3DSABER early warning satellite - from the independent sci-fi action comedy film LVJ

ctaylor

This is a very early render of the WIP for a satellite that features in the opening shot from my film LVJ. It's an early warning satellite that gets buzzed by a UFO flown by an alien race known as the 'Veranyi'. The satellite is one of many that form a grid connected by lasers that allow them to scan a much wider area. The satellite(s) are situated around Saturn and form part of SABER's (a secret government organisation) early warning system for the solar system.

It's modelled in 3DSMax.

Berkut

looks like a really good start, nice details

ctaylor

Thanks.

Here's a second image of the satellite, lots of riveting. The rivets are geometry because the shot that features the satellite starts right up close to the surface as it reflects Saturn. I'll most likely add more detailing once I've laid the shot out, but because the lighting will be quite stark I want to see exactly what I can and can't see before I add detail that won't be seen in the shot.

Melak

Cool looking satellite so far, looking forward to what the whole thing will look like

ctaylor

Thanks Melak, I'm hoping to have the satellite done pretty quickly so should be able to post fairly regularly on this one.

ctaylor

Here's the latest render. That's all the geometry done for the main part of the satellite, I've already started on the solar panels as you can see in the first render, but I'll be working some more detail into those.

Then I'll be setting up some materials, lots of reflective metal, foil, that kind of thing.

ctaylor

Here's the satellite with the two sets of solar panels. The plan will be to rotate each panel (set of three) by a few degrees so that the reflections can really play off each other. Onto the materials next.

ctaylor

The solar panels are pretty much there now on the texturing/shading front, I may well tweak the materials some more once the camera move has been plotted, see what shows up when viewed by the camera.

ctaylor

Here's a couple of stills from a 950 frame animation that's the opening shot from the movie: www.lvjmovie.com The shot begins really close in on the satellite, pulls back and then does a 180 round to the front. These renders are just the beauty pass, there's a whole bunch of reflection and specular passes that will be used to give it some extra realism and lighting effects like glows, pings and flares. The reason for the soft fill light on the back of the satellite is due to it's proximity to Saturn where it sits as an early warning alarm against alien invasion from the Veranyi.

I've got quite a few more passes to render for the shot including the Veranyi Moth Ship itself on its way into the solar system. I'll post examples of these extra passes and a copy of the final shot once it's been composited.

ctaylor

The satellite has been rendered in a shot from the movie LVJ now so I've included a few frame grabs from the shot so you can see it in context. The shot features an alien space ship that I featured on Sci-Fi Meshes as I was building it, you can see that thread here: http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?47676-Alien-Tug-Ship-from-the-indie-film-LVJ&p=347391&highlight=#post347391

If anyone's interested you can see what the movie's all about here: http://www.lvjmovie.com/
We'd love to hear your thoughts.

ctaylor

I had a few more images to add which you can see here.

ST-One

That close-up of the camera lens looks really nice.