.
Taking a stab at 3d modelling again after a decade hiatus - last time I did this sort of thing DOS edit and Pov-ray were the top dog tools...
anywho, I've got the model imported and worked up into a mod...
[imghttp://www.battletech.hopto.org/Freelancer_mods/razorII_thumb.jpg[/img
full preview image: http://www.battletech.hopto.org/Freelan ... azorII.jpg
and worked up as a mod
http://www.battletech.hopto.org/Freelan ... .zip.flmod
I have some crazy idea's for my next project, which is either going to be a Orc Brute Ram from Battlefleet Gothic, or the God Phoenix from Gatchaman... Both of which are likely going to have a ramming attack as their primary weapon.
It's true, Batsy... I know everything, and kinda like the kid who peeks at his Christmas presents I must admit its sadly anti-climatic. Behind all the sturm and batarangs you're just a little boy in a playsuit crying for mommy and daddy. It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
Ah, what the hell, I'll laugh anyways. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
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Wed May 04, 2005 9:54 pm
Well... if you're willing to take some constructive critique, here would be my response to the ship. I've viewed the CMP and MAT, so I'm not just going off of my initial impressions, so please bear this in mind.
The Good:
1. Beautiful, clean and accurate detail. Whoever did the textures really tried very hard to emulate fuselage panels, etc. of a real-world plane.
2. Fairly efficient modeling, although there are faces on the backsides of the "rockets" that will never be seen by anybody.
The Not so Good:
1. A 5MB MAT is not efficient modeling practice. I know, I know, you're back after a long time, but texture memory is still precious, and you need to be more efficient. How can you achieve this goal? By building a single uv-map for the model, and exporting as DDS (DXT1, no mipmaps)... you can reduce that 5MB MAT to 500KB. I gave it a whirl, and was able to consolidate it down to one 2048/2048 DDS by re-doing the uvmaps with UVMapper Classic in 5 minutes
2. The texture detailing is extremely sharp and accurate... but it's too sharp to look real. Use some browns, and gently hand-paint some oil streaks, dirty areas and other things- paint chips, smoky areas where the guns will be mounted, etc. Put some dings on the bird- right now it has the overly-clean look of a Japanese robot model- y'know, the ones that are so perfectly painted that they're obviously not real?
3. I really don't know what to tell you about the color scheme, except that it's not to my taste. It looks like the scheme that would be used by some present-day squadron that performed at air shows, not something from FL. Sorry- that's just a matter of taste, and it doesn't mean it's bad- everybody who's seen my work knows that I am basically a sucker for jewel tones anyhow
4. After looking at the model... there are a number of issues. First off, it doesn't have a proper cockpit, and the texture is clearly distorted in that area of the model. There are other areas where the tris are a bit bumpy and stuff, too. It's pretty hard to notice, but only because of the huge size of the TGAs- if you make the maps a little more reasonable, it's going to be an issue.
My feeling on this is that this is probably your "let's get to know how 3D has changed since 1996" piece. It's pretty neat, and if that's your texture... color me impressed, because once you start adding realistic touches to your ships, they're going to kick major butt.
Next time, though... try to make more of an effort to make an original design, and don't just build a fighter plane that looks like something from the 20th Century... not the 25th.
And personally, I'd rather see something that was entirely new- I get really tired of seeing people copying other artists' ideas, instead of stepping up to the plate and giving us something really new. Trek/Star Wars stuff is boring. Copying GW's IP is equally boring. I don't want to see Jervis Johnson's art- I'd like to see yours
The Good:
1. Beautiful, clean and accurate detail. Whoever did the textures really tried very hard to emulate fuselage panels, etc. of a real-world plane.
2. Fairly efficient modeling, although there are faces on the backsides of the "rockets" that will never be seen by anybody.
