is whether there is any way to provide more forward visibility when viewing the game from a first
person perspective (at the wheel)?

EDIT: ah, a wrong answer below, I suppose. but maybe you find it useful too.

hi George,
the common thing of lot of games is there are two different models made infact. one is an 3d model for external cam view, second is an model for first person cam view. by changing those two cams you can switch the 3d models. this is the base logic, but it can be made a mixed up way also...

in your case you could do for example this, :

a)  there will be one ship external model, visible from outside cam only. and there will be a second detailed mesh, what you can see from 1st cam view only (board with banisters + sails + wheel, etc.)

b) there will be one main ship model, visible for both cams. the detailed wheel will be made as an "additional mesh" and will be visible from 1st cam view only.

c) there will be one main ship model, visible for both cams. the sails and wheels will made twice, as external low poly, and more detailed mesh for 1st cam view .

in 3drad game projects or in many another game engines you can just set as you wish, what will be or will be not visible by cam switching or by any other event. you could also use any distance object visibility script logic.

note: for your sweet looking low poly ship you could nicely use transparent texture paint to create
banisters, ropes, ladders etc. but I think you know this all... I am waiting for the textured ship picture

 

Update! I made more progress on the model, and I animated the sails to. 

Well it is done I think...

Do I need to add something to it?

Do I need to add something to it?

Depends on what you think it needs really. I think it looks pretty sweet as is. The ship needs about 4-6 cannons, but I may use separate models for that (so I can use the glossy shader on them) and have them sitting on the main deck.

revisit the sails and add a wheelhouse...

I quite like the sails as they are. Perhaps their texture could be made slightly larger, but the shape/size/layout is really good imho.

Their current shape would work really well for an idea I had. If they are uploaded separately as different models from from the main ship, I could adjust their size depending on whether the ship is moving forwards or not. (see attached pic for a possibly unneccessary explanation  )

A wheel house would be cool as well. it might be good to upload it as a separate mesh. That way it could be animated for turning left/turning right.

Also, another thing I just thought of: A trap door on the main deck would be really good. I could just add that onto the texture once I have the model (so long as you don't mind me doing that sort of stuff.)

Thanks again for all the great work you've done so far.

By the way, this project will have to go pretty much on hold for about a month. (Law school examinations    ) The upside of this is that I'll be enthused as hell and keen to leap back into it as soon as I get my life back!

Cheers,

George

Some more screenshots. See above to download the updated demo.

Cheers,

George

Looking good , Nice to see you're continuing to work on this...

The only problem is, compiled projects lag like hell on my laptop, when they seem to have lots of scriptwork in them...

its been happening since recently, any idea on how to fix this?

otherwise, looking super!

Mike, there is an updated link on the Original post.