Quick World Test

A quick world test from Paltrysum's post over on Mongoose.

Mostly Finished

I'm finishing up my Free Trader model. Took about a week to build from scratch. Some of those days were spent thinking things through first. I will redo the back end one day, to give the engines more substance than just simple flaring.

Here's a video on some recent changes made.

Smart Material Painting Using a Polygon Brush in 3D-Coat

What a Piece of Junk!

I ran some white-wash over the ship in 3D-Coat, using a smart material. I first tried doing it while the ship was in several parts. But smart materials really do prefer to pour from their buckets at the same scale. Meaning, all the parts need to have the same resolution for their texture maps. It's part of the calculation smart materials do before the fill bucket is clicked.

So I welded the parts together that needed the same white-wash treatment done. They all used the same UV map, which I was hoping to avoid at first. I prefer to have a UV map for each object. But maybe for this model, it wouldn't kill to have one huge UV map. In the meantime, the separate parts that used different paint materials were left as individual objects.

Anyway, this is just the shell body. Ready for the scrapyard.

Boolean Cutting in Hexagon 1.21

I'd forgotten how good it works.

I spent a few hours, playing with different apps I have, doing various draft models of the Free Trader. It will be a lo-res model when completed. Something that I don't want to spend more than a couple days on. Which meant Hexagon would be used. Ha!

Amapi Pro is great at NURBS. But it is a terrible box-modeler, which I was finding worked better for this kind of object. I had forgotten that Hexagon does boolean cutting, which speeds up the modeling process as well. I'm hoping I don't have to do too much clean-up work on the mesh, once I'm done cutting chunks out of it.

Because I'm old-school, when it comes to modeling Traveller ships, I tend to use only the first drawing made of a ship for reference. I have no idea what the back or bottom of the Free Trader looks like, because there is only the one image of it in The Traveller Book hardcover on page 64. Maybe I have some notes that I took about that back in the day still. Otherwise, creative license as usual.

Like all models I make, this one will also be done by eyeballing things. No tracing.

ADDED:
Updated the model some. Getting ready to UV map it.

WIP: Azhanti High Lightning

I forgot I had an AHL model I could throw in without any conversions. This photo was rendered in modo. Then color-corrected in CameraBag. These are all lo-res models, so I have the lighting doing most of the work here to get some realism going for the shot. I have the background hidden from the camera, which provided most of the light.

Working on some planet rendering. Testing different atmospheres and cloud layers, as well as Sun angles.

Modeling an old Wish Book

Thought I'd make another book. Getting the mesh for it all laid out.

Next, I'll spray paint it.

ADDED:
Ok. I threw it in this scene.

New Classic RPG Books

Just a WIP scene so far. Modeled an old book and a die in Hexagon 1.21. Converted to OBJ in Carrara 5.1 Pro. Painted in 3D-Coat 4.7.26A. Rendered in modo 601 SP5. Filtered in CameraBag 2.8.01.

Do Human, Or Not Do Human?

Recently, within the last week or two, I've been debating whether or not I should add people to my rendered CG scenes. I say that maybe 0.1% of my art has people in it. And the reason being for it is the Poser Effect. I simply refuse to do Poser 3D art or DAZ 3D Studio art or... you get the picture.

If you look at Renderosity's gallery you'll see what most Poser 3D art looks like. I won't buy a sci-fi or RPG book if it has such art on its cover. The rendered humans scream "CG!"

Instagram-like filters do help a little with hiding some of the CG-ness of rendered scenes. I, being from the old photo-realistic school of hard rendering, will begin to include CG people in my art if and when such people are not screaming "Poser!" in my scenes.