The Not so Good:
1. A 5MB MAT is not efficient modeling practice. I know, I know, you're back after a long time, but texture memory is still precious, and you need to be more efficient. How can you achieve this goal? By building a single uv-map for the model, and exporting as DDS (DXT1, no mipmaps)... you can reduce that 5MB MAT to 500KB. I gave it a whirl, and was able to consolidate it down to one 2048/2048 DDS by re-doing the uvmaps with UVMapper Classic in 5 minutes
2. The texture detailing is extremely sharp and accurate... but it's too sharp to look real. Use some browns, and gently hand-paint some oil streaks, dirty areas and other things- paint chips, smoky areas where the guns will be mounted, etc. Put some dings on the bird- right now it has the overly-clean look of a Japanese robot model- y'know, the ones that are so perfectly painted that they're obviously not real?
3. I really don't know what to tell you about the color scheme, except that it's not to my taste. It looks like the scheme that would be used by some present-day squadron that performed at air shows, not something from FL. Sorry- that's just a matter of taste, and it doesn't mean it's bad- everybody who's seen my work knows that I am basically a sucker for jewel tones anyhow
4. After looking at the model... there are a number of issues. First off, it doesn't have a proper cockpit, and the texture is clearly distorted in that area of the model. There are other areas where the tris are a bit bumpy and stuff, too. It's pretty hard to notice, but only because of the huge size of the TGAs- if you make the maps a little more reasonable, it's going to be an issue.
My feeling on this is that this is probably your "let's get to know how 3D has changed since 1996" piece. It's pretty neat, and if that's your texture... color me impressed, because once you start adding realistic touches to your ships, they're going to kick major butt.
Next time, though... try to make more of an effort to make an original design, and don't just build a fighter plane that looks like something from the 20th Century... not the 25th.
And personally, I'd rather see something that was entirely new- I get really tired of seeing people copying other artists' ideas, instead of stepping up to the plate and giving us something really new. Trek/Star Wars stuff is boring. Copying GW's IP is equally boring. I don't want to see Jervis Johnson's art- I'd like to see yours
Thu May 05, 2005 1:59 pm
Well, thanks for the critique.. Lemme address the not-so-good.
1> I actually had a 500k version using 512x512 maps, but I wasn't happy with it... Most of what you said though went over my head (DDS, DXT1, I know what a mipmap is, didn't know .mat pregenned those...) and of what is this UVMapper Classic of which you speak? (sounds like a tool I should have in my box) I was just using the .mat exporter from milkshape (I'd have preferred a unified Gmax exporter, but apparantly so would everyone else!)
2> Most of the sharpness is from the panel lines, which would not appear chipped, nor is there any good reason for a undamaged ship with shields to appear chipped... I did add atmospheric streaks in the appropriate places (trailing edges of wings, around the in-air refuelling port). Too often I see chips and streaks overdone in games making so called 'modern' ships look like junk. Matter of personal taste I guess. If a poorly made chinese J-10 can break mach 2, and land without chipping it's paint, somehow I don't see the problem.
3> Not looking like something from freelancer is a complement to me - I love the game dearly but the existing models and skins run the gamut from total yawn to who was doing crack while making this model (especially the Kusari ones)
4> There were a lot of things I didn't do, like the cockpit, and I know there are some off backfaces and other issues. The trailing edge of the wings at the 'crank' is a great example (pull the skin from the model and you'll see it)... In a way I bit off more than I could chew making my first model a curved blended body, as I should have gone with something simpler, but I figured if I can't handle it now, I'll never get to it later.
And yes, that is my texture... I'm still learning that as I basically just did a 'flat planar' mapping... The canopy distortion has the obvious cause of my not making the canopy a separate object... originally that was hidden because the whole area was going to be one large bubble, but that made it look like a single seater - not the effect I was aiming for... so I looked long and hard at the B-58 and B-1 for inspiration. (There's a LOT of B-58 in there)
As to 20th century not 25th, I often think people try too hard in that department, changing the designs too radically away from craft humans would actually build (again, see all the Kusari ships. Good part of why I hate Starfleet but love Earth Force (B5))... Somehow I prefer my ships a bit more 'conventional' in their appearance, instead of looking like the fin-crazed child of Gundam Wing.
