'm calling it now where was the where was the ship left at when you came aboard it so it was uh as far as like a blockout it was it was pretty fleshed out um there were still some unsolved uh issues with the ship uh and some functionality was missing as well uh I had to add that in uh and start refining it down um on the higher poly count side uh and when I say that I mean they're just the higher poly count isn't utilized the best uh I needed to push the PO out to where the player can see

4. 00:02:39

   them gotcha and uh we had some uh metrics uh issues making sure everything's in metric so everything works you can climb climb into the ship get in the seat you can swivel in the seat without cutting your kneecaps off all that good stuff it's one of those things where when we started building it out we knew this much about how to make ships and now that we're back to it we know much more about making ships so that's that's one of the benefits of sometimes waiting to build a ship is you end up learning a lot more along the way and you can apply those lessons to the building of the ship yeah so this is part of our pipeline now where and this this is the stage one and we call it the white box second stage is gray box and in white box we don't go overboard now what you're seeing on the screen right

5. 00:03:30

   now because I already started out with something that was fleshed out a little bit more this is a whole lot more detailed than what a typical white box would look like um but the white box affords us time it saves us a lot of time in terms of uh when design has a problem or if something doesn't fit or the metrics are off we can change and iterate more quickly and with less wasted manh hours when something needs to be changed which is good for everyone involved in this process right so what are some of the things you've had to do here in the white box space so one of the main things that was requested was the main cockpit uh outer hle shape it

6. 00:04:21

   was a little too needl noosed so I have pulled it out and gave it a more uh interesting curved shape um the interior was cramped which affected the exterior so to get the interior metrics for instance there's a console in the middle of the ship where someone can sit but if the pilot wanted to get behind him and go back towards the back of the ship he didn't have enough room which meant the exterior hole needed to come out wider so the ship has been widened by I'd say about 5 to 10% somewhere in there okay um that pushed things out so that it changes the angles so all those have to be adjusted um

7. 00:05:12

   the landing gear was just not uh it wasn't enough for a ship of this stature um so and this is a good example of uh what white box sto should look like so very simple uh very easy to change if something messes up we do our blockin animations so we make sure everything is going to work um not the final animation uh the animation team will will get their run at this and uh uh polish it out and make it look even better than it already is um there's still some uh functionality as far as uh our data modules on the side still being worked out so that is roughed in and I'm leaving that alone

8. 00:06:00

   until things are finalized that looks like a really elaborate bicycle lock yeah that that was actually thumbs and you select the combination that was actually brought up uh before is that that does look like a uh uh a bike lock for a combo that's how we keep your information safe it's it's by a gigantic combination the best encryption of all time uh one the the biggest thing that wasn't implemented that needed to be implemented was uh the and I'm just calling it the satellite array for now um so for the gam playay of uh transmitting transmitting deep space or receiving uh it needed to deploy this satellite array and we had many Concepts on what that should look like so wait

9. 00:06:49

   for final say um uh Roberts picked the one he liked and I executed it and blocked in the animation for it so you'll be hovering out in space transmitting how about that stance right there it's like a data version of death Blossom yeah uh the uh entry was not on Metric uh this is very important because you're dealing with uh Unknown Known which was the ground the ground does not changed that's at a level so when the grounds you have a known metric which is absolute absolute ground so that dictates the metric of

10. 00:07:38

    entry and exit uh this used to have kind of a um small like private jetliner esque type fold down stair and it was not metric um actually wouldn't work at all so uh going back to the style guide for Drake um we push it back into an automated ladder uh then a slip cover door Dres a very and seal yeah utilitarian yes just what works what do we need to get it to work and then stop there how do we get them in there ladder done what are these inside the uh the intakes here so those are another change um those are upgrades from the previous design of the wing size one missiles

11. 00:08:30

    and uh we went with a size two and upgraded more uh more missiles to that now do we know were you part of the discussion of why they upgraded the missiles or do you just hey they told me to upgrade the missiles and I did so as far as how that came about if I pull up a concept for you so we have these Concepts and we had this this little bit that you can see here and um I had asked about it and I'm like are those missiles or what are those and I knew we had a a wing missile and uh this is this is why we white box um we white boxed out the

12. 00:09:18

    metric for a size one missile it is not at all this size and it just looked like this little little dainty accessory yeah even smaller than what see in this shot it's just it's so minuscule and small so uh right here there's a uh a gun mount now and on the bottom gun Armament they wanted the ship to be like uh super super fast um the Firepower as far as like guns not maxed out but it's got It's got a good payload of missiles and then it has a good a good amount of uh countermeasures flare launchers which have been proxied in back here that's where they'll they'll deploy so I think

