The Shipyard

[steamtex]

Quick little hack together I did of the Kestrel and Federation cruisers. Comes in Federation Boring and Federation Blue. Maybe a cruiser, maybe a cargo ship.



All images including gibs download

I did get a bit lazy with the gibs, so there are only three, but hey.

[TaxiService]

What a clean-looking spliced hull! Good job, brotha! ( ^_^)-b

[steamtex]

Cleaned up one of Jeff's Custom Hulls. It was always bothering me how some spliced ships had some of the pink "background" blur overlayed on other parts of themselves. While I was at it, I improved some of the lighting, and made sure the craft was a mirror-image of itself rather than being slightly longer on one side.

[TaxiService]

Nice! What program(s) do you use? Also, have you considered making ships from scratch? If yes, what's stopping you? : )

By the way I really like those sort of curved surfaces on the previous hull you sent! I forgot to say it earlier because i was in a hurry.

[steamtex]

While I know some people use several programs, I just stick to GIMP. I've used that for several years for various purposes, and due to its utility I just haven't been able to switch to anything else. Also, I did make a few hulls from scratch, though I'm still getting used to that, and the lighting needs work.
In the order they were made:


SR2 Normandy Frigate


Unknown Turian Cruiser


Berlin-Class Cruiser


UT-47A Kodiak (Probably my best lighting yet, as I put the most thought into the lighting on it)

[TaxiService]

Holy fishsticks!!!!! Those hulls look pretty good!!!

I don't know how other people feel about writing tutorials, but I think somebody that knows how to use it as well as you should probably write some! : ) I'd like to write more tutorials myself but i don't have enough time to do it significantly, lately.
...and it seems nobody else uses photoshop anyway. ¯\_( ·_· )_/¯

i'm so obsessed with this because i think that sharing knowledge leads to better content creation... But anyway, keep up the good work yo!! ;D Can't wait to see more ships of yours!

[steamtex]

What can I say, I did my research before I started modding. Combine that with prior knowledge on how to use GIMP, and an aptitude for completely wrecking the files of any game that lets me do so, and you get the mess that are my mods. GIMP is actually pretty simple to use, but if you think it'd help, I could work on such a thing.

[TaxiService]

I don't know. Is there anything that you remember feeling confused about when you first attempted to do it? ...i mean, well, regarding shipmaking i guess. >_> ...and i guess the answer would be "no" since you were skilled in GIMP beforehand, so... let me rephrase.

If there is [something you think would help noobs] that you can explain, it'd be a good idea to make a tutorial about it!
...or at least, i think it'd be good idea. o_o But blargh, you don't have to listen to me necessarily! I mean, i understand completely if you don't feel like doing stuff like this for whatever reason! Writing/recording tutorials is not banal either! I remember looking for a tutorial for making tutorials once... so yeah, it's a pain in the ass!

[steamtex]

For the most part, no. As long as you're smart enough to know how to use a gradient tool and you can mirror-image your ship easily enough (assuming it's symmetrical) the process of designing a ship is quite simple. The hard parts are making greebles (something I have not yet done) and gibs. I'm also thinking of just recording the whole process of making a ship to show people how it works, from one terrible modder to another.

A few tips:
Don't use colorize. That tool sucks. Use the hue-saturation tool instead.

I mostly use the gradient tool with the overlay setting. Mess around with it. In general, I'll use it in FG to transparent mode on a specific area that I selected, for additional control.

Alternatively, if you already have the right gradient colors you want (potentially ripped from a vanilla FTL image), just set those two to be your gradient colors, use regular mode rather than overlay, and use that over a certain area.

Get rid of the pink border before you overlay one image on another. Please. It makes me cry if you don't.

There is a tool. It is called Gaussian blur. If you're going to make a pink border or a cloak image, use it. Don't just make a ship without a border, or with a cloak image that is a pure white outline.

Take care of your basic colors before you bother with shading. Is this going to be black or grey? Federation red? Rebel orange or blue? Figure that out before you deal with the lighting.

If all else fails, steal some colors from existing ships in FTL. Except for the orange, the SR2 Normandy I made uses colors entirely from the Kestrel A.

Use a reference if you're making a ship that already exists in some form. I used a top-down image as a reference for the Normandy.

If you want to combine two colors together smoothly, (I can't think of a good way to word this) copy their "border" to a new layer, then use the Gaussian blur tool on that layer, on a fairly low setting (5-10 pixels of blur, perhaps). The result will be a smooth transition between colors.

[RAD-82]

Art is not for me. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around it, especially the shading.

Cleaned up one of Jeff's Custom Hulls.

If you would like another hull to work on, I have an old mod that could use some help if you are interested: http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23438

Here are some red lines on the hull showing one change I'd like it to have, but it could probably use an overhaul.