Virtual Environments Blog: An Engine…which just doesn’t have the POWER CAPTAIN!

Basing the general appearance on the fan based engines from the game ‘Guns of Icarus Online’ I utilised a cylinder to begin with and extruded each section to the approximate size I felt was appropriate. Scaling was all done by eye, rather than trying to work out precise measurements. Once the cylinder was the desired shape the fan blades were constructed, these comprised of two cylinders one vertical and one horizontal. The horizontal one was manipulated to the shape of a propeller blade and the vertical one received an inset and a negative extrusion. Attaching the two together was done via removing some of the polygons and then target welding the vertices together. The final touch was to add a mesh smooth modifier.

Theoretically this engine can be placed on any of the ships we produce, however the polygon count is rather high at 60,000+ therefore some simplification may prove necessary. The propellers are able to rotate and the vented fan on the rear also rotates. Steam can be added in the form of atmospheric apparatus but again due to limitations when rendering it may be necessary to simplify things and leave steam detail off. The rivets could also be removed, they make for a nice piece of extra detail but if necessary they may have to be removed for the sake of saving rendering time.

This initial colouring was based on the underside of the Akagi Carrier, which appears to have golden propellers and a red underbelly.

The engine is in several distinct pieces. The fan blades are all separate in order to allow them to spin around the prop shaft; although technically inaccurate it seemed the most efficient way to have the spinning blades. The vent fan is also separate in order to allow it to spin as well, at the moment it spins at a lesser speed than that of the fans. The framework to support the engine and attach it to the ship is also separated from the main bulk of the engine; this could be attached later on but with the precise dimensions of any ship unknown it gives greater flexibility to adjusting later on.

Constructing the entire ship seemed a little daunting therefore doing the single engine which can be duplicated on the rear of the ship seemed a good idea to make the task a little more manageable.

Ideally a second type of engine will be made to go along with this one. This engine was meant to be smaller and designed for turning thus it would be located on the Port or Starboard sides of the Stern, where increasing the speed of a side would cause the ship to turn. The second type would be a larger version which would be considered a primary engine that provides the bulk of forward thrust.