Cargo Facility 1
Okay. This model wasn't exceptionally hard. The only difficult part was the fact that a single texture is recycled a lot throughout the model, so I can't just go by that texture to improve the model. Instead, I chose which parts of the texture I want to model in certain areas. That made the model more interesting.
The hangar is especially cool. While the rest of the model doesn't reveal much about how Cargo Facility 1 operates (unlike Cargo Facility 2), the hangar does. It has two Imperial-styled turbolifts, with the shafts heading toward the cargo modules. The actual turbolift floors block you from going into them. The hangar also expands out in this model, but boxes and mobile cranes/forklifts prevent you from using this as a way to avoid fire. I tried to keep from adding advantages and disadvantage to my models that didn't exist in the Totally Games models.
While I said the hangar turbolifts were Imperial-styled, the rest of the model isn't. Besides, I only call them "Imperial-styled" because they're seen in the Death Star's hangar bays.
The arms that lead to the cargo modules and what I would assume is the station's recycling units due to the vents use the same trick I hope is employed in the hangar roof of Cargo Facility 2. The narrow parts of the arms actually have three layers, and each will have alpha channeling between the beams to give a nice sense of depth and speed and give it a good industrial look. Of course, the innermost layer will not emply alpha channeling and probably should show the actual solid part of the arms continuing out.
The base of the cargo modules aren't really very interesting. I don't know exactly what that little greeblie I put on there is, but I think I was able to pretty much correctly determine the shape from the texture. Actually, I think that there was supposed to be a depressed area underneath it, but I didn't want to waste any more faces there. I also took a slight liberty on the top trench thing (not really a trench, but a depressed area where there would be windows or something). It's about three times the width it should be and it's divided in half. I felt that if I didn't do that, it would bear too strong a resemblance to the hangar, which initially also used the same texture.
The top of the cargo modules I was able to make pretty cool. There's little window things through which you can view a pipe that wraps its way around the top. On top of there is the strut for the communications dishes (one on top and one on bottom). I went by the texture and in doing so completely changed the shape. Maybe I went overboard, but I think it looks pretty cool. I was worried that it wouldn't look "Star Warsy," but it doesn't seem my fears came to pass. The communications dishes on top turned out pretty good, too.
Overall, I'm happy with how this model turned out. The original Totally Games model was 322 faces. My rendition weighs in at 4,219 faces. Faces well spent, in my opinion. The LOD might as well be the original model, but I guess I'd need to correctly center the tubes leading to the cargo modules, which weren't centered right in the TG model. Well, below are some images (they're pretty big, so try not to refresh the page; nothing new is coming here anyway):
