Very nice BluePlanet! I may have a use for your bulk freighter (replacing my current light freighter), but I'm trying to stick to the original ships for this animation and don't have a place in this animation for the others. If the animation's a hit then I'll probably branch out a bit. You're definitely better at 3D modelling than I am so I welcome your help and hope we can get collaberating on this very soon.
Shoot me an e-mail at evtribute@gmail.com and we'll get to work asap!
Just uploaded a cartoon/vector version of the Kestrel to my aforementioned album. The final cartoon ships will look something like that... except with better smoothing and lighting.
Woo! Triple post!
Okay, time for an update:
Blueplanet has been VERY helpful with his models and I thank him immensly. Geek has also ben making some progress on sound effects, and thanks to him as well.
If anyone still wants to contribute I am still open to both ideas and resources. I'm trolling other forums on the web for someone who can create what may ultimately be an effect that may be an impossible task using actionscript 2.0. If any of you are familiar with this type of code and would like to throw your hat in the ring then give me a shout and I'll tell you about my challenge.
Now onto the animation:
Because of Blueplanets additions to my veritable plethora of models 
I've added a bit to the animation and it may reach a respectable 8-12 minutes. I am going to commit a sin of sorts and buy the upgrade for my animation program for windows since my family just bought a new one with a good a dual core and a 376MB graphics card so I'll be able to use more hardware acceleration than I'd be able to with my iBookG4 
And since I will be making this switch I will be able to start work sooner than I had originally anticipated. I will probably begin animating in the next two weeks (maybe three depending on college work).
In the next couple of days I will upload a few example of what the rendered animation could look like so I collect people's opinions on what looks best (I'll probably start a poll).
Okay, it's been a while!
Work's been very slow as I've been dealing with exam after exam after exam and now finals, but tomorrow is my last final and I will get fully into the work within the next week.
I've been struggling a bit to get the clunky old ships to fly smoothly and realistically; when a ship starts going in one direction while its engines point straight back only it just doesn't look right. So, I'd rather not make this at all if I'm not going to make something spectacular (as EVC deserves). BUT! I will figure it out and start working on a teaser trailer that will be about two or three minutes long featuring a new ship that really doesn't add anything to the battle, but should make a neat intro... I know I said I wasn't going to deviate from the original ships, but this one fills in a gap that always bugged me. As for the release date of the trailer... uh... hopefully I'll have it out before February (which will mean many late nights), but please don't hold me to that and just be happy if I get it out before summer '08.
GOOD NEWS through the murk though! I've got a very talented young musician named Fiona Fox (an unknown, but she's a very good guitarist) on board to do a big chunk of the music for the movie. She won't be able to do the major battle music (which makes up just about all of the animation part of the movie (D'oh!)), but she'll be able to do everything else, and believe me, there is alot of "else". Anybody know someone with an orchestra? I'll just about need an orchestra for the fight music... How 'bout an instrumentalist (they have to be willing to not have any vocalists singing) rock band? I'm going to try to have all the music I can based around the theme song that plays when EVC starts and goes to the main menu, just because I think it's awesome music 
I wonder if George Lucas will loan me the orchestra he uses without demanding that Jar-Jar be put somewhere in the battle?
Anything else? Umm... oh, yeah. Anyone have a .3DS or .DXF shuttle craft laying around? I could use it... I don't like the way mine's looking for some reason. <_< Aaaaaannndd I just remembered how I could have saved myself a long time in making it and it would have turned out alot cleaner... great... Well, I'm still open to other peoples' models if you have them, citations will be given as always for contributions.
Hail Cap'n Hector! 
If I recall, the old shuttle was the same as the shuttle from Star Trek, and I can guarantee that you can find 3D models of those sitting around. I'm pretty sure we have an engineering drawing of one in our machine shop. Or maybe it's the Enterprise, I forget. Anyway, you should also be able to use a .igs, and if you can find anyone with AutoCAD, a .dwg as well. I'm sure your college has AutoCAD if there is an engineering program. Try the engineer's computer lab.
