- Joined
- Aug 11, 2013
- Messages
- 242
- Reaction score
- 117
One of the best things in the StarMade community is the variety of ships that people make, and how amazing some of them are. Especially jaw dropping are the larger ships that some people create - by hand. The amount of detail put into these ships can be more than a little discouraging for those of us who strive to build ships of similar grandeur.
When building a large ship (particularly a project ship), I tend to occupy myself with every tiny little detail. We've likely all heard the phrase (sometimes from ourselves), "I want every block to have a purpose", especially in regards to aesthetic detailing. Thus we tend to overlook greebling as a form of aesthetic building technique. A seemingly completely random detail that covers a large flat area. When I first started out with exploring the greebl, I asked around to try and find the secret technique or process that would help me make awesome looking greebled ships. Surely there must be a specific algorithm that will tell me how to do precise and good looking greebl, was something I kept telling myself. I soon found it was much more simple, if you give yourself a set of rules.
Greebling is a term used by sci-fi designers to denote a kind of miniscule aesthetic detailing (usually to the exterior) that makes an object look more cool or interesting. When the ships in Star Wars IV were being created, the designers took random small pieces of model airplanes and ships (known as greebly bits) and stuck them on the models of the ships.
Greebling gives depth to a greebled object, while simultaneuously making it look larger. While it is not neccessary to greeble a ship, doing so is a quick and effective method of giving a ship character.
------------------
Here we have the hull of a large ship. It is plain and boring. We're going to greeble it.
To start off, we should get some terms stright to simplify our greebling process. We're going to talk about depth and density in regards to our greebling. Depth will focus on the maximum height of blocks from the surface of the ship, while density is in regards to the number of blocks in a given area at the same depth.
To start off, we're going to greeble the flat surface with depth of 1, and a low - moderate low density. We do this by semi-randomly adding blocks to the surface, roughly the same difference apart.
It's no piece of art, but it does look slightly more interesting than it did before.
To make it look more intersting, we'll change the depth of the greeble to 2, and increase the density of the lowest layer to moderate-high. Doing this is a simple process. It's like you're trying to colour in the area you want to greeble. Once you've 'coloured in the area', go back over it and remove any blocks that fall outside of the correct depth.
The ship almost certainly looks bigger and more intersting - at least it's no longer a simple flat plane. I find this level of greebling the quickest and most effective for the ships I make. The greeble can be improved further, however, by adding in lights at a very low density and at the depth closest to the surface of the ship. Doing all of this on all the remaing neraby flat planes will further improve the ship.
Fully greebled, this ship is looking much better and is almost unrecognisable from the original.
------------
Basic Tips on Greebling
When building a large ship (particularly a project ship), I tend to occupy myself with every tiny little detail. We've likely all heard the phrase (sometimes from ourselves), "I want every block to have a purpose", especially in regards to aesthetic detailing. Thus we tend to overlook greebling as a form of aesthetic building technique. A seemingly completely random detail that covers a large flat area. When I first started out with exploring the greebl, I asked around to try and find the secret technique or process that would help me make awesome looking greebled ships. Surely there must be a specific algorithm that will tell me how to do precise and good looking greebl, was something I kept telling myself. I soon found it was much more simple, if you give yourself a set of rules.
Greebling is a term used by sci-fi designers to denote a kind of miniscule aesthetic detailing (usually to the exterior) that makes an object look more cool or interesting. When the ships in Star Wars IV were being created, the designers took random small pieces of model airplanes and ships (known as greebly bits) and stuck them on the models of the ships.
Greebling gives depth to a greebled object, while simultaneuously making it look larger. While it is not neccessary to greeble a ship, doing so is a quick and effective method of giving a ship character.
------------------
Here we have the hull of a large ship. It is plain and boring. We're going to greeble it.
To start off, we should get some terms stright to simplify our greebling process. We're going to talk about depth and density in regards to our greebling. Depth will focus on the maximum height of blocks from the surface of the ship, while density is in regards to the number of blocks in a given area at the same depth.
To start off, we're going to greeble the flat surface with depth of 1, and a low - moderate low density. We do this by semi-randomly adding blocks to the surface, roughly the same difference apart.
It's no piece of art, but it does look slightly more interesting than it did before.
To make it look more intersting, we'll change the depth of the greeble to 2, and increase the density of the lowest layer to moderate-high. Doing this is a simple process. It's like you're trying to colour in the area you want to greeble. Once you've 'coloured in the area', go back over it and remove any blocks that fall outside of the correct depth.
The ship almost certainly looks bigger and more intersting - at least it's no longer a simple flat plane. I find this level of greebling the quickest and most effective for the ships I make. The greeble can be improved further, however, by adding in lights at a very low density and at the depth closest to the surface of the ship. Doing all of this on all the remaing neraby flat planes will further improve the ship.
Fully greebled, this ship is looking much better and is almost unrecognisable from the original.
------------
Basic Tips on Greebling
- It's a good idea to use the same colour for your greeble as the hull underneath.
- Don't be afraid to go right up to the edge of the plane, you can easily erase mistakes.
- Make it random; even if you place blocks over your set depth you can erase them later to tidy it up.
- Greebling is much harder to do on areas that are supposed to be curved or sloped. It's easiest to keep it to flat surfaces.
- You can create a large depressed area in a plane of a ship, and greeble insde that area. It adds some great contrast without increasing the dimensions of a ship.
- Mix greebling with more specific detailing such as vents, turrets, symbols, and other similar aesthetics.
