Grand Space Opera 3D Entry: Maciej Frolow

[Nomad]

@ arturro thanks, yes the ships exhausts are a bit long thats true... I`ll correct that and put some smoke or nothing... I`ll see... For the top of the palace I will leave it undamaged, it will fit to the other two`s shape...

@ terraarc thank you for the kind words :)

@ keetmun thank you.... incomplete? errr... well... I will add some texture everywhere but no more modeling :D

[monsitj]

hi !Maciej,
first , i think your new color scheme is absolutely better!,
some point that i notice is ,
your vertical layout is too long, i have to scroll my page to see the whole image ,it's make your element look like a scattering small piece , maybe u can decrease size and make it more compact !
the explosion is great ,it's help to tell the story a lot!,
, the city ,building look like it float in space maybe u can add more shadow or texture to groundplane to distinguish the ground and space above,
, the mothership , i agree with keetmum , maybe u can render it in more perspective view ,now it' look flat! ,
hope this help!

[hectic]

hello, amazing work ... I like the way you entered a timeline in your picture :thumbsup:

your computer must be screaming from that many polygons :scream:

[Nomad]

@ monsitj thank you for your comments, they are verry helpful :)

_ the vertical layout is only a part (1/3) of the whole image, think about a book cover... my story is a trilogy... the image too.

_ I will not have the time to put some elements under the cityies megastructure, sorry.. next time... I`m not happy with that but I have too much things to do in this image... I hope the "legs" are an enough indication that this thing is a building and not a spaceship :shrug:

_ mothership? you`re writing about the two battlecruisers on the top? I will change a little their angle but they looks verry bad from other perspective than from side :sad:

@ hectic thank you for your kind words. Well the polycount... errr... I`m rendering all in layers... see five buildings in the city have about 300 000 polygons so multiply by hum... 200... and add 5 milion poly for the three palaces + megastructure :D

[artemesia66]

great work. a really epic sense of scale. :thumbsup:

[Nomad]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105539871_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105539871_large.jpg)

Close to the finish... what I`ve done:

_ repainted the starfield
_ corrected the battlecruisers color and position
_ added some flocks of birds
_ added buildings in the background
_ added some texture to the palaces (they still look unfinished and I`m afraid they will still like that)

I will now add the battle on the right side.

please send your C&C

[Smooth-Criminal]

wow, really nice, i like a lot the colors and the gradient, i like the planet details and the clouds are amazing, my only crit is the texture of the megastructure, it is a bit plane, as if it did not have details, try to add some dirt,noise or bump, something to make it more real, the rest this good for my, really good work!!:thumbsup:

[arturro]

I wish I were so close to the end as you:) Good job. I only think that those vright stars a bit too big, they take too much focus.

[enochian]

Great use of color as story telling element, I would changes a thing.

Ryan
MY WIP
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=192697

[Nomad]

@ artemesia66 thanks a lot, for the scale... well... it`s a GRAND Space Opera no? :D

@ Smooth-Criminal, thank you for your kind words, I agree with you that the palace need more texture, I hope to find some time to make this... in fact there is a light texture on it but thats can be seen on closeups... I will post few soon.

@ arturro thank you, I`m sure you`ll finish ontime and with a great effect :thumbsup: for the stars thats not a problem, there will be a lot of explosions which will catch more the spectator`s eye than those few stars.

@ enochian thanks, I`m glad you like my color storytelling, thats the core of the concept.

[azazel]

You know, the shader on that big structure does not look right to me - it looks bit too plastic-like, and that messes up the scale a bit. I'd try oren-nayar illumination model, as it has few more controls, roughness, difusse fallof etc - and these can be quite helpful.

[YasushAzush]

Fantastic updates here weldone:thumbsup:

[Nomad]

@ azazel well this is a bit too late for that... I will try to correct this structure by painting on it... but thank you for the comment anyway... I learned a lot of things during this contast.. the main one is that I have to learn a lot of new techniques :D

@ visualact.com thank you for the kind words :)

[Nomad]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105607376_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105607376_large.jpg)

Just two images to show how I made the explosions on one of my ships:
_ first I broke the ship in parts
_ I added the same maped plane which I`m using for the exhaust
_ all the finishings will be done on post but this helps alot
_ in rendering I will certainly add a light inside to bright-up the ship from inside

[Nomad]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105610243_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105610243_large.jpg)

Finally the battle...
And what I expected happened :( the battle focuses too much the eye, all the left side is now "boring".

