Pirate ship

[JB3D]

Hi, I'm JB and I am a hobbyist 3D modeler.

 

I came to this site to share some of my excitement for my upcoming project. Yes, I am planning to model a full loaded ship as part of my 3D modeling training. Currently I am still an amateur and hopefully after this I can put myself on the map as an artist. So, I thought: why not model a whole ship as my first portfolio prop. I used the Golden Hinde as base for the hull, because I just like the shape of it. Since this is a replica I am not going to take blueprints to serious and partially use my imagination to make it look pretty. I will, however try to make It as accurate as possible scale wise. Eventually the plan is to have it render in real time. Meaning, fully animated and optimized for something like Unreal Engine. First I will make a so called high_poly version and then optimize it mesh and texture wise by baking it out.

 

Here is the hull I modeled. I also want to ask what you guys think of the overall shape and volume of it? Earlier I was trying to draw in the floor layout a bit, but I'm not 100% sure it's good and since it's 3d I can change anything if necessary? Link and a clean image of the side view. Link 

 

 

 

[JB3D]

2 hours ago, JosephHuntley said:

looks nice what sofrtware are you useing. a little details on the ship and ref lets ppl tell more

Hi, and thanks. I am using MODO. I don't realy have much to go of as refference. It's part of why I came here. I don't know what goes in to a ship like this. I just go of images of the internet. This is quite a challenge itself, because how do you search info about ships that are over 300 year old? the first thing I need to figure out now it the layout of the ship, like: toilet, mess hall, bedrooms, etc. I am also dubbing it bit about the scale. I could scale it up and make it a 3 instead of a 2 deck ship?

[JB3D]

2 hours ago, JosephHuntley said:

Here you go

 

http://www.pirates-corsaires.com/forum/navires-mer/black-pearl-vrai-t453.html

oh yea, that is deffinately a nice drawing but it's not making it easier. This ship is one notch larger then mine. Either i stay with Golden hinde proportion or scale it up a bit and go with this. I think mine is now somewhere around 32 meter long. I think i should just make the smaller one to keep it a bit simpler, because i like to use ton's of polygon's.  And btw. how did they attachs big beams together. I always see bolts and nuts, but im fairly certain they didn't have threaded bolts back then?

[JB3D]

What do you guys think of the individual plank flow and are the planks to wide or should i ad a few? http://prntscr.com/fm7uaw 

[JB3D]

Work in progres.

[mtaylor]

Since you're using the Golden Hind as your base, go with it.  The only real visible difference was that a pirate ships flew a flag... when they did.. some but not all.  Some were upgunned with more guns but basically they wanted to look like the ships they wanted to capture.  Some would fly English colors to get in close to an English ship, French for French, etc.  

 

Early stealth tech as such.

[JB3D]

9 hours ago, mtaylor said:

Since you're using the Golden Hind as your base, go with it.  The only real visible difference was that a pirate ships flew a flag... when they did.. some but not all.  Some were upgunned with more guns but basically they wanted to look like the ships they wanted to capture.  Some would fly English colors to get in close to an English ship, French for French, etc.  

 

Early stealth tech as such.

Yea, I think you're right. Ill keep it small so I can put more detail in it. Yea, I know. I've seen black sails with the scene where they said ''raise the black''! But my cannon might be to big for the ship. I think originally a ship this size had 6 PDR cannons. Mine is a 24 PDR.

[Baker]

Looks good.
Your model looks similar to what I want to build in wood.

 

The transom may be too low below the water line.
 

 

[JB3D]

Decided I didn't like the shape of the trolley and wheels and beefed it up a little. This fits a 24pdr better. Next I will pump some real detail in to it and import it to Zbrush. 

[Chuck Seiler]

    I would go with the 6 pounders.  Golden Hinde had them for a reason, and it wasn't because 'they couldn't afford 24 pounders'.  That's a significant amount of topside weight and a significant amount of recoil when the guns are fired.  There were ships quite a bit larger than GH that didn't have guns as big as 24#. 

[Baker]

I agree with Chuck.
24 pounders are far too big for such a small ship.

 

But if you really want to place these 24 pounders. Please put them under the upper deck.
Otherwise you have an unstable ship (See my Golden Hind build log)

[JB3D]

14 hours ago, Backer said:

I agree with Chuck.
24 pounders are far too big for such a small ship.

 

But if you really want to place these 24 pounders. Please put them under the upper deck.
Otherwise you have an unstable ship (See my Golden Hind build log)

 

18 hours ago, Chuck Seiler said:

    I would go with the 6 pounders.  Golden Hinde had them for a reason, and it wasn't because 'they couldn't afford 24 pounders'.  That's a significant amount of topside weight and a significant amount of recoil when the guns are fired.  There were ships quite a bit larger than GH that didn't have guns as big as 24#. 

 

Yes, I understand that they might be a bit to heavy now, but I can scale them to fit whatever. For now, since I'am already this far, I will stick with it. I can always later-on make different model cannons. Placing them a deck lower would bring them within 50cm of the waterline. 

 

And what do you guys think of the lenght of the rope? I'm not sure how long it should be?

[JB3D]

Alright, made a quick render last night. Nothing special. Just slapped some materials on it to see how it would look.

