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Weekly Challenge: Circled
Hydraulics? The ball turret didn't pull back up into the body of the plane as far as I know. If the landing gear was out and you were stuck in there for any reason...
- oh, checked the wikipedia. Turns out on the B24 there was a hoist used to lift the turret into the airframe. That must've looked pretty cool, turrets protruding to fire on the enemy. And the hydraulics you refer to were the ones that'd rotate the chap inside the turret, I take it. God, imagine them jamming while blocking the way out... and there was no room inside the turret for the parachute, either - it was kept in the cabin above!
It looks great, but it must really, truly suck to be a ball turret gunner. Especially if your plane's landing gear was shot out and the hydraulics jammed.
Thats really a great one. Would have been my first place.
RuhtrA - that could be the lighting. Some of the angles contradict each other, and the darkest clouds are too busy. Another possibility is monitor settings vs colour - I'm viewing it on a Mac Powerbook right now and it looks a strange blend of much more washed out mixed with increased contrast in spots than on my supposedly correctly calibrated PC. Gamma perhaps.
I don't know why, maybe it';s just me.
But there's something... off - about the clouds.
Despite that, excellent work!
That's what I'll change it to shortly, Slemboll. :) I need to work on doing metal better. A LOT better! And Peach, once the reticule in the middle & barrels are removed perhaps a larger plane in the middle would work well.
theres only two things i dont like and thats the turret barrels you could have worked moore with em. If i wouldt see the name i would think it was a window looking up at the sky
great work on the clouds. The only thing I would have changed is the airplanes, making them bigger. or maybe adding explosions at the barrel end and tracers in the sky. but this could be harder to achieve.
Commander - what are you confused about? I thought the description beneath the picture covered everything.
And a note to anyone else - will be updating this after the contest. The hole is a patch of very bright sky, not the actual sun. Will remove some detail away from the clouds near the edge of the screen, the turrets and the targeting reticule. View can then be from a port hole at lower altitude, be it on ground or a zeppelin.
Yeah, I feel that way too, Dirt. It'd have made more sense not to include them at all, or to have based them on some other gun, rather than the plain barrels I saw. Input on how to fix the barrels as is would be appreciated.
I'm actually not sure how to anti-alias the inside of the circle! Do I try and use whatever colour is halfway between the background and the circle at the spot - but that would wind up with very colourful aa?
Thanks for the shots, Sharprm!
Ah thats awesome, i remember learning about that technique flying from the sun as cover. Really nice stuff dude. The clouds and planes are great, cant help thinking the quality of the turret barrels let the piece down a bit. And a bit of AA around the inside of the circle would soften it a bit :D
but welcome and love the work ^-^
wow those clouds are really something o.o great work on it!
If its going down then it could be pointed down (and not see plane). There is a screenshot that shows that the bottom turret can see the bottom of the plane.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/b-17-flying-fortress/screenshots
Your piece is pretty as it is - I wouldn't worry too much about accuracy.
Good points, Sharprm.
Originally the idea I had was to draw a bullet hole in the glass, but didn't have enough time to learn how best to do that. Maybe the final version will have that, with some help! :) I was hoping to imply the plane had been shot and was on its way down, so the tail might be tilted up, allowing for a better view of the sky. Far as I know monoplanes were certainly more typical - I just love biplanes. XD
When viewing through the glass normally, I really don't know whether the bottom of the plane should be visible - that's a mystery for me too. All photos I've seen which were possibly taken from a ball turret indicate they were zoomed in, that the base of the plane was kept out of it - and that there was no targeting reticule on the glass itself. If you see the first photo I linked to above, however, the gunner is looking through a targeting lense of sorts. That's what the circle & targeting reticule is meant to be.
My knowledge of ww2 planes is sketchy - wouldn't though monoplanes would be more typical? Would the turret on the bottom see the bottom of the plane. If that's the sun, is the bomber flying upside down?
Anyway, guess u figured these details out, just mentioned them in case you didn't and it helps. Nice clouds and good idea.
It might've been better if I'd submitted it without the cannons visible - I'm not sure whether they would be. I couldn't get any interior views of ball turrets to be sure, so it's all guess work. I thought it might not really count as a 'scene' if I just made it clouds and tiny planes, though, so - here we go. Thanks Jiipm! :)
Now you have transparency. Damn I like clouds lol. This is a good option to vote for in the challenge :)
Gah! I can't make the transparency, the program is refusing to work! And now I'm out of time. I tried everything - I use Graphics Gale, and it just... won't do it this time for no apparent reason. None of the usual methods will do it. All that effort to waste.
*cry*
Edit: All praise to Skamocore! Thank you so very much for not letting me ruin my day. :)
WOW! A beautifully executed work!