I have few ideas how to eliminate this problem... first I will certainly reduce the explosions lights and make them more red.. second I will place a spaceship on the middle which will go to the palace on the centre.

Any comments always wanted!!

[arturro]

Well it's developing very well. I think that you can add some ships with a blue glow and int light colors on the left side as well.

[hectic]

I agree with your plan with the explosions, nad also agree with arturro - you could add few ships to the left side to bring more life to those peaceful times :)

and maybe you could add some "roads" on the ground, to connect those bulidings together - they look a bit isolated

otherwise, great :thumbsup:

[Tranchefeux]

Hi, Almost end!, I like much the colors of the sky, I think that you
should put an element in foreground,
good luck for the final one.

[Nomad]

@ arturro thanks, yes there will be few ships on the right side... I`m currently modling one of them :D

@ hectic thank you for your comments... but it will not be any roads here, those people have flying cars and they love the nature, see that trees are everywhere... of course not in the times of war & destruction.

@ Tranchefeux merci beaucoup :)

[Nomad]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105613775_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105613775_large.jpg)

I modeled this ship on the biggining of the contest but I not used it anywhere... now after refining I think it can perfectly match as the king`s flagship... I will place it on the bottom-middle of the image with a big escort of fighters that shoud solve my problem of "boring" empty space on the middle left.

[arturro]

What to say.. the same spirit, the same amazing organic style, just waiting to see it in action:)

[Nomad]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105615401_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105615401_large.jpg)

First I planned to play with particle systems to make the explosions but beacause the time is running out I have to make them in photoshop... I hope they have enough depth.

[Nomad]

Thank you arturro for your kind words, you`ll see this ship in action today afternoon :D when I will make the highres render of all the ships...

Stay tuned :bounce: I`m finishing this image today :)

[Saschi0815]

Hi Maciej, your explosions looks very good for a painting in PS. Imho it has enough depth, maybe the ringwave could be a little wider and could have some "noise" and lighting effects in it...now it reminds me a bit of an impact of a meteroid.......but as always a great effort here, my friend! Wish u the best on the last steps of the contest ladder... i know u will make it fantastic!:thumbsup: :bounce:

[Nomad]

Thank you Sascha for your support, I will try to improve those explosions a little bit... they certainly will be more in the red tones...

[Gunilla]

Looks good! I love the colors in your image - and the scene and concept is quite unique, very beautiful. Good luck in finishing :thumbsup:

[Nomad]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105641676_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105641676_large.jpg)

W.I.P.
Need all your comments!!

[Nomad]

Gunilla thanks a lot for your comment, I want to upload the finished picture tomorrow morning... I still waiting for any comments and critics which maybe show me some bad things in my image.

[Nomad]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105647667_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105647667_large.jpg)

I think I have almost done the battle... now I will think about the refining of those palaces & of the megastructure... I shoud find some good solution by painting many details on them but what kind of details? it`s a 6km large thing!

Please fire your comments.

[Freon]

I think the horizon looks fake, a bit like a large painte wall.
Just have a look at this concept (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/grandspaceopera/image.php?entry_id=18457) where the horizon line was higher. It's much more convicing IMHO. You may want to move the platform down and raise the clouds so that they meet the terrain farther.

The other problem is that the clouds are affected by the colored lights, which is kinda weird since its emited by stars behind them ;)

[arturro]

Great piece of work. But the right side is still too "heavy". I have one crit about the laser shots. They look too much like ships. Try to make them blue and maybe green or white. I think it may look good.

[Nomad]

Hello arturro, thank you for your comment... yes the right side is heavy but I cannot make a battle with few ships... the concept of three parts of the image works (I hope) well and I don`t think thats looking verry bad.... for the laser shoots they looks good in print size format, I just will add more glow to them... no blue colors on the right side :)

Thank you for all your comments from the bigginning they gived me alot of indications.

