UlrichStern25 has always had a fascination with pirates–like many of our intrepid builders, that passion eventually manifested itself in ROBLOX. Turns out he’s been hard at work creating some of the most detailed watercraft we’ve ever seen on ROBLOX, based primarily on his fascination with the high seas.
Pirates of the Caribbean Ship Showcase is a good place to start–this is where UlrichStern25 painstakingly recreated every major ship in the movie franchise, and the detail in each of the ships is mind blowing. Whether it’s from afar, or right there on deck, these massively detailed ships look like photographs of real life sea craft. Masts and sails shoot majestically into the air, cannons are tucked away in compartments in the decks below, some battle-torn and withered, some new and shiny. Make sure to use the Teleport tool to move quickly between each ship, and to explore all they have to offer.
Photo. Realism.
You can spend a ton of time drinking in the details of the various ships–UlrichStern25 notes that accurately building large-scale ships is a tumultuous process that requires a very microscopic attention to detail and a lot of patience and tenacity.
“Queen Anne’s Revenge took over ten tries just to make the stern,” recalls UlrichStern25. “With the Black Pearl, many usable, completed sections would make other parts of the boat totally unusable. It takes a lot of tinkering.”
“I thought at one point that it would be impossible for me to fix it,” he added.
The Black Pearl is the culmination of all he’s learned about ship building, and it’s a sight to behold. Like the ship it imitates, The Black Pearl is massive and evil looking–it’s dark black paint job and overall state of disrepair look particularly menacing in the ships showcase level, which features dark water and gray clouds.
UlrichStern25 is also hard at work on creating new boats, and implementing dynamic light into existing boats to accentuate details. “Everyone seems to be focused on the light, though I’m more excited about how the shadows have changed,” he tells me on board the Black Pearl, his new dynamic lighting test environment. He adds a light to the rear of the craft that highlights some of the detail crafted around the stern of the vessel. UlrichStern25 plans on submitting the Black Pearl to the Elite Builders of ROBLOXia (EBR), in hopes of joining their esteemed ranks.
Like Geico480, another user who makes insanely detailed vehicles, UlrichStern25 has built boats that are made of far too many parts to move currently. But, for a very select type of builders, that isn’t the point. The point is detail; to make you think, “How did he build something like this?”
UlrichStern25 goes on to explain he’s built two different types of boats: detailed, non-moving boats, and less detailed, moving boats. Where does he use the latter? A game he’s in the middle of updating called Pirates of the Enchanted Seas, an open-world battle game where you take to the seas as a pirate and do battle with other swash-bucklers. The boats in this level still look realistic, but aren’t quite as detailed as the Pirate of the Caribbean Ships. The trade-off? You can actually take control and set sail. The town itself is really cool as well–explore the NPC populated docks and find a wide range of ships you can pilot and take out to sea.
All of this stemmed from an early fascination with pirates. UlrichStern25 explains:
“I developed this huge fascination with the 1700′s and the Baroque time period,” an artistic era that promoted exaggerated motion and drama. “Making huge ships just made sense to me, and making them is still my favorite thing to do.”
In an effort encourage users to build ships, UlrichStern25 wrote a guide to ship-building, which you can download and read here.