Here’s some photobashing and Vue renders to start this off. Just want to get an idea of how I want to frame this shot. Gonna try and use a lot of 3d this month. As with most sci-fi themes, the design of the architecture is going to make or break our images. Lots of research to do!
nice! love the light on the two on the right, yeah Im in vue at the mo too, trying to find a composition…
Those look pretty cool as a base.
I’m curious to try out Vue Extreme for 3ds Max but it’s $1695! What flavor of Vue are you guys using? Sorry, don’t mean to hijack your thread. PM me if you prefer. Thanks!
Joel
Thanks guys, Joel - I’m using the standalone version - Vue Infinite. Never tried Xtreme.
Some more experimenting. Architecture is just a generic placeholder until I figure out my design. Widescreen format looks so much better, I wish that we could enter the final in widescreen :hmm: . Nothing set in stone yet, everything is still subject to change.
Little more exploration… starting to like it… Still have to figure out the architecture. What do you guys think?
looking great, oh now youve put planets in the bg I see it was stars behind? on first read I thought it was perhaps terrain. So are the rocks etc in complete shadow - lit from the station right only and the sun (which we cant see) lighting from left? just wondering… very cool tho, you are going to nail this one 
Thanks Dave!
I’ll have to adjust the lighting to make more sense. I intend on using point lights on the architecture to illuminate the rock faces from inside the crevice. The sun is actually just another moon that is just above the frame close to where the bg mountain curves upwards. I’ll see if I can do some adjusting to get it to read better.
Looking awesome! I think your following the brief very well, and having your composition take on the role of the spaceship on its descent into the canyon to dock, is a really nice touch.
I think personally it would be nice to have some vertical architectural element that stretches above the canyon’s reach, that could help alert other ships of the docking area though, within the canyon. Just my opinion, keep it up man
I like where you’re going with the landing field! The stile sits really well with the brief.
Hi Hemal
I think I like the top right of your four early landscape renders more and then build a landing area on the shadow side of the canyon. It would make you focus on the landing dock/strip right away. Or the background in the current one needs to be more subtle so it attracts less attention. But overall very cool 
Looks like a Covenant structure and it just needs a Wraith tank 
I like where this is headed. Very promising. That said,… unfortunately, we have set the premise to be HD because my initial brief this month was built around a television aspect ratio. Don’t take it too far with this film cropping because you might be disappointed later once you open up the top and bottom of the frame.
Here, let me help you get into the mood:
Riddick: The Last Furyan
One of the leading video game companies has acquired the rights to produce the
upcoming AAA title Riddick: Son of Fury for Playstation. You are part of the cinematic
team, developing all cut sequences for this project but the deal is not sealed yet. Your studio wants to convince the producers that they can deliver a visually astonishing final product in order to obtain the entire batch of shots, instead of having it divided into portions amongst multiple VFX houses. As the only DMP on the small team, your first task is to create one shot from the opening sequence, concentrating on the visual presentation of the described environment. This will be the anchor to fully land the project.
In an early production meeting with the clients, one of the producers has expressed how much he enjoyed the Official Destiny “Become Legend” trailer (ironically shot in 2.40; I know).
[vimeo]105557341[/vimeo]
So, while you are bound by contract to deliver in a 16:9 ratio, you should be able to crop it down to 2.40 and still have a working composition. This happens on some projects and is an extra thought to consider. Good luck. And enjoy!!
Thanks for all the awesome comments guys!
Milan - really cool brief man! Thanks for that, I will try to make this as epic as possible to land the whole project 
. My next WIP will be in 16:9 ratio. Cheers!
Ok guys here is my final for now. Unfortunately (or fortunately :P) I started a freelance gig in the middle of the month which has taken up pretty much all of my time. Didn’t get to spend as long as I wanted on this piece. Gonna call it done for now, and will try and revisit it in the future. Good luck to everybody!
Great images all the way from the first concept renders to the final matte painting, Hemal.
Am I right in assuming the funky rock sculptures are boolean/metablobs done with Vue too?
Very unusual. You’re definitely getting some cool results with Vue! I like it, man.
Here’s to last-minute submissions… we both had 4 minutes to spare. 
Yep! Used metablobs for them, and then painted over a bit. Was going for a kind of alien looking growth/fungi.
Congrats on 3rd place!
Love the energy fX coming out from the pods, leading through the road to the platform and structure on the right ground. Though the perspective of the saucer shapes along the ground seemed a little skewed some spots, so it throws me off as my eye goes through that electrifying pathway. Vue is a great tool for terrain generation, but there are times that it generates some noticeable patterns that could be varied up some more through a little more of the erosion or displacement tweaking. You can also enhance the look through photos to add on top for extra detail to break up the patterns a bit. Lighting wise, the strong star/sun spot could be moved more to the right so that it would make sense that the left side cliff is catching so much light, where in this scenario, it would be more back lit. The blobs that make up the structures on the left side cliff are pretty interesting, but I think their surface quality could use more lighting/shadow to integrate it into the environment. It seems pretty flat and too stretched in some spots. For your sky, the clouds and planets are a little too low res/blurry and could be more sharply defined at 100% resolution. Probably also have the purple type moons be a little more sharp and have more consistent top rim lighting that it would receive from the sun direction here.
