Nice Rams . . . . I've seen them before somewhere else, someone named snazz84 or some-such like that . . . . . you should check into it . . :flippy:
gp
All I can say dude is...WOW. That hanger deck interior looks GREAT! And your launch tubes are good too.
Since you mentioned you were having issues with lighting, here's my approach:
The first thing I'll do is work it so that the lighting in the virtual set matches as closely as possible the practical lighting on the real one. If that doesn't look right then I add in incidental lights where needed to make it work. A lot of times what I find is that ambience is the biggest challenge and missing element, but from what I can see you're off to a great start, especially inside the launch tubes.
Thanks very much, especially for the advice. My main problem has been that I've tried to use all the lights that are on the actual set, but as soon as I switch global illumination/radiosity on, the whole scene becomes very over exposed.
That's probably why the launch tubes look better, because there are far less lights to worry about. But I'm looking forward to tinkering with it once I've got some "proper" work out of the way. I probably just need to tone down the intensity of the main lights to stop them washing everything out and then let the smaller lit features create the depth and interest, which make your images look so good.
I have the exact same problem with a lot of my sets. Let me give you an example:
Now I realize this is a Sci-Fi forum...but this is the best example of a practical lighting setup I have Follow me on this one...what few people realize about this particular set is that it takes over 100 lights on the stage alone to get it balanced and even. According to lighting director Tim Sheldon, the combined luminosity of this stage per episode is more than most people would use in their homes in six months.
When recreating it virtually, I arranged all the proper lights in their proper positions, and set them all to the proper intensities relative to one another. But when I merged the lighting grid into the rest of the studio model, the entire thing was more or less one big white mess. Instead of showing their proper colors, all the props were whitewashed in the extreme.
Knowing I had all the lights at their proper intensities, I decided that the wisest approach would be to adjust my textures accordingly. Look at the above image, and you'll note that not one surface therein is at 100% diffusion. The doors are at 15% diffusion, no ambience; the blue back wall is at 20% diffusion, also no ambience; the walls of the turntable range from 15 to 25% diffusion, no ambience but with specularity maps. In all cases, this results in this set looking very very dark when the lights are turned down even a little bit--and while this has the advantage of allowing me to precisely control how bright an object appears simply by darkening its surface, it makes it very difficult to import props from other projects without significant modifications.
The same can be said of my Star Trek interiors, particularly the bridge sets. The sets are essentially flooded with light, but to look at it you'd never see it because the textures are so dark. In the 1701-D bridge, for instance, if the lights weren't up that bright the walls would look almost pitch-black.
I'll definitely have a go with that technique. Galactica's hangar bay walls are almost an off-white colour in real life, so that compounded my problems with over exposure. I saw your comment in your Gallery thread about The Price is Right scene and wondered how you dealt with 100 lights, so it's great to hear the tricks of the trade. Making the textures darker certainly sounds like it'll create images that are more faithful to the real thing than if I started lowering the intensity of lights, or switching them off altogether. Turning off the main tube lights on the ceiling was starting to look like an option, though I knew it would make the scene look less accurate to the series.
This all started off as my first major project in 3D, so it's been a learning experience in all departments, and now I'm seriously itching to get back to it!
Something else you might try if you're like me and want your sets to have every last erg of realism you can manage:
One problem I was persistently noticing with my sets was that the colors never quite looked right (not saying yours don't but just a strategy to keep in mind), so i started taking screencaps directly from an episode or film, blurring it, and then sampling colors directly off the image (saved in BMP format of course) to apply to my models. You'd be amazed at how much more realistic they look when you do that.
Something else you might try if you're like me and want your sets to have every last erg of realism you can manage:
One problem I was persistently noticing with my sets was that the colors never quite looked right (not saying yours don't but just a strategy to keep in mind), so i started taking screencaps directly from an episode or film, blurring it, and then sampling colors directly off the image (saved in BMP format of course) to apply to my models. You'd be amazed at how much more realistic they look when you do that.