You'll probably be dissapointed with my next two projects, as they are hardly 'originals' - I'm doing the Lightning from Yamato (aka Missile Ship 17) and the GodPhoenix from Gatchaman (trying to decide between the original or the version from the '94 OAV), which I have some... in game tricks in mind for, as I'm going to attempt to implement the "Kagaku Ninpo Hinotori"...
I'm also thinking on the Orc Brute Ram from Battlefleet Gothic for a much similar style of fighting.
It's true, Batsy... I know everything, and kinda like the kid who peeks at his Christmas presents I must admit its sadly anti-climatic. Behind all the sturm and batarangs you're just a little boy in a playsuit crying for mommy and daddy. It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
Ah, what the hell, I'll laugh anyways. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Edited by - deathshadow on 5/5/2005 2:59:16 PM
1> I actually had a 500k version using 512x512 maps, but I wasn't happy with it... Most of what you said though went over my head (DDS, DXT1, I know what a mipmap is, didn't know .mat pregenned those...) and of what is this UVMapper Classic of which you speak? (sounds like a tool I should have in my box) I was just using the .mat exporter from milkshape (I'd have preferred a unified Gmax exporter, but apparantly so would everyone else!)
2> Most of the sharpness is from the panel lines, which would not appear chipped, nor is there any good reason for a undamaged ship with shields to appear chipped... I did add atmospheric streaks in the appropriate places (trailing edges of wings, around the in-air refuelling port). Too often I see chips and streaks overdone in games making so called 'modern' ships look like junk. Matter of personal taste I guess. If a poorly made chinese J-10 can break mach 2, and land without chipping it's paint, somehow I don't see the problem.
3> Not looking like something from freelancer is a complement to me - I love the game dearly but the existing models and skins run the gamut from total yawn to who was doing crack while making this model (especially the Kusari ones)
4> There were a lot of things I didn't do, like the cockpit, and I know there are some off backfaces and other issues. The trailing edge of the wings at the 'crank' is a great example (pull the skin from the model and you'll see it)... In a way I bit off more than I could chew making my first model a curved blended body, as I should have gone with something simpler, but I figured if I can't handle it now, I'll never get to it later.
And yes, that is my texture... I'm still learning that as I basically just did a 'flat planar' mapping... The canopy distortion has the obvious cause of my not making the canopy a separate object... originally that was hidden because the whole area was going to be one large bubble, but that made it look like a single seater - not the effect I was aiming for... so I looked long and hard at the B-58 and B-1 for inspiration. (There's a LOT of B-58 in there)
As to 20th century not 25th, I often think people try too hard in that department, changing the designs too radically away from craft humans would actually build (again, see all the Kusari ships. Good part of why I hate Starfleet but love Earth Force (B5))... Somehow I prefer my ships a bit more 'conventional' in their appearance, instead of looking like the fin-crazed child of Gundam Wing.
You'll probably be dissapointed with my next two projects, as they are hardly 'originals' - I'm doing the Lightning from Yamato (aka Missile Ship 17) and the GodPhoenix from Gatchaman (trying to decide between the original or the version from the '94 OAV), which I have some... in game tricks in mind for, as I'm going to attempt to implement the "Kagaku Ninpo Hinotori"...
I'm also thinking on the Orc Brute Ram from Battlefleet Gothic for a much similar style of fighting.
It's true, Batsy... I know everything, and kinda like the kid who peeks at his Christmas presents I must admit its sadly anti-climatic. Behind all the sturm and batarangs you're just a little boy in a playsuit crying for mommy and daddy. It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
Ah, what the hell, I'll laugh anyways. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Edited by - deathshadow on 5/5/2005 2:59:16 PM
Thu May 05, 2005 8:57 pm
Any machine that's used IRL gets dirty. It's just an unavoidable fact of life. Any part of an aircraft, car, truck, tractor etc. that faces into the airstream is going to have a slightly browned edge, due to dirt collecting in the tiny scratches on its surface.
