Versiden: Thanks! As for the greebles ā¦ yeah, it seemed a lot faster to do a very rough approximation of Waterhole Alpha using the greeble script and then take it into Photoshop and apply more detail than to spend hour after hour trying to get the hang of sketching with an Intuos tablet (great if you come from a traditional art background ā¦ not so great if youāre used to sketching while looking at the sheet of paper your pen is resting on).
Gunilla: Glad you like the ships! Iām having a lot of fun with the shader networks on the Kahir ship, so I should be posting some better test renders later today.
Tekano: Yep, I just got my upgrade to 4.0 last month, which part of why Iāve launched into modeling before really taking the time to establish exactly how I want to handle the scene ā Iām bouncing back and forth between the new training DVDs and trying out some of the techniques Iām learning. Ever since 1.0 Iāve just used a few key parts of the program, and pretty much saved everything else āfor later.ā Well, now IS later, and this contest seems a perfect opportunity to get a better working knowledge of the things Iāve put off for so long.
As for how to get across how the gate functions ā¦ hmmm, Iām working on that. The original plan called for building something like a cyclotron around where the gate is generated, but then I started thinking about the radiation this would generate and how there would need to be some sort of protective shield separating the jump gate from the platform where the generators are located. Of course, making the shield solid would complete screw up the visual splendor of the jump gate itself, so ā¦ um, working on it. 
Hopefully as I put together some rough pieces and investigate the layout in all three dimensions Iāll figure out some clever engineering solution. Either that, or the Kahir ambassador will contact me with an explanation. 
In regards to the mr limit: yes, I can certainly break the scene down and do it in passes. My concern with crashing mental ray actually stems from some horrendous problems I had with huge displacement maps during the Alienware contest. At the time, I hadnāt known about the displacement options in the visibility panel, so I was using a script to turn grayscale terrain maps into some really complex solid geometry, and the size of these was wreaking havoc with the triangle count. With Waterhole Alpha it will a lot easier to block everything out and then do different segments as separate passes ā though thereās a lot to be said for being able to quickly bring up the render region and check everything in the same scene file. 
Yeah, I finally worked out the kinks and feel reasonably satisfied with this compromise approach that doesnāt completely cover up the plasma but avoids some of the other render headaches. More importantly, this design should enable me to get the glow I want for the inside of the domes without any unfortunate āside effects.ā Whew!