13. 00:10:06

    3 to one uh chaff and flare so two two flare and six chaff so lots of counter measures and then you use these big bad boys to get out of those sticky situations every time I look at this I think about how people are going to use these as drag racers oh yeah that's uh another another design intent yep it's like they may not be able to beat you on the turns but on the straightaways The Herald is going to haul oh yeah um I was working on this and I was like yeah this is like one of those the first initial rounds of Concepts I was like ah that doesn't look as cool as it could and it it literally reminded me of like a funny car just you

14. 00:10:53

    know straight line let's go as fast as we can and uh that's that's part of my mission for uh once I get past the white box we go to the stage gray box and that's where we start refining uh the looks of it because the Design's nailed down now you said you were working on both the exterior and the interior correct have you begun work on the interior yet uh yeah it's a little rough right now um there was some stuff there previously I can pull that up as soon as Max has done saving so

15. 00:11:47

    late uh so for the interior we have uh like I said before we were having um uh metric issues for how cramp Ed was uh this will be the cockpit area that is still being um finalized uh since we have some new gameplay elements uh we're figuring how that affects the UI scheme uh up front or if it will at all so um I've elected to hold back on that until an answer has been uh figured out so uh entry door uh there will be a weapons rack here that was requested so I blocked out a space for that uh we have our console which is also being metric out as well finalized as

16. 00:12:37

    far as uh how to look on screen making sure everything's like visible within uh one uh fov yeah that they're not just there to be cool that they're actually yeah you're going to be you're going to be doing stuff there um yeah the biggest problem was there was a a chair here it came out into the hallway and I'd say this used to be about there so not only could you not get by but if you sat in the chair and went in it would probably squeeze all of your intestines up through your throat uh from hitting that we call that emerging gameplay yes that is that's a good game playay so uh pushing back uh these server racks these server racks actually hold um other gameplay elements the um uh what do you call the

17. 00:13:29

    the components I had to make sure all those have their spots so we've got some in the floor some of the ceiling uh some on the sidewalls they'll have to be accessible uh this is a rack for another set as is the matching on the other side we've got your base kitchen net yeah base kitchen net microwave um I'm going to have to spiffy that area up a little bit uh all-in-one shower combo also this is being metrick out um I prefer to spend my time making a ship look really cool and missiles and guns and stuff un L on uh the toilet right right now that showers down on the toilet paper this is a problem we had with the original starf blockout yeah do you uh do you pull or roll down

18. 00:14:20

    which way does the the toilet paper roll go these are all decisions over that have to be made toilet paper goes over and down if you're an under you're wrong I wonder if that's different per country I I don't I don't care uh we also had a uh what appeared to be a couch it appeared to be a couch in the back and uh need to get that more sci-fi so this little block here that is the metric for uh a single bed uh bunk so that's what that will turn into after I art it up so yeah that's that's as white box as it gets literally a box a box it's actually not even a box there's two sides missing to it so that'll be where you sleep uh some Cabinetry uh today

19. 00:15:11

    I'll be doing some ceiling passes uh finalizing where the ceiling is going to sit and then uh as the information's FED to me on screen details I will push pull those where they need to be and also the most important part the uh the captain's chair which I'm going to save for last and that is the interior thus far now now if I were designing this ship yeah and I'm the incredibly lazy person that I am there would be a track down the entire center of the ship and the and the captain's chair would just move from the front all the way to the toilet all the way back and you just you could you could just go through the entire Ship Without Ever Getting out of the

20. 00:15:59

    captain's chair we got a little bit of that so you'll have I think you'll walk to about yay and the chair will slide back rotate you'll sit rotate comes back up and puts you in position cuz it gets a little tight back here can't exactly walk around um and that's everything on a hidden which probably makes no sense to anyone well um hey man Josh thanks for taking the time to sit down and show us the the Drake heral oh yeah uh obviously this this is still work in progress It's not going to be in your hangers anytime real soon but uh we are working on it we got uh we got this guy on the case interior nextor

21. 00:16:48

    man this going be cool this ship was not my favorite and it is growing on me yes it it does that it does it's it's this weird ugly duckling that the more the more you stare at at it the more you work with it you just get Plus at certain angles it kind of looks like the brain bug from from stresser Troopers yeah when I uh first started on it I was looking at from the front I'm like this thing looks like a tick it just looks like a big tick that's full all right I'm Jared Huckaby that's Josh Coons this has been ship shap there [Applause] go