RL combat aircraft (which is the closest comparision we can make to FL's spacecraft, since combat occurs every 3 minutes lol) are very, very dirty. Go look at some photographs of WWII, Vietnam or Gulf War I/II fighters after they've landed from a mission. They aren't remotely clean- there are stains from fuel spillage, dirty exhaust smoke areas, worn paint, and worn areas where the part comes into constant contact with tools or people. In short, high-performance vehicles constantly look worn, unless they're mainly used for show purposes, because parts are generally not being cleaned to make them look better- they're being cleaned to improve performance. Even a commercial jetliner is surprisingly dirty, and they get washed on a regular basis with high-powered waterjets to reduce drag.
In short... I'm not talking about making your ship look like it barely survived being tossed into the junkyard... just a bit more attention to making it seem like an actual thing that sees use. It's a subtle thing, and involves some gentle browns and maybe a little gray.
I actually like FL's art and design- the really far-out stuff is a great exploration of how culture can shape the objects we use, and I think the art team did a good job of establishing cultural styles. My only complaint is that there just isn't much variety to it- where are the taxis, the small vans, the ocean liners with dancing passengers looking up out've the crystal skylights? The real world is filled with vehicles with a lot more color and variety. But overall... I'd say that DA did a pretty good job. Everything looks like stuff people would build, but is distinct and coherently themed for each group. Which, if you've never done a project like that before, is much harder than it looks to achieve.
Not everything in the world needs to look purely functional- we're surrounded by things that aren't optimal designs, because we like their looks, or sub-optimal designs that have been kept in service because replacing them would be too expensive (the B-52 springs to mind). When designing a ship, I always try to keep these things in mind. Functionality isn't the only thing that humans evaluate when they buy things
At any rate, I'm sure your next model will be quite impressive, and if you need help getting your skin in order, let me know- I will be happy to assist you get it down to a much lower map size without losing resolution. UVMapper Classic is freeware (amazingly, considering the quality) and can be found at www.uvmapper.com.
RL combat aircraft (which is the closest comparision we can make to FL's spacecraft, since combat occurs every 3 minutes lol) are very, very dirty. Go look at some photographs of WWII, Vietnam or Gulf War I/II fighters after they've landed from a mission. They aren't remotely clean- there are stains from fuel spillage, dirty exhaust smoke areas, worn paint, and worn areas where the part comes into constant contact with tools or people. In short, high-performance vehicles constantly look worn, unless they're mainly used for show purposes, because parts are generally not being cleaned to make them look better- they're being cleaned to improve performance. Even a commercial jetliner is surprisingly dirty, and they get washed on a regular basis with high-powered waterjets to reduce drag.
In short... I'm not talking about making your ship look like it barely survived being tossed into the junkyard... just a bit more attention to making it seem like an actual thing that sees use. It's a subtle thing, and involves some gentle browns and maybe a little gray.
I actually like FL's art and design- the really far-out stuff is a great exploration of how culture can shape the objects we use, and I think the art team did a good job of establishing cultural styles. My only complaint is that there just isn't much variety to it- where are the taxis, the small vans, the ocean liners with dancing passengers looking up out've the crystal skylights? The real world is filled with vehicles with a lot more color and variety. But overall... I'd say that DA did a pretty good job. Everything looks like stuff people would build, but is distinct and coherently themed for each group. Which, if you've never done a project like that before, is much harder than it looks to achieve.
Not everything in the world needs to look purely functional- we're surrounded by things that aren't optimal designs, because we like their looks, or sub-optimal designs that have been kept in service because replacing them would be too expensive (the B-52 springs to mind). When designing a ship, I always try to keep these things in mind. Functionality isn't the only thing that humans evaluate when they buy things
At any rate, I'm sure your next model will be quite impressive, and if you need help getting your skin in order, let me know- I will be happy to assist you get it down to a much lower map size without losing resolution. UVMapper Classic is freeware (amazingly, considering the quality) and can be found at www.uvmapper.com.
