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3DStar Destroyer Avenger (Greeble-for-Greeble) YES IT'S BACK
Jedilaw0
Posts: 0Member
Hello all,
My computer situation has recently improved dramatically, thanks to the generosity of one of our fellow SFMers (I won't identify him by name unless he wants me to) who sent me a PC that he's no longer using. Given the new hardware at my disposal, I am returning to the Star Destroyer project that I started waaaaaaaay back in the Fall of 2006. For the record: No, I haven't been working on one CG model for six years. I spent the last several years doing music, letting the CG stuff fall to the side. But now I'm back.
For those who didn't come across this project during its earlier heydey, the plan here is to duplicate, piece for piece, the eight foot model used in The Empire Strikes Back. Why go greeble-for-greeble? Well, Fractalsponge has already done a superb job of interpreting the ISD using his own detail pieces. It's among the best CG models I have ever seen, pro or amateur. I really didn't want to subject my work to comparisons with Fractalsponge's, or try to duplicate his efforts. That's right, I'd rather be compared to ILM than to Fractalsponge.
I don't have all of the old renders at my fingertips, so I'm going to post just a select few:
These were rendered at different stages of development, and don't reflect the most current state of the beast. It'll be at least a few days before I can start getting together renders of the current status.
Incidentally, I blame ChrisGFX for prompting me to return to this. He's planning on an ISD of his own, and I've seen how good his work is, and how fast. Can't let him beat me to the punch!
My computer situation has recently improved dramatically, thanks to the generosity of one of our fellow SFMers (I won't identify him by name unless he wants me to) who sent me a PC that he's no longer using. Given the new hardware at my disposal, I am returning to the Star Destroyer project that I started waaaaaaaay back in the Fall of 2006. For the record: No, I haven't been working on one CG model for six years. I spent the last several years doing music, letting the CG stuff fall to the side. But now I'm back.
For those who didn't come across this project during its earlier heydey, the plan here is to duplicate, piece for piece, the eight foot model used in The Empire Strikes Back. Why go greeble-for-greeble? Well, Fractalsponge has already done a superb job of interpreting the ISD using his own detail pieces. It's among the best CG models I have ever seen, pro or amateur. I really didn't want to subject my work to comparisons with Fractalsponge's, or try to duplicate his efforts. That's right, I'd rather be compared to ILM than to Fractalsponge.
I don't have all of the old renders at my fingertips, so I'm going to post just a select few:
These were rendered at different stages of development, and don't reflect the most current state of the beast. It'll be at least a few days before I can start getting together renders of the current status.
Incidentally, I blame ChrisGFX for prompting me to return to this. He's planning on an ISD of his own, and I've seen how good his work is, and how fast. Can't let him beat me to the punch!
Post edited by Jedilaw on
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Good to see you around these parts again, Jedilaw.
I planned myself to do a complete digital reconstruction of the studio model used in ESB. I have ton of reference photos full with details and I am willing to share them with you if you need it
I have just a few suggestions -something that I was thinking to do myself
-Instead of making geometry cuttings (of line details in the hull), I was thinking to do it only as bump map, simply because there is no need for that kind of details as mesh model (and wanted to introduce a slight regular bump surface map -so that hull wouldn't look like some mathematical perfect surface -it needs to have some imperfections, or our eye will immediately dismiss it as a fake).
-And other thing I wanted to make, is that all the details and corners have slight rounded (or cut -if too small) edged. Because studio model was made from model kit (plastic) parts, they had all a bit rounded (imperfect) edges
Cheers
With regard to the panel lines, on the studio model some are scribed, and some are drawn with pencil. I may rework my approach, do some with texture to match the original more closely. I see what you mean about rounding the edges of the detail pieces, that's my plan for the last stage of polishing.
Great to see this back in action
https://www.dropbox.com/s/llehlhamisgs2td/ISD_References.zip
Enjoy
i agree, with the literal thousands of parts and scribes, if you put it off to do all at once, you will probably spend a month going from part to part just rounding edges and hunting for ones you missed!
Looking forward to more updates on this!
JMoney
Good luck with it!
Yes, I'm considering that, though to be honest Mental Ray is a royal pain in my ass compared to the scanline renderer. Picky as hell, with tons of arcane options.
Let's say there are more than a handful of things I'm regretting enough to go back and redo. Like the fact that I got the angles of the fronts and backs of the terraces completely wrong. They're ninety degrees relative to the horizontal midline, they should be ninety degrees relative to the tops of the terraces (e.g. they should be ninety-degree parallelograms that are angled to match the slope of the hull).
I'm still fighting with Max to get the entire model merged into a new file, so this is as much necromancy as new art...
Yeah, you'll want to get that nipped now
Mentral ray ain't bad - from my limited experience it's actually quite fast. Most of the default settings give decent results. It would, however, be criminal for this model not to be properly lit with GI. Pick a renderer to do it, but definitely do it!
Looking forward to more of this.
Various Work: U.S.S. Constellation - Matt Jefferies Concept Shuttle
Again, love it!
How does one just happen to be around the original 8-foot model?
To quote Vader: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Various Work: U.S.S. Constellation - Matt Jefferies Concept Shuttle
Don't worry, you're not alone, I just about managed to erase that scene from my memory too.
Do you use Xrefs? It eliminates the need to merge everything into one file if things become unmanageable otherwise.