Buck Roger's EDD Thunderfighter

A personal project that started as a hard surface exercise in 3DS MAX and ended up as a realtime model to learn Substance Designer.

The Earth Defence Directorate's Thunderfighter is the primary starfighter in the 80s TV show 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'. The Thunderfighter is based on unused designs that Ralph McQuarrie made for Battlestar Galactica's Viper starfighters.

Due to the lower popularity of the Thunderfighter compared to it's contemporaries, finding good reference was a challenge. Then there was the task of marrying up the disparate designs, with variations between the full size set model, the studio-scale model used for effects shots, and the numerous hobby kits that were produced.

The final realtime model comes in at just over 15,000 triangles, and uses a single set of 2048x2048 textures (albedo, normal, roughness, metalness, ambient occlusion).

I have no idea how that landing gear is going to fit in that bay. Movie magic, I guess.