Mmm, I might try that too. The thing about the hangar bay sets is that they've changed the lighting quite a bit over the years, so that makes everything look different. In the miniseries it was as clean and shiny as a high tech hospital, but in recent years I think they've used filters to give it more of a dirty, greenish hue. I guess I'll just pick one scheme and stick to it.
I faced the same dilemma when designing my TNG observation lounge and VOY briefing room sets, the lighting changed from one appearance to the next and there was no consistency. My strategy was to just find one lighting scheme I liked and stick with it. In the case of the TNG lounge, the appearance from "These are the Voyages" seemed to be the best, muted without being too dark, lit without being too bright. For the VOY briefing room, the setup I'm going to run with when I rebuild it (I got the deck plans yesterday and my entire Deck 1 is wrong) is the setup from "Prime Factors" (the scene that ends with Torres telling Kim, "I just hope she gets it"). The launch bay isn't quite as hard since it's consistent from show to show even if it changes from season to season, so you've got it easier.
I DEFINITELY am interested in seeing more of your progress as you make it. :-)
Aaron: I'll have a look into those LIDAR sensors. The landram could certainly do with a few real life, 21st century improvements.
Marrekie: Thanks. I instantly recognised your name from dA.
Been a long time since I went back to this, but I've been cleaning up the hangar bay lately in preparation for giving it some proper textures. But in the last few days I got distracted and made the umpteenth model of the Mk II viper. I know, everybody makes these! But I prefer using my own models in renders rather than other people's, so I decided to build one.
The nose looked a little long to me too, but I've been using images of the model from the show as reference, so it should be pretty accurate. It looks a lot better proportioned now I've added the guns. Will post more later.
Great thread, Pearse... nice that you've stuck with all of this too. Got to wondering, when thinking about some of the lighting issues and talk, are you doing multipass rendering and comping your images? May ease some of your burdens...
Multiple passes are definitely something I'm going to consider once I've finished my viper (since I'm looking forward to using it in images of my hangar bay models), but I've never done that before, so I'll have to see what it entails. At the same time, I'm cutting down the number of polies in my hangar bay models so they shouldn't take so long to render.
Thanks, Starship and XRaider.
Adalla, I'm sure you'll be able to in no time. I've only been modeling a matter of months, myself.
I've added a few extra little details to my Viper, as well as adding those cannons. The main bits I have left now are the canopy and landing legs. I'm really looking forward to texturing it and generally making it look beaten about.
LOL, funny that should be the last thing said in this thread.
I've been busy with other work lately, so I haven't had much time to work on my Viper. Still, in the last couple of days I've more or less completed the modeling, aside from a few details.
I mentioned in another thread how I've given up on trying to make it as accurate as my other models. I'm just not experienced enough at modeling curvy shapes to get the wing tips right. I really just wanna move onto texturing it and finally having a Viper in my launch bay!
Thanks. Well, I'm not going to point out more of my own errors, but hopefully somewhere down the line I'll figure out how to fix them. In the meantime I've been working on detailing the cockpit (which there are surprisingly few references for besides the control panel), so I'll upload some more pics once I start texturing. I'm looking forward to adding all those cool battle scars.
LOL, funny that should be the last thing said in this thread.
I've been busy with other work lately, so I haven't had much time to work on my Viper. Still, in the last couple of days I've more or less completed the modeling, aside from a few details.
I mentioned in another thread how I've given up on trying to make it as accurate as my other models. I'm just not experienced enough at modeling curvy shapes to get the wing tips right. I really just wanna move onto texturing it and finally having a Viper in my launch bay!
That's looking fantastic, Pearse!
I have to post an update of my VMK2. I did the side internals last weekend. It was one of the funner parts so far. The canopy has been a nightmare, but I feel I came up with a solution and I feel rewarded. I am anxious to get to the engines. What refs did you use for yours? They look accurate. Some point I will work on the cockpit, but I want to get some thrusters on my baby.
It would be cool to see some wires if you are willing or interested. Nice job on the hangar bay and launch tube!
Posts
gp
Since you mentioned you were having issues with lighting, here's my approach:
The first thing I'll do is work it so that the lighting in the virtual set matches as closely as possible the practical lighting on the real one. If that doesn't look right then I add in incidental lights where needed to make it work. A lot of times what I find is that ambience is the biggest challenge and missing element, but from what I can see you're off to a great start, especially inside the launch tubes.