Fri May 06, 2005 12:47 pm
Actually, I was looking at modern fighter aircraft when creating the skin - yes there are dirty sections aft of the rivets, strakes and of course aft of where contrail forms, but for the most part the paint is NOT chipped nor are the leading edges dirty on craft like the F-16, F-15 or F-18... Even after missions. I paid particular attention to Egyptian, Jordainian, Bahraini and Isreali craft, as theirs would see the higher constant wear... You'll notice my trailing edges are dirtied up, as are the handful of rivets... just not anything near the front of the craft except for the two manual fuelling ports and the centerline in-air port. (I originally had a smudge on the rudder leading edge from 'afterspray', but it looked stupid so it got cut.) There's just no reason for anything forward of that or the majority of it's surface area to be 'grimy'... Real planes are NOT that dirty. (go through some of the photo's at www.f-16.net for good examples - they have WRECKS that are cleaner than what you see in most sci-fi)
Again, gotta be personal preference... to me most of skins look so obviously grimed up they don't even look like a real craft to me. It's actually one of my pet peeves... but as George Carlin said, I don't have pet peeves, I have major psychotic hatreds.
Again, gotta be personal preference... to me most of skins look so obviously grimed up they don't even look like a real craft to me. It's actually one of my pet peeves... but as George Carlin said, I don't have pet peeves, I have major psychotic hatreds.
Fri May 06, 2005 12:58 pm
Wait, I have a question, how are you getting 2048x2048 in there at 500K? The game only (to my knowledge) supports uncompressed .tga files, since that would be minimum two 2048x2048 images, even at 8 bit (I used 24) that's 8 megs... Is there a compressed format it supports that's not in most of the tutorials?
I'm working on a 512x512 8 bit version that should alleviate the texture size greatly, the color depth on each should be low enough to palettize down with no data loss, and that would be about 500-600k...
I'm working on a 512x512 8 bit version that should alleviate the texture size greatly, the color depth on each should be low enough to palettize down with no data loss, and that would be about 500-600k...
Sat May 07, 2005 12:12 pm
The FL game engine supports various flavors of DDS. TGAs are to be used only in extremis- while they preserve detail perfectly, they are also highly inefficient. Go get Kasdia's Overhaul Guide (do a search for Kasdia) to learn more about DDS, and go here to download the latest DDS texture plugins for Photoshop. Don't use the Photoshop plugin included with the Guide, btw- use the newer one from nVidia.
Kasdia's Overhaul Guide doesn't cover a lot've things, such as the fact that the FL game engine can handle DXT1 DDS as well as DXT3. DXT1 doesn't support an alpha channel, but even when compressed quite a bit it still retains detail. It's what I use for anything large- I use alpha channels as little as humanly possible, because the FL engine doesn't handle them very well, except for transparency.
Oh yeah... and, to my knowledge... 8-bit TGA will cause the game to crash. TGAs are just not really useful imho unless you're working with tilesets... and even then, DA didn't use them very much. Use DDS... it rocks, once you figure out the settings
Edited by - Argh on 5/7/2005 1:13:29 PM
Kasdia's Overhaul Guide doesn't cover a lot've things, such as the fact that the FL game engine can handle DXT1 DDS as well as DXT3. DXT1 doesn't support an alpha channel, but even when compressed quite a bit it still retains detail. It's what I use for anything large- I use alpha channels as little as humanly possible, because the FL engine doesn't handle them very well, except for transparency.
Oh yeah... and, to my knowledge... 8-bit TGA will cause the game to crash. TGAs are just not really useful imho unless you're working with tilesets... and even then, DA didn't use them very much. Use DDS... it rocks, once you figure out the settings
Edited by - Argh on 5/7/2005 1:13:29 PM
Sun May 08, 2005 1:39 am
This is my latest piece... just whipped this up really fast this evening for my XML Toolkit mod, as a "fun thing" to get more people to download it and (hopefully) discover the joys of XML/FLMM modding.