[Nomad]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105703821_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/7/4585/4585_1105703821_large.jpg)

First the story, my friend corrected my terrible english, now it`s readable ;)

| Rise and Fall of an Empire |

The story began when Zaroth Dirmond son of Karoth the Great at the age of twenty three years obtained the control of a small solar system which include nine habitable planets, he chose one of them to estabilish the first colony and made it his main place where he built his magnificent palace. He named the planet Aroth.

Young age:
In the first three hundred years the small colony raised to a waste city and the power of the young king become indiscutable.
At his fifth hunderd birthday Zaroth Dirmond ruled the entire system composed of nine habitable planets and twenty six satellites, moons and asteriods. The news from the rising power reached far away in the galaxy and the closer systems started to be afraid of the possible attack from the Arothians especially that everybody knew that he started to building a powerful fleet composed of twelve intergalactic battle ships.

Golden age:
The next two hundred years was full of victorious conquests all around the galaxy, Zaroth became now an expert of strategy and a great economic negociator. A lot of his conquests were without weapons and made at the basis of treaties between his growing empire and neutral planets. By this way his power rose without any loses.
At the age of twenty six hundred years the Emperor Karoth the Great died and the shadow of chaos covered the galaxy.

Dark age:
At the death of the emperor the galaxy become the theatre of the war between his three sons. A deadly race to obtain the trone of the Empire. Battles between space fleets composed of hundreds of spaceships ravaged millions of lives. After seven centuries of war Zaroth Dirmond the Terrible, Emperor of the galaxy died five years after obtaining the trone of the Empire.

- The pivotal moment -
The emperror near his last days of life looks back onto his life and seeks where the happened the moment when he loosed the control of the things... he sees now his palace, all in gold tones, magnificient, powerful... he looks back and see the first ages where he arrived on the planet, where all was cover by forests and only few buildings composed well with the trees... he looks forth and see war and destruction, his palace burining, forests ravaged by the fire.... where this pivotal moment arrived?

- And few words about the project and the final image -

What I learned:
_ devlopping huge concepts (devlopping a design for a whole civilisation, from ships to buildings...)
_ time managment for a such big and long project... by spending about 2 hours a day (excluding about 4 weeks when I was overworked and I did nothing) and last five days at "full time".
_ menaging huge scenes by organising and rendering all in layers
_ compositing & special effcts - I finally learn how to make nice explosions :)
_ creating starfields
_ and many many more...

Technical information:
_ final image size: 45,64x30cm at 300dpi (5390x3543pixels)
_ number of polygons: well... a block of five buildings have about 300 000 polygons, considering that there is about 100 of this blocks the polycount is awesome... adding to this about 5 millons polygons for the palace + megastructure...
_ project size (maps, objects, PSDfiles) on my HD: 4,7G - that fits exactly on a DVD ;)
_ time spent on devlopping the project: considering that I don`t had many time I can say that in working on full time this kind of image can be done in three weeks... but this exludes some things like rethinking the concept many times.. slowely.. without pressure :)


Thank you to all who bringed me many precious comments & support.

[arturro]

Congratulations my friend! As you decided to make this one final, I'm with you:) It was a pleasure to see how it developed. Your chosen final size is impressive, I have no idea how you rendered this in such resolution. So wait calmly for voting now, and fire us with some last crits:)

[Nomad]

Hello arturro, thanks for your comment.

You said: "I have no idea how you rendered this in such resolution."
Well this is easy to explain: all is rendered in layers, this means that I made about 30 separated renderings... all of them was made directly in high resolution so that gived me directly a final material on which I could paint or adjust the colors... the most of those renders was for the city beacause the buildings are soo huge in polygon size I shoud make only few blocks at one time... for the megastructure there was about 7 renders and for the forest & bushes about 5.
I don`t have a big computer, just a 1.8 MHz AMD with 1GB of Ram thats why I directly knew that all have to be splitted in layers... it`s better to render 5 fast rendering layers than one huge scene where the computer pains many hours. My renders not exeeded 5 hours and all was done in the nights.