[mtaylor]

As I recall, and I'm not sure which reference book had it, but here's link to a discussion:  

 

[Baker]

On my model

The space between the waterline and the underside of the cannon port = 90 cm

The space between deck and the underside of the cannon port = 70 cm

So the cannon deck = 20 cm above the waterline

Different sources all say that the height of the deck was about 160 cm (interior)

 

At the end of last year I had some free time to do some calculations

 

The buildlog about the "cannon breech rope length" Is very interesting (thanks Mark)..

I came for the master frame on my Golden Hind at this result.

 

2014Gresham.pdf

[JB3D]

Hi, It's been a while since i've last been here. I've learned a ton the past year and redid my cannon. It is now optimized for real time usage in Unreal engine, with shaders.

 

I am now looking for some advice for a suitable ship to go with it, because i agree with you guys that the Golden Hinde is somewhat to small fora 12 pounder cannon.

I am looking for a dark, gritty type of ship to model. It's hard to find anything good, because i don't have much knowledge about old ships. I kinda' like the VASA. it's slightly bigger than the Hinde, but is there something else i should look in to?
 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by JB3D

[JB3D]

Think i might have to go with the Flying Dutchman. Could you guys help me with reference and Blueprints please. I understand there is a cursed and pre-cursed version of this ship?

[JB3D]

Can someone advise me, because I'm a bit lost at the scale and were the floors are suppose to be? 😕
The Mannequin and Cannon are to scale. The Mannequin is 182CM tall and the cannon is 284CM long (without trolley and other stuff).
There are also two balconies which make it harder to guess. The only reason i can think of, is there must be a elevated floor at the stern of the ship, otherwise the inside floors currently wont match up with the balconies.

Anyway, i would appreciate some wisdom on the matter. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate, 90% is enough, but this ship is suppose to run at real time, like the video above where you can walk through the ship it self.

 

High res. image. https://imgur.com/a/QBphSi4

Edited October 20, 2019 by JB3D

[mtaylor]

From here, it looks like you have your decks right as to locations with respect to the gun ports.  As for the stern...  The galleries (on the side) could be an issue but since this is a fictitious, they're probably not where they should be... as on a real ship.   

 

BTW, I believe one deck is too high... see my drawing below. I think the red line is where it should be. The upper one on the stern seems hight also.  See if that helps with the galleries.

 

[JB3D]

Thank you for your reply. The reason the floor is higher is because the movie version has it as well. It's hard to see but there's a little bridge on both sides. But to be honest i thought the exact opposite, that all the floors needed to come down?!? It feels kind of cramped and makes those side bridges unnecessary, but i guess it's all relative because the film version is just a model as well, i guess. I am going to try a few thing and maybe importing it to Unreal will help. Then i can walk around inside it and get a feel for it. Also. I feel the whole ship needs to be bigger, because there's not enough room for that 24pdr which reaches over half the deck already?

 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by JB3D

[Ab Hoving]

It seems to me that you made a wrong choice. If it is a pirate ship you want to model, forget these big monsters. Pirates were not so well organised that they could manage big ships. You better find a smaller ship, about a hundred feet. That means of course that 24 pound cannons are a bit over the top. Fortunately you can simply scale your cannon down and you will never see the difference. If it is the 17th century you are looking for, you might consider the Heemskerck, Abel Tasman’s ship when he discovered New Zealand and Tasmania in 1642. His 100 feet long ship might have been suitable for a pirate.

If you are interested you can send me a PM and I will send you the draughts. 

[JB3D]

Hey, thanks for the advice man, appreciate it! However i kind of made up my mind. I think i am just going to tough it out and see how far i get. The size doesn't bother me to much, as most of it is replicateable. Yes, it would be much easier if i could just follow a drawing plan and model that. The plans and reference i could find on the flying dutchman is not much so i have to wing a lot of stuff, but i am pretty good at this. The hardest part will be the smaller detail actually, so i am going to need a lot of help from you guys. After i locked in the overall shape and scale, proportionally, because in real time you can walk right up to everything, therefor i am leaning towards a pre-cursed version of the Dutchman, otherwise i have to literally model all the damage and wear as well. With a pre-cursed version i might be able to do it completely via textures. 

[mtaylor]

They did do models of various sizes but i think there was a full size one built and still floating around somewhere.   I vaguely remember reading something about this some time ago.

[JB3D]

Yeah, i have a few pictures of it. They also made some sort of life size composite model where they didn't put planks on the starboard side. Still, the more i am busy with it the more i realize the film model isn't 100% accurate either. And i think they smuggled here and the re too. Some part don't make sense from a construction point of view. The balcony on the stern side, the corners of the bottom stick out like sore thumb. And the bow of the ship is absolutely 100% artistic. Normally, or from what i've seen the front is a bit pointy, the Dutchman in the film just has rounded lump sort of speak. I can't tell for sure yet, hopefully i know more by the end of today, but i might need a elevated floor for the captain quarters. 

 

It just small stuff, but when you are working with it you realize there's all these inaccuracies that indicate it wasn't a real-real ship.

 

[mtaylor]

Well, that's what you get when a ship is designed by a movie studio artist.  

[JB3D]

Hey guys, i made a small update on my progress with some questions i'd like some input on?

 

 

[herask]

also bear in mind that people were a tad shorter back then, and ships were usually cramped and lower decks had low ceilings. for movie making the crew needed to make everything larger for actors and equipment to fit in and record nice shots without feeling of being stuffed in a tin can like sardines. that's movie's visual language, I'm afraid. otherwise they wouldn't look so nice and cool and...

 

my point, don't expect extreme accuracy from movie props...

 

good luck!

Denis