This is the Purity. It's a Xenos-only ship. I basically decided that since the Xenos are the most obvious "space rednecks" in FL's universe (which has rebels of all flavors, so long as they aren't black )... well, rednecks loved the Fiero, so this is (heh) a red, white and blue Fiero with a X-wing (get it? Xenos? X?). It's gotta be one of the lowest-poly things I've ever done for this game engine- I usually like stuff with curves and rounded everything, but I wanted to really get that Fiero "look". The headlights look kewl in-game, and the rear engine is a neat blue- too bad we can't make custom ALEs, because the shade of blue is too green for its own good. Still, it's not bad for an evening's work, I think.
Edited by - Argh on 5/8/2005 2:42:34 AM
This is the Purity. It's a Xenos-only ship. I basically decided that since the Xenos are the most obvious "space rednecks" in FL's universe (which has rebels of all flavors, so long as they aren't black
)... well, rednecks loved the Fiero, so this is (heh) a red, white and blue Fiero with a X-wing (get it? Xenos? X?). It's gotta be one of the lowest-poly things I've ever done for this game engine- I usually like stuff with curves and rounded everything, but I wanted to really get that Fiero "look". The headlights look kewl in-game, and the rear engine is a neat blue- too bad we can't make custom ALEs, because the shade of blue is too green for its own good. Still, it's not bad for an evening's work, I think.
Edited by - Argh on 5/8/2005 2:42:34 AM
Wed May 11, 2005 10:37 am
This is a new freighter I am working on, what do you think? It is a VTT, Venerable troop transport, for those of you who know firefly you will see the resemblance, a tribute to that show and my earlier work...not that long ago. Please tell what you think...and yes it will run very well in freelancers the counts are well under the maximum.
Troop Transport 1
Troop Transport 2
Troop Transport 3
Troop Transport 4
Featured at XTS studios.
Edited by - parabolix on 7/28/2005 7:23:20 AM
Troop Transport 1
Troop Transport 2
Troop Transport 3
Troop Transport 4
Featured at XTS studios.
Edited by - parabolix on 7/28/2005 7:23:20 AM
Thu May 12, 2005 4:19 am
Ok, here's my latest project, the God Phoenix from Super Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. I've still got to get some vertexes worked out right (especially on the bottom) and skin it, but so far so good...
God Phoenix
Edited by - parabolix on 7/28/2005 7:15:36 AM
God Phoenix
Edited by - parabolix on 7/28/2005 7:15:36 AM
Thu May 12, 2005 10:58 am
Thanks for the suggestion regarding the turbines parabolix, and thanks for the compliment Argh. Do either of you have any texturing suggestions? any advice? This ship has taken a lot of work and reworking in order to get it to its current state and any texturing advice would be welcomed.
Thu May 12, 2005 8:26 pm
@Deathshadow:
The model's looking very nice, but the number of verts that obviously have welding issues is a little scary. I'd split most of the edge seams and unweld it before exporting to MS3D... Milkshape has an annoying tendency to interpret any welding in the way you least want it to, so if you want your edges sharp and your verts to look clean, get it clean before export. Gonna be a neat ship, though.
@Imperatodd:
Well... given the obvious roots of this thing, you've got exactly two choices:
1. Slavishly re-create the textures used on the original, working from reference shots. Somebody recently put up a 6-view of this ship (which is what I assume you've been working from), so you could use that as a starting place. This is the safest route with this ship. It's not a very clean design, and the original artists who made it wanted it that way- almost nothing about this ship looks clean, and it's obviously not designed for an atmosphere.
2. Give us an original artistic interpretation of this geometry. Make something better than the original's look, which from the "we threw stuff together and put engines on it and called it a spaceship" school of design. Somehow make this collection of shapes come together, instead of looking like a bunch of things that barely belong. Tricky, but possible.