I hope that will help you now and in the future :)

Good luck with the finishing of your picture.

[claudiojordao]

What an amazing job you've done Nomad! Congratulations.

[Nomad]

@ claudio_jordao thank you for your kind words :)

@ Freon thanks for the comment, a bit too late :D also I newer wanted to create a fully realistic scene, just an eye catching image... by making a concept where three time periods join in one is not realistic from the biggining :)

[M477]

Hey your final image looks awsome! Well done on finishing in time too, good luck and hope to see you in the next one!!


:applause: :applause: :applause:

[Nomad]

Thanks alot for your comment M477 :bounce: What? an another challenge? when? :argh: I`m tired... need to sleep.... maybe in a month or two... zzz.... ;)

[terraarc]

I really like your final Nomad! It has some great storytelling ideas on it! :thumbsup:

I enjoyed watching such a great idea coming real mate! It was a pleasure traveling along those 3 months!

Best wishes mate! :)

[KennyM]

this has been an great entry to follow, from concept to your fabulous final, great work! :thumbsup:

story is well illustrated and the pic itself is pure eyecandy, I'm sold :deal:

[Nomad]

terraarc, KennyM thanks alot for your comments... I`m glad that you liked my work :bounce:

Hope to see you around soon.. for the next contest or in one of your personal threads :)

[Saschi0815]

Hi Maciej, I'm happy to watch your final....looks great, mate - especially the colors are fantastic. Looks really epic - just a grand space opera!:thumbsup: the final has some magical touch, mainly from your amazing background plate....the color gradient fits extreme good, and imho the view between silence and dynamic has been done very good!

Very well done, my friend, I'm sure u get a lot of votes.....:bounce:
best wishes, have fun and i hope to meet u again in another challenge or sw else......

:wavey:

[Nomad]

Hello Sascha, thank you my friend for all those kind words you wrote about my final picture (my the juges hear you :D) and for all your support during this contest. :)

Good luck once again for the final :thumbsup: I`m sure you will be on a good place :bounce:



PS: don`t miss my new vodka (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=203037) theread, it`s something fun after all those epic space operas :D

[Virtuoso]

turned out real nice Maciej...................you did it,only 10% of the entrants could manage to do so.You finished and saw your vision through..............Congrats on this.And you did well,a large scene and well done.Nice colors and a nice image.It was a pleasure meeting you here,and I wish you the best in your future creations.Best of luck to you...........:thumbsup:

[Nomad]

Thank you Virtuoso for all your support from the biggining and for those kind words... that was a though challenge and I hope I did my best... the only thing is sad that I had not enough time & abilities to make something better... but with what I learned here I`m ready for the next challenge :D Good luck to you too :thumbsup:

[artemesia66]

great image. epic in scale right from the beginning. congratulations, and good luck! :thumbsup:

[Nomad]

Thanks alot artemesia66, I`m glad to read all those kind words :love:

[theuni]

Hi,
just wanted to let you know that I voted for your image :bowdown:
I love it because its so different and looks more like a painting than CG.

[Nomad]

Thank you verry much theuni, I`m glad you like my work :love:

I didn`t wanted that the image looks too realistic thats why it`s more like a painting... I`m happy that you thought about that :)

[element5]

Nice transition through the ages and the colouring. I like the composition of the piece :) Goodluck.

[Nomad]

Thanks alot element5 for your comment :)

[roctavian]

Very nice and impressing image Maciej. :thumbsup:
You`ve donne a great job here. Cool imagination, nice shapes and colours.
Congratulations and good luck in the voting phase! :thumbsup:

[rashaverak]

i love it... really... the part i like the most are clouds... the scene remebers me a dream i had years ago :)

greets and gl!

[Nomad]

PROctavian & rashaverak thanks a lot, thats a pleaseure to read such nice comments.
I`m glad you like my picture. :)

[linen_umbrella]

Interesting use of color.

[Nomad]

Thank you for your comment linen_umbrella :bounce:

[kannu]

Bardzo fajna grafa MAciek :)

[Nomad]

Thank you kannu :)

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.