modo helps make a DVD cover

modo was used to render the Rohr Aerotrain vehicle for this DVD cover for a railroad museum. My father's pencil drawing was used as the background.

Jerome Tillier put the DVD together. His video trailer can be seen on YouTube.

Zoomed out a bit for this Vue render

The terrain heightmap was imported from GeoControl 2 which I'm addicted to again.

The ground is just a very simple 256x256 procedural Vue terrain object that I've applied a GeoControl 4096x4096 TIF heightmap to both its altitude and bump settings. The terrain was then scaled to 500ft high.

I probably should have made it 1000ft to get a better scene scale. This GeoControl 2 video shows how to make similar terrain.

Adding light streaks using modo

My attempt at following a tutorial from Ryan Drue on adding traffic light streaks to a photo using modo 401.

He does a lot of mouse waving while discussing his technique. But his trick works.

Total Annihilation is twelve years old now

Updated the Arm Commander model for the updated Vue Infinite 7.51.

In a nutshell, the model was created in Amapi, tweaked in Hexagon, UV mapped in 3D-Coat, textured and baked in Carrara, and scaled and rendered in Vue.

Here is the same model rendered in modo 401 SP2.

I'm hoping I can host the modo file somewhere soon for downloading.

An Eichler makes a scene in modo 401

This is just a camera, lighting, and material draft render test so far using modo 401.

There is still lots left to do here such as, fill the atrium with something other than concrete and provide a roof and furniture for the house.

Why buy only one when you can buy two for the price of two?

This is the kind of monorail track I was talking about. The reaction rail will be textured metal. The rest will be concrete.

I just love the instancing in modo.

It's getting there, in a sense

I got the stripes painted and added the lettering, DOT, and logo "decals". I also fixed the normals on the headlights.

The next thing is to texture the monorail.

"Figured" out body detailing

I did some decal painting on a Hexagon 1.21 OBJ mesh I had imported into 3D-Coat 2.10. And when I exported the painted mesh back into Hexagon, the edges around the windows were just slightly off. Just enough so that the windows didn't fit right.

I tried everything I could think of to preserve the original mesh between the apps. Then i tired the last thing with was to "Export low-poly mesh with original positions". Since I wasn't smoothing the mesh on import, I should not have been exporting a mid-poly mesh.

So now I can paint diffuse colors on my meshes all I want without the worry of them exporting with the wrong size or in the wrong location.

Nice skirt

Here the skirt was remodeled. It now has air vents along the sides and the front has areas for the headlights.

I adjusted the window shape just a hair, too.

The Rohr Aerotrain has real windows now

I wasn't happy with the way my clever procedural window transparency shader was rendering using Anything Goos and some domain luck. So I eventually modeled the windows manually.

Here is a quick modo render of the Aerotrain shell with some nice holes cut into to. I will be modifying the skirt as well so that its headlights and exhaust vents have enclosures.

Then my next trick is to delete all the domains from this vehicle and UV map and paint it using 3D-Coat 2.10.

The Rohr Aerotrain goes for a ride to the Pueblo Railway Museum

Waiting for the 2010 eclipse

The monolith was modeled in Hexagon 1.21 and then exported as OBJ into 3DCoat 2.10.17 to be UV mapped and sculpted. The model was then exported as OBJ into a Vue Infinite 7.5 scene where it was textured and copied a few times. Two of the monoliths got a spray from Vue's plants brush.

This latest render was created in Vue Infinite 8.

modo keeps messing up my imported Rhino meshes

I was up all night trying to figure this out. But I'm too tired, so I'll just leave it for now.

Creating micro planets in Vue Infinite 7.5

While waiting for the Vue Infinite 7.5 service pack to be put online, I watched a quick five minute Geekatplay Studio tutorial on how to create "micro" planets.

Shadow Catching an Aerotrain

Since Vue Infinite 7.21 doesn't support Shadow Catching while Carrara does with an added plugin, I did a trial outdoor render in Carrara. Note the shadow under it to give the illusion of it being on the street.

Building a monorail

Here is the aerial guideway and reaction rail so far.

The production model

I forgot I needed to work on the final texture. This is the orginal paint job the Rohr Aerotrain had when it was built in Chula Vista, California (ca. 1971).

That's enough for Carrara now

I've reached Carrara's limit for outdoor rendering. Scenery is not its strong point. It's time to work on the original Rohr texture now for this vehicle and get it ready for some much improved outdoor rendering in Vue Infinite 7.1 (maybe 7.2 which just came out).

The future tech of high-speed travel is 36 years ago

Here is the Rohr Aerotrain with the Pueblo desert textures applied. The real Aerotrain doesn't have the rust. It's mostly plastic.

Adding tiny bits to the Rohr Aerotrain

This thing's got eyes and teeth now. It also has tail lights, too. Tomorrow I'll start working on the elevated monorail that it rides on.

One step forward, two steps back

Here's some boolean texturing (if there really is such a thing as boolean texturing) for the colored striping.

Now to figure out how to get my windows edges to work with the striping.

So far, so good

This time I added more geometry to the sides so that I could place the procedural windows more precisely.