Either way, given the size of this, to get all of this onto one texturemap and have it look good at scale, you're going to have to work with a 2048X2048 DDS file, and laying it out in whatever you're using for uv-mapping is going to be a chore, because you're going to have to break it up into a lot of groups first. I would break up every major sub-object on this puppy, with an eye towards using the best possible mapping methods for each zone on the model.
The rear of the ship is probably going to be the most challenging by far. If I were skinning it, I'd group the glowing parts of the rear together into a group, and use a cylindrical map on them, and the same for the metal bands that meet at the rear end. The last geometry at the tip I'd group seperately, and do a planar map along the z axis. The "petals" would be split into interior and anterior groups, and I'd apply a polar map to each one along the z axis, so that I could give the insides of the "petals" a unique look.
The body and front fins are the easiest parts, really. I'd split them into sides, top and bottom... and probably just use good ol' planar maps. The interior recessed areas would be about the only place I'd be tempted to just use a tilemap to save time.
If you're going to re-create the ship from the show, that's the easiest route to getting the texture variation seen in the show's production model.
Personally, I think that... strange as this may sound... the rear of the ship is the sexy part, and you want to take pains to make it really nice. Usually spacecraft from TV and movies are designed to be more overtly plane-like, or like office buildings with turrets. This one's unusual in that it's been styled to look more "functional", but it has a certain thrown-together look to it. It's not overtly "hard" sci-fi, like the landers from Space 1999, but it shares some similarities
The model's looking very nice, but the number of verts that obviously have welding issues is a little scary. I'd split most of the edge seams and unweld it before exporting to MS3D... Milkshape has an annoying tendency to interpret any welding in the way you least want it to, so if you want your edges sharp and your verts to look clean, get it clean before export. Gonna be a neat ship, though.
@Imperatodd:
Well... given the obvious roots of this thing, you've got exactly two choices:
1. Slavishly re-create the textures used on the original, working from reference shots. Somebody recently put up a 6-view of this ship (which is what I assume you've been working from), so you could use that as a starting place. This is the safest route with this ship. It's not a very clean design, and the original artists who made it wanted it that way- almost nothing about this ship looks clean, and it's obviously not designed for an atmosphere.
2. Give us an original artistic interpretation of this geometry. Make something better than the original's look, which from the "we threw stuff together and put engines on it and called it a spaceship" school of design. Somehow make this collection of shapes come together, instead of looking like a bunch of things that barely belong. Tricky, but possible.
Either way, given the size of this, to get all of this onto one texturemap and have it look good at scale, you're going to have to work with a 2048X2048 DDS file, and laying it out in whatever you're using for uv-mapping is going to be a chore, because you're going to have to break it up into a lot of groups first. I would break up every major sub-object on this puppy, with an eye towards using the best possible mapping methods for each zone on the model.
The rear of the ship is probably going to be the most challenging by far. If I were skinning it, I'd group the glowing parts of the rear together into a group, and use a cylindrical map on them, and the same for the metal bands that meet at the rear end. The last geometry at the tip I'd group seperately, and do a planar map along the z axis. The "petals" would be split into interior and anterior groups, and I'd apply a polar map to each one along the z axis, so that I could give the insides of the "petals" a unique look.
The body and front fins are the easiest parts, really. I'd split them into sides, top and bottom... and probably just use good ol' planar maps. The interior recessed areas would be about the only place I'd be tempted to just use a tilemap to save time.
If you're going to re-create the ship from the show, that's the easiest route to getting the texture variation seen in the show's production model.
Personally, I think that... strange as this may sound... the rear of the ship is the sexy part, and you want to take pains to make it really nice. Usually spacecraft from TV and movies are designed to be more overtly plane-like, or like office buildings with turrets. This one's unusual in that it's been styled to look more "functional", but it has a certain thrown-together look to it. It's not overtly "hard" sci-fi, like the landers from Space 1999, but it shares some similarities
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