Tutorial: How to make this:
In CIU
For those who don’t know, this ship appeared in the cutscenes of Chicken Invaders 2: The Next Wave as a gag where the Authentic Hero got caught speeding.
What you’ll be creating:
Note: this is the most accurate replica I have been able to manage as of 46.0 - if you are reading this at a later date, there may be better versions possible.
I will try to keep this tutorial up-to-date, but if I update it I will also update this section indicating which version it was made in.
If you have come here from my replica in the spaceship topic please be aware that one is also a version older, and slight improvements have been made. Additionally this tutorial itself has received a few updates, and not all the images will show the most recent version, but if you follow the instructions it should match the spaceship you can see in the .gif above.
Model
Obviously, the original ship is a Muller, so unless you’re going for a spin-off (which could actually be really cool, especially for a bomber…) I’d stick with a Muller.
The exact model for the police ship actually doesn’t exist in CIU; the shape of the Police Ship itself is actually slightly smaller than the model the Hero flies, and has a straight tail wing as opposed to a swept one.
Engine count is the only thing that varies between Muller types, so it’s a question of 1 or 2. Really, whether you choose a Deliverer or a Cuisiner is up to you (I wouldn’t bother with a Caterer unless you can’t afford a Deliverer though, as they both have the same number of thrusters) - the original technically has two thrusters, but they’re much closer together than the thrusters on the hero ship, so you can get away with one if you prefer. I am using a Cuisiner for this tutorial, though.
Basic Colours
You’ll want to make the Base Paint the darkest available in the “basic” colour selection template.
Then make the cockpit as black as is possible (0,0,0) using the “Advanced color selection”, so it appears slightly glossier than the fuselage.
Shininess
This is interesting - the original game just had a single 2D image, rather than a series of sprites, so the reflection is pre-drawn and it’s hard to tell how bright you should make it. I set the strength to one block above none, kind of as a callback to the static sprite and low-tech graphics of the original:
This is kind of preferential, though, depending on how you interpret the original. One things for sure though - the colour is pure white.
For comparison, click here to see a super shiny version - it didn't feel right to me, but you might prefer it, or maybe somewhere between the two.
Paintjob
For all the paint, pure white at the highest possible density is best, I find, to achieve the simple and well-defined look of the original.
You cannot perfectly match the paint job, but there are some solid alternatives. For this tutorial, I recommend the second fuselage paint job, as it has both the distinctive white nose cone and also adds some extra detail around the cockpit, even though that detail is differs to the original:
The weapon pods can be replicated almost perfectly with the seventh style:
EDIT: You can also use the new “Fuselage Trim” paint job to get the white rim for the ship cockpit.
The original ship also has no paint on the wing, so I wouldn’t bother with any, either. (You can save keys by not recolouring/texturing this as well, if on a budget. Just set density to nil. )
Exhaust
So pretty quickly, style 8 becomes obvious as a really good CI/CI2 replica:
The color that I found best was making the outer exhaust pure (0,0,255) blue, and the inner exhaust this light blue (0,255,255, I believe):
I didn’t change the exhaust size from default (that’s 14 bars, if you’ve changed it previously) - but if you’re using a single-engine model, you might want to crank it up a few bars above that to suggest at the double-engine.
Hardpoints
You will need at least two strobe light pairs (yes, two).
You could also, potentially, add a pure white ghost trail with shrinking to mimic the “smoke” the old thrusters had, but I don’t think this would really achieve the right effect so I wouldn’t recommend it.
The first pair is the lights themselves, which if you look in CI2, are always on. You will want pure blue for port (0,0,255) and pure red for starboard (255,0,0)
You will want these lights to be constant, as the CI2 version always had coloured bars on each wing (and they never swapped sides). One way to achieve this constancy (there are a few, experiment if you’re being stingy with your keys) is:
- Maximum number of blinks
- Maximum ON and OFF duration
- Minimum repeating period
Port and Starboard staggering shouldn’t have an impact on this, depending on how you’ve done it, but if for some reason it does, just mess around until both lights are constant.
Placement 1, maximum strobe size - and you won’t need to mess with phase.
OPTIONAL: For accuracy to the original game's very strong colours, I've disabled additive magic on these strobes, but if you want to make your build more photo-realistic you can enable it.
Now, here’s the clincher - in the original game, the CI2 ship’s lights blink brighter in a looped pattern of “blue, red, none, both, none” (ignore the .gif abov, it’s wrong; if you can find some footage of the ship online and slow it down, you will see this is true). Can we do this, with only one extra pair of strobe lights???
Yes. Here’s how.
- On the second pair of lights, set the port and starboard colours to the squares two squares right of their corresponding lights in the first pair (so lighter versions of the red-and-blue.)
- Placement 1, just like the other pair.
- You’ll want the number of blinks at 2.
- ON duration should also be 2.
- OFF duration at 5.
- Repeating Period at 7.
- Port/Starboard staggering needs to be 9.
- You’ll definitely want additive magic ON for this one.
- Maximum strobe size (23)
- Obviously phase doesn’t matter, as the other lights are always on.
And voila! Could be a bit faster in speed, maybe, but overall I’m really happy with this. It will pulse in the correct pattern of the original game.
Other Details
I left the wingstreak off (0 opacity is the cheapest way to do this) as the classic version never had any - but if you really want one, I’d recommend white.
The shield I chose was just the default light blue, which is the same blue as the one I recommended for the outer exhaust. The police never have a shield in the classic game (or not one we see, anyway) so this is completely preferential. Make it pink, if you want.
Now all that’s left is to mount your CI2 background and take flight!
Hope you enjoy!