That looks great. It's very clean and no doubt so much easier than setting up all of those cutter objects. Thanks for the look at the shader setup too.
I have a question for you. Are the glow effects on your running lights a post processing effect or something you did in Blender? I do mine in post, but I'd love to know if it's possible to do that sort of thing in a Blender render. (it probably is)
I have a question for you. Are the glow effects on your running lights a post processing effect or something you did in Blender? I do mine in post, but I'd love to know if it's possible to do that sort of thing in a Blender render. (it probably is)
It's in blender's compositor. So I hit F12 and it renders and does the compositing after the render finishes.
I have a couple glare nodes, one for mid tones, and another for highlights like the running lights, and a blur, a lens distortion, a little bit of color grading, and film grain. I saved the whole setup into my default scene so I can start all my projects with it.
Here's a .blend with my post process setup. You can either set it as your default scene or append the post process group, which you can find in the NodeTree subfolder of the .blend file. Then you can add it to your compositor setup under Group in the add menu.
Gotta agree with the others, that does look fantastic. Not only do I like the hexagons, but I love the color variations. It makes the area feel more "alive," if that makes sense.
Gotta agree with the others, that does look fantastic. Not only do I like the hexagons, but I love the color variations. It makes the area feel more "alive," if that makes sense.
Yes, it really sells the idea that this is merely what we can see of a ton of hardware doing its job behind that grille.
Thanks guys! I bumbled around and ended up using two different ways to make the hexagons. I botched together some YouTube tutorials, which I barely understand. The blue with the color variations is one hex pattern with a voronoi node and a color ramp for the blue variations mixed with the color output of the same voronoi for the other color variations. The other hexagon pattern setup is for the hex grid itself which I'm using as a mask and bump for a brass metallic color. Getting the two hex patterns to line up was a real pain!
Then the blue group goes into a translucent shader, and I have a copy of the deflector faces behind it with an emission shader.
The Defiant is with no doubt one of my favourite designs of the Next Generation era, and you are doing her real justice. Love to see her grow in your hands. Also I would be interested in those YouTube tutorials you mentioned.
The Defiant is with no doubt one of my favourite designs of the Next Generation era, and you are doing her real justice. Love to see her grow in your hands. Also I would be interested in those YouTube tutorials you mentioned.
I just searched "blender hexagon pattern procedural" and used the ones I could follow along with easiest.
Defiant seems to be one of those designs that starship modellers have difficulty getting just right. Even the model in Picard S3 looked really off. Your one however looks absolutely perfect, just like it did back in the show!
Rebuilding the Essex class. I wanted to start over with a better foundation for detailing with panels like I did on Defiant. This time I didn't use any booleans for the saucer shuttlebay and the secondary hull and the twin necks and pylons are all one mesh. I have a bevel and subd modifier on the secondary hull, but I think I'm going to remove the bevel modifier and add them manually because I'm running into problems deciding which modifier to put first. If I put the bevel first I get oddly round areas in the middle of flat spaces that doesn't make the shading look bad, but makes bad topology, or if subd is first the bevels have less room to work and I end up with a lot of overlap in tight areas and if I clamp it all the bevels get super tight.
I'm a dummy. I'm using HardOps to mark the edges which sets bevel weight, sharpness, and crease all at once. The creases were making those weird loops since the outer edges in the resulting bevel retain the crease info. Didn't really mess with shading, but it made the wireframe look kooky!
Rebuilt the nacelles and deflector doodads and used the previous shuttlebay interior.
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It's in blender's compositor. So I hit F12 and it renders and does the compositing after the render finishes.
I have a couple glare nodes, one for mid tones, and another for highlights like the running lights, and a blur, a lens distortion, a little bit of color grading, and film grain. I saved the whole setup into my default scene so I can start all my projects with it.
Here's a .blend with my post process setup. You can either set it as your default scene or append the post process group, which you can find in the NodeTree subfolder of the .blend file. Then you can add it to your compositor setup under Group in the add menu.
One of the last projects I started in Lightwave before switching to Blender was a drydock. One of these days, I should start one in Blender.
Yes, it really sells the idea that this is merely what we can see of a ton of hardware doing its job behind that grille.
Then the blue group goes into a translucent shader, and I have a copy of the deflector faces behind it with an emission shader.
I just searched "blender hexagon pattern procedural" and used the ones I could follow along with easiest.
cutting in more panels
WORF: Little?
Rebuilt the nacelles and deflector doodads and used the previous shuttlebay interior.