Here's a few starship hull tests I've been working on. I made these images to explore variations in greebling and hull plate shapes and configurations. The tests are a little less practical and a little more abstract, but they have been really helpful, and should be a great source of inspiration and practical experience the next time I decide to make a full fledged 3d model of a starship or space station. Parts were modeled in 3dsmax (many wires were done using my wirebundler script), rendered with brazil, some was painted in photoshop (so the image isn't 100% 3d, but the majority is), and many patterns were inspired and produced by Darktree, Bercon Noise and Filterforge procedural patterns.
More to follow in the coming week.
- Neil
http://www.neilblevins.com
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Very nice.
Tobias
- Neil
Jedilaw, afraid those are all separate plugins. Filterforge and Darktree are for purchase, the Bercon Noises are a free plugin. Max's built in procedurals aren't terribly powerful sadly, almost nothing is new in that area of max since max 2
- Neil
So, if I'm reading this right, the large panels and the circular greebles are hand modeled, the small panels are a procedural texture (normal map?), and the wires are procedurally generated by a script?
I know your website from a looong time. ItAâs good to see a wip from you here.
Ahh, I see some examples on your site. So are you using those noise maps as an inspiration for the pattern of the paneling, or have you incorporated them in as bump maps? The panels look modeled to me, and god knows I've spent a lot of time yutzing around with paneling (not as much as Fractalsponge, but then, who has?), so if those results can be obtained with maps instead of modeling I'd be very interested to know about it.
EDIT: Just skimmed your bio. Without getting too fanboyish, allow me to say I am a HUGE fan of all things Pixar, so having someone from that hallowed land visit us here at SFM is definitely a treat.
Thanks Fractal, your work on this forum has been a huge inspiration to me, so I'm honored that you like my work. Your breakdown is pretty accurate, although the procedural bits have been hand modified after the fact to make them a little more organic. So for example, the smallish plates are several procedurally based 3d patterns, mostly based on Worley Noise, then I bake that out and add paint on top, then used as a bump. So I'm using the procedural to do the heavy lifting of adding detail, and then I use hand paint to avoid it looking to uniform or repetitive. The wires are made using a script I wrote called wireBundler for 3dsmax, here's a more organic example of what it can do...
The script is more of a placement tool than a creation tool, all the wires are hand made, then layed out with the tool. Then again, I bake them to meshes and modify them to make them look nicer.
Thanks Syklon, as I mentioned, it starts off procedural, but then I add a handpainted layer ontop. While I love procedurals, it's faster to get exactly what you want where you want with hand painting
Thanks. I've actually been a lurker here for several years, this is just my first project that really seemed right for a board like this.
Some of the panels are modeled, mostly the larger stuff, also, mixing modeled panels with bump mapped panels helps to confuse the audience, so people can't be sure which is which
As for my employer, glad you're a fan. I just wish we did more scifi stuff
- Neil
What, Wall-E wasn't enough? Incidentally, did you work on the Omnidroid in the Incredibles?
BTW, if you guys are doing Cars 2 and Monsters, Inc 2, and Toy Story 3 (okay, that's one's done), somebody needs to poke Brad Bird in the ribs and get him to work on a sequel to the Incredibles. I know, I know, he's doing M:I4, but surely he'll have some downtime on set to work on a script...
At this rate we're going to see a giant surge in paneling activity on these forums
One robot film is never enough
Nope, I was doing environments for that film primarily, although I did model/shade/light all of the robots in the supersuit sequence in E's lab though.[/QUOTE]
Brad doesn't respond to poking But he knows we'd all love to work on it if he gets the itch.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
By all means, I'd love to see em.
Thanks dude, I try to do my best to use the advantages of both ways of working. Of course, it's a lot easier when your surface is flat
Cool, I've seen some of your ships too, good stuff, I've certainly been inspired these past few months by all the work on this forum, I'm happy to be able to contribute something to the mix.
- Neil
- Neil
SgtChainSaW, trying to find the right balance between large and small details is probably my most important goal in these images, glad you've found it successful.
- Neil