Keep it up!!!
That's probably why the launch tubes look better, because there are far less lights to worry about. But I'm looking forward to tinkering with it once I've got some "proper" work out of the way. I probably just need to tone down the intensity of the main lights to stop them washing everything out and then let the smaller lit features create the depth and interest, which make your images look so good.
Now I realize this is a Sci-Fi forum...but this is the best example of a practical lighting setup I have
When recreating it virtually, I arranged all the proper lights in their proper positions, and set them all to the proper intensities relative to one another. But when I merged the lighting grid into the rest of the studio model, the entire thing was more or less one big white mess. Instead of showing their proper colors, all the props were whitewashed in the extreme.
Knowing I had all the lights at their proper intensities, I decided that the wisest approach would be to adjust my textures accordingly. Look at the above image, and you'll note that not one surface therein is at 100% diffusion. The doors are at 15% diffusion, no ambience; the blue back wall is at 20% diffusion, also no ambience; the walls of the turntable range from 15 to 25% diffusion, no ambience but with specularity maps. In all cases, this results in this set looking very very dark when the lights are turned down even a little bit--and while this has the advantage of allowing me to precisely control how bright an object appears simply by darkening its surface, it makes it very difficult to import props from other projects without significant modifications.
The same can be said of my Star Trek interiors, particularly the bridge sets. The sets are essentially flooded with light, but to look at it you'd never see it because the textures are so dark. In the 1701-D bridge, for instance, if the lights weren't up that bright the walls would look almost pitch-black.
Perhaps a similar approach might work for you?
This all started off as my first major project in 3D, so it's been a learning experience in all departments, and now I'm seriously itching to get back to it!
One problem I was persistently noticing with my sets was that the colors never quite looked right (not saying yours don't but just a strategy to keep in mind), so i started taking screencaps directly from an episode or film, blurring it, and then sampling colors directly off the image (saved in BMP format of course) to apply to my models. You'd be amazed at how much more realistic they look when you do that.
deg
Mmm, I might try that too. The thing about the hangar bay sets is that they've changed the lighting quite a bit over the years, so that makes everything look different. In the miniseries it was as clean and shiny as a high tech hospital, but in recent years I think they've used filters to give it more of a dirty, greenish hue. I guess I'll just pick one scheme and stick to it.
I DEFINITELY am interested in seeing more of your progress as you make it. :-)
Marrekie: Thanks. I instantly recognised your name from dA.
Been a long time since I went back to this, but I've been cleaning up the hangar bay lately in preparation for giving it some proper textures. But in the last few days I got distracted and made the umpteenth model of the Mk II viper.
Really gotta fix that cockpit area..
The nose looked a little long to me too, but I've been using images of the model from the show as reference, so it should be pretty accurate. It looks a lot better proportioned now I've added the guns. Will post more later.
Great work. Especially the Launch Tube...simply amazing
Thanks, Starship and XRaider.
Adalla, I'm sure you'll be able to in no time. I've only been modeling a matter of months, myself.
I've added a few extra little details to my Viper, as well as adding those cannons. The main bits I have left now are the canopy and landing legs. I'm really looking forward to texturing it and generally making it look beaten about.
I've been busy with other work lately, so I haven't had much time to work on my Viper. Still, in the last couple of days I've more or less completed the modeling, aside from a few details.
I mentioned in another thread how I've given up on trying to make it as accurate as my other models. I'm just not experienced enough at modeling curvy shapes to get the wing tips right. I really just wanna move onto texturing it and finally having a Viper in my launch bay!
That's looking fantastic, Pearse!
I have to post an update of my VMK2. I did the side internals last weekend. It was one of the funner parts so far. The canopy has been a nightmare, but I feel I came up with a solution and I feel rewarded. I am anxious to get to the engines. What refs did you use for yours? They look accurate. Some point I will work on the cockpit, but I want to get some thrusters on my baby.
It would be cool to see some wires if you are willing or interested. Nice job on the hangar bay and launch tube!
-Jeremy