Ok, here it is … the sketch #0 … it is roughly the main idea, with the foreground gondola, the wires going to the sail (that is well behind the camera) and the big black hole with clouds and jets on the background … please, be patient with me, this is my first sketch in my life, I’m here to learn 
… I’ll post later some more elaborations on this and a first try at colorize the sketch with GIMP … see you and all the comments are really welcome:)
Riccardo
Hi
here it is a second sketch, a little bit more elaborate … this is just to help myself shaping the idea … I’ve still not decided the final model for the gondola (the real important one, since the other models, like the far away sails and the support ships, are so distant that they’ll not show any details), the one that is in this sketch is just to fill with something … anyway, this is more or less where I’m going … thanks for any comments,
Riccardo
After some time spent in tring to learn to use GIMP, here it is a first try to have a color sketch for my entry … it is not complete … the gondola is just cut and paste from the hand drawn sketch I’ve already submitted … the black hole and jet (and the background nebula) is the result of some try I’ve made to adapt a tutorial on how do paint clouds … it is far from good, but hey, it is my first real attempt on doing something with GIMP … I’ll need to add more details (the other sails and ths support ships) … than I can declare the 2D sketch phase concluded … I want than to start to do some fast 3D renderin with fake objects (is this phase named in some technical way? just curious) … that will be helpful for deciding the final camera angle and overall dimensions of objects … and than the modelling phase will start … that will be the most difficult for me, since I have no big experience in modelling … again, I’m here to learn (and actually I’m learning a lot tring to do that project and looking at other people entries) …
Thanks for comments, Riccardo
Good luck. I think the idea looks original and the color sketch definately helps in picturing the scene that you’re going for. I think I’ll try to flesh out some of my pencil sketches like that as well.
Nice concept man!really wanna see how it will look like at the end…
A proposito, sono anch’io di udine, è la prima volta che trovo qualcuno della zona su questo sito!Buona fortuna!
Here it is a first try for the gondola (the small, light ship attached to the giant sail) … it is my first spaceship … in the end it comes out a sort of mix between a shoe and a Fiat 500 (a small italian car) … not really evocative … well, at least it is a start … comments are welcome
Riccardo
Intersting concept!!
Since your ship is called GONDOLA, why don’t you inspire its design in a gondola?!:rolleyes:
Hi
well, gondola was the technical name for that thing … it is borrowed from high atmosphere balloon; the gondola is the small object attached to that giant balloon … but your idea of insipiring my ship to a real gondola is really interesting, not thought about that … thanks … anyway, I didn’t like my first sketch, so any idea like this is really welcome … thanks, Riccardo
P.S.
I spent almost one night tring to obtain some good results on the black hole with a particle system, but I’m almost exausted with no good results … I think that I’ll revert to a solid model for the black hole and use textures to give it the desired feel … well, we’ll see …
Ok, I need to start some 3D stuff … since I suck in modelling, I decided to wait (and learn a little bit more) before embarking on the modelling of the spaceships of my scene … so I started thinking about the big black hole were the sailing race is happening … I spent almost two days tring and failing using particles … in the end I decided for a completely different strategy … I’ve prepared a simple model and I rely than on texturing to give it the shape of what I’ve in mind … my black should be composed of four main part
Note that this setup is the mix of some real science with a lot of fantasy science, don’t expect anything accurate here … anyway, here it is a view of the (trivial) model … the jets are still not complete … next post will be the texture I’ll use for the accreting disk.
Riccardo
Hi all
here it is the texture I’m using (at the moment, still not the final one probably) for the thin accreting disk of the black hole … basic stuff done with GIMP and its whirl filter … I’m going to use this texture for both displacement mapping and alpha filtering … for the black cloud I’m using a standard perlin noise procedural texture for the displacment map (I’m not going to post it since it is not really interesting)… next post will be a first test rendering of the wip.
Riccardo
Here it is a very first rendering of the work in progress of the black hole … the jets are not completed, at the moment they are just two white emitting cylinders … the overall image is quite different from what I was expecting when I’ve started, but in some way it is interesting … moreover I think the black hole will look bettere with a differnt, more rich background … at the moment I’m using a simple starfield, for the final project I’m planning a more complete background with nebulas and other stuff … anyway, lot of work is needed …
Any comments/suggestions will be really really appreciated.
Bye, Riccardo
This is really starting to look cool, very nice idea too.
In terms of any tips I can give, maybe for the outer rim part of the BH it would be cool to layer some particle systems with mblur and different post effects. Using a vortex space warp (or equivalent in whatever package) you should be able to get that shape and it would give the image a nice sense of movement and violence. If you can get you hands on it there is a BBC doco called SPACE (with sam neil) that has some black hole stuff that would be good reference, it should be out on DVD pretty much everywhere and has some good visuals in it.
Like the composition of your scene as well, that camera position and angle makes it very dramatic.
Anyway hope this has helped in some way, look forward to seeing more.
Dave.
Hey dayvbrown
thanks for the comments and suggestions … I’m working a little more on that (I want to start to model the sail ships) and I agree with you, I need to give some feeling of movement to that (as it is it seems a donut in the space) … I’ve managed to get a better displacement texture with a more sense of rotation and I’ll try your suggestion adding some particles to the outer rim of the bh …
Thanks a lot
Riccardo
Very cool black hole. A little more solid looking than I would expect. But maybe I’m just used to mine. 
Hi
thanks for the comment … yes, I agree, is too solid … I’m reworking on it with some alpha maps to give it a more cloudy effect … hope to show something in the next days … and than I want to start to model the main ship of the scene …
See you, Riccardo
Hi all
here it is a new version of the black hole in my scene … it is more or less a variation of the techniques used in the previous rendering, but with some new things … mainly I’m using now a plane (this means that the donut shape is only half … but since the image is static there is no problem, you cannot see the other side of the black hole … cg is not the art of reproducing reality, but of faking it :)) …
I’m using some texture maps to do displacement of the plane (true displacement, not a bumpmap), both for the donut shape and for the spiral shape … I added perlin noise displacement on the donut shape to simulate clouds … than, the last step, I painted in GIMP an alpha map that is a circle with a fuzzy border … here it is the result … the jet is a fake one (an emittive cylinder), need to work on a better jet for sure … I am also not happy of colours and lighting, but this will come later …
I want to paint a better starfield (the one used here is just a 5 minute try with GIMP) and use the same techniques of the black hole to provide some interesting nebulas for background … also this will probably come later, because I now want to start to model some ship …
Any comments will be really helpful.
Bye, Riccardo
That works very well…A nice look has been achieved…I am familiar with perlin noise displacement,a very nice choice,you can see and feel the “Depth”…looking very good riccardo…:arteest:
That’s looking heaps better man, the central swirl has much greater impact.
now let’s see some ships!
Dave.
