Grand Space Opera 3D Entry: Stuart C Macdonald

#61

Ah, there was some sort of corruption in the xref upper hulls of the ships in case you notice the graphics are different from before. Fixed it now.

New update at end of tomorrow night…

#62

Right, I quickly modelled a figure to se if I could get a figure sillhoette inside the sub-surface material pod. From the test it looks like i’ll need to play with the sub-surface setings to get a little more of that fly in amber look. If it makes the pods too transparent i’ll skip this though as it might detract from the glo-worm like look of the pods in the scene

#63

Busy day today. First off there’s more pods, there’s one I don’t like which i’ll re-orientate. I added the boil of the sea beneath the laser and the destruction of the city. Also added the wake from the front pod’s fin dipping in the water. There’s a few other material and lighting tweaks, particularly with the sea - been a lot of test rendering today which means a lot of cups of tea :slight_smile:
Still got the effects ( water spray from wake, city fires and smoke, glow, engine fumes and steam from sea boil ) which will add polish. Think a lot of these will be photoshop as I don’t have afterburn etc., creating decent smoke and steam is a bit of a problem…

#64

the scene is looking great,looks grand.However it looks like the glow in the far left is too strong and overpowering.:wip:

#65

Hey Nice Escene. But Try To Make More Realistic The Water

#66

Ok, I tried the glow of the laser as a glow effect rather than a falloff textured tube, might need to play with the intensities but it fells more illuminated…

#67

Changed the pod glass so the interior can be made out a little better, you can just make out the pilots now. There’s also some glowing lights in there too.
Tweaked the sea texture to make the finer bump mapping better to produce some wee wake highlights

#68

Just a little test of the steam I want to comp into the final image using Photoshop. I’ve referenced images of volcanic steam vents to get this right. I might put some darker clouds into the background map to increase the contrast at the lefthand side.
Not too sure if i’ll put any smoke/fire effects into the city debris, I imagined the lazer strike might be quite ‘clean’ destruction with the structure just seared and severed.
Ah well, getting to the final render time, this’ll take a few hours to render, then I can put in the Photoshop effects tomorrow.

#69

great! I would only make those spheres more transparent.

#70

I think the darker clouds are a great idea. That would enable you to show off the passenger sphere at the front of your ships. I think the entire piece could be darkened up a bit to play up the drama of the beam, ships etc.

Looking good regardless!

#71

Right, I darkened the image, adding storm clouds to the lefthand side of the background.
Also added a slight bloom to the lead ships and the steam.
Think this is much more dramatic, also the light/dark helps the image read.

#72

…hmmm, wait a minute, mabe the cities to the left are getting lost in the background, need to look at this a bit…

#73

Just like to say thanks to the guys who’ve responded to this thread, all your input has been really helpful.
Think that’s just about it, there might be some playing around after the render but I need to get things wrapped up now…
That’s the big render button pressed, hopefully I can get the post-processing done tomorrow and submit the final render tomorrow evening :slight_smile:

#74

Okay, here it is, the final image.
Took a few hours overnight to render, can’t really say how long 'cos this morning when I checked there was the tga, but max had closed itself (!)
Thanks again to the few guys who dropped by my thread and offered their help/crit and good luck to you as well.

#75

like a screenshot from some sf movie… my congratulations! this should get some prize here I think… but don’t know which one:) good luck!

#76

I like your style Man I Wish you good Luck :stuck_out_tongue:

#77

well I suppose it is better to find these entries later than never…um…I really like this :bounce:

#78

Thanks guys, this hasn’t been the hottest thread around but I appreciate you taking a peek…

Sorry to see you’re not finishing flyingP, it was a nice piece of work you were doing as well :sad:

Arturro - thanks, but there are quite a few good entries, and they’re all starting to come in now, the main thing is I’m happy with the end result, although that change in composition lead to me being up 'till 2am every night over the last 2 weeks. good luck with your piece, i’ll drop by your thread later.

Divaise - thanks, good luck to you, nearly done :thumbsup:

#79

I really wouldn’t worry too much about that, a lot of threads are getting more attention than they perhaps deserve (personally I feel mine should be included in that lot), and others have just been buried. At any rate I’ll certainly keep an eye out for your work in future challenges :slight_smile:

#80

Really a top job from beginning to the end - congrats for a fantastic work! I wont be surprised to see you among the top ten. Lovely :thumbsup: