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August MMC - SPACE - "Hard Left!!"
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These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
August MMC - SPACE - "Hard Left!!" // Monthly Modeling Contest
Post by Dragneye // Aug 7, 2007, 12:14am
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Space being one of my favorite topics, and since biting off more than I can chew never stopped me before, here goes... let's see how well basic tS 6.6 CAN render.
The research craft 'Icarus' has finally reached its target; a Black Hole. Theoretical calculations have now been altered by the 'truth' of 'Space'. Commander Exsis (Greek for 'six' :D ), realizing a tad late that scientists only THOUGHT they knew the actual attracting force of a Black Hole, yells out in a terror-stricken pitch, "Hard left! All power hard left!"
7848
( I might as well take this oppotunity to offer this mini tutorial of my way of 'doing it' so as to help anyone who is even more newer to tS than me, and also to have you guys who know your stuff give ANY direction or pointers how I can improve to do it better/easier/faster)
I started out with a basic Nurbs tear drop shape for the ship, slightly stretched. (tho I like Nurbs, it tends to create many more polys than using primitive shapes) Then I added a bunch of primitives to the body(more to come) using the Sweep tool as I saw fit, learning to fully position them first before any Boolean addition.
The fire/explosions will be irregular shaped planes with images overlayed. The background ( space) will be a retouched image and/or a bunch of tS created objects; the Black Hole will be a self made image map using a swirling galaxy as a guide. (will see if I can create it as a tS object) The debris will be irregular shaped poly primitives (yes, it would be easier [?] to just paint them in a post app, but I want to use tS as much as I can. Will see how that goes)
That's it for now. Any comments/pointers will be Greatly appreciated |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Aug 7, 2007, 12:42am
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Excellent concept Dragneye,
I like the composition a lot too and the ripping bulkhead is neat!
I'm not a great renderer at all so I can't really give any advice on that, but you may wanna have a look at some of the free NASA images online for some cool related ideas if you haven't already, once in a while I go browsing through them myself and they are always a great source of inspiration. They also have images I love to download and alter for effects... nice contrasts and color combos... great stuff.
Very cool idea here, and good luck on the competition too.
- 3dvisuals dude |
Post by Nez // Aug 7, 2007, 2:29am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Cool concept! If it's the 'skin' of the craft that's being stripped away initially, you could leave some of the ship's 'structure' showing in the gaps - ribs/frames (like a skeleton, if you get my meaning). Sorry, just the engineering in me escaping again...!
Wish I had the time to enter this contest as I love sci-fi, but I'm going on holiday in a couple of days and won't have access to TS (or the forums :( ) whilst I'm away... |
Post by Dragneye // Aug 7, 2007, 9:34am
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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@Nez - Thanx. Will consider putting the frame showing (didn't think of that) towards the front where the original 'suction' started and in theory was less pronounced. And, notin' to be sorry abt. There is a wondrous beauty in sharing your 'eye', cuz for example, I am not an engineering type, my eye is more an 'oils' type, so these lil external views are very helpful.
Have a great vacation! Come back refreshed and maybe with a few sketches and inspirations from your new surroundings/travels. ;)
@ 3dvisuals dude - Thanx also for the encouragement
Aren't those NASA gallery pics AWesome?!! I have a bunch printed out and pinned up around the house. Now THATS art!
Anyways, rendering will be the last hurdle (that was mainly what '..biting off more than I can chew' related to, since I feel I'm in the Minor league against the great tSers here, and 7.x's advances + extras), but like I said, I want to see how well I can finish a pic using tS6.6.
Keep up your good work, and I'd take any input you got ANy day :) |
Post by Dragneye // Aug 7, 2007, 6:40pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Unfortunately life works in strange ways. I won't be able to continue, so I have to withraw my entry. I wish you all the best of health, Keep on creatin', good luck to all who enter this, and I'll be back soon to hassle you all with more newbie questions :D |
Post by W!ZARD // Aug 8, 2007, 1:23am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Unfortunately life works in strange ways. I won't be able to continue, so I have to withraw my entry. I wish you all the best of health, Keep on creatin', good luck to all who enter this, and I'll be back soon to hassle you all with more newbie questions :D
That's a shame - this was looking very promising. You asked for some pointers - well the obvious one would be "don't go near any black holes! :D
Seriously though, a cool concept. I can't help wondering how the crew are feeling if the gravity gradient is strong enough to rip the hull plating off. |
Post by brianalldridge // Aug 9, 2007, 6:05pm
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brianalldridge
Total Posts: 397
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I like the concept, abandon ship! Not sure if this is your finished render setup, but trueSpace is capable of much higher quality renders right out of the box, and since you asked for pointers...
1.Always make sure that raytracing is enabled(or I think it's the highest quality render setting in ts6)
2.Never compress your image inside of truespace, better to have a huge file than get a blurry or distorted image, photoshop works alot better
3.Tweak the lighting and make sure overly bright areas have a source, if not, you can us more smaller lights with less power to get a softer more natural light.
4.Use antialiasing, nothing ruins a great render like jaggies on the side of a smooth object
5.If an object is untextured, give it a very light, small bumpmap
6.Lighting always comes before textures, if it looks good in plain white, then it'll look amazing with textures
That's all the pointers I can come up with off the top of my head, I'm not sure what all you know but I hope they help.
Brian |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Aug 9, 2007, 8:46pm
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Unfortunately life works in strange ways. I won't be able to continue, so I have to withraw my entry. I wish you all the best of health, Keep on creatin', good luck to all who enter this, and I'll be back soon to hassle you all with more newbie questions :D
I just noticed this Dragneye, and I'm sorry to hear it but can definitely relate.
I do hope the realworld things will improve for you soon to the point where they no longer interfere with your artistic pursuits here. I do see a great deal of potential in your artistic offerings at the forums here and hope to see you return to them soon renewed.
All the best,
- 3dvisuals dude |
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