In 2000 I created color concepts and textures at Mondo Media for the Interplay game Star Fleet Command II. I also worked with Interplay's programmers to figure out what the technical limitations of the engine were, and how we could exploit them to our mutual advantage.
I painted the concepts in Photoshop based on the models designed and modeled by other artists on the team. Once the designs were approved by the client I used them as templates to create the texture mapping for the real-time 3D models.
The ISC race was described as being very similar to Star Trek's Star Fleet in their style of technology, but far more aggressive. The designs exploit an illumination-mapping feature of Interplay's game, which helped to create the dark-and-sinister look by allowing spotlights and other areas on the ship to glow.
This 348-polygon ship uses five 8-bit 2562 texture maps and five 8-bit 2562 illumination maps. Four of the ten textures are shown here.
