Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go. Next time, you will UV as you go.
:argh:
But, I've been doing enough posting without anything to show for it that I wanted to at least post something. So, here's the "progress" I've made thus far on correcting the initial projection of the saucer's underside. This is the trickiest part of the saucer to UV, thanks to that completely flat section, and after trying a bunch of different approaches, a straight-up spherical unwrap with significant manual manipulation has produced the most promising results thus far.
Blue indicates minimal UV-to-geometry polygon stretching, while red indicates severe UV-to-geometry stretching. While stretching isn't necessarily an awful issue for something like this, minimizing it and getting the UV space close to the polygon space will help with things like aztec panels and such.
Have I mentioned yet that I really don't enjoy UVing? Oh, I have? Okay then. :shiner:
Yep, that's about how I did it. Probably one of the cleanest ways you can get the job done, I think... (I really don't enjoy it either. I'm always impatiently trying to get to the painting :P)
Looking good on this one, sir. Far more detailed with your interior than I managed to get!
Not to get too terribly nitpicky, but wouldn't it have been easier to just do a flat map with a planar UV projection? I've downloaded a couple Ambassador-class models in the past and that's how they did it.
Yep, that's about how I did it. Probably one of the cleanest ways you can get the job done, I think... (I really don't enjoy it either. I'm always impatiently trying to get to the painting :P)
Looking good on this one, sir. Far more detailed with your interior than I managed to get!
Not to get too terribly nitpicky, but wouldn't it have been easier to just do a flat map with a planar UV projection? I've downloaded a couple Ambassador-class models in the past and that's how they did it.
Easier, yes, but not as "good." By unwrapping it with these sorts of projections, you don't have to do any fancy rectangular-to-polar coordinate conversions in your hull maps and it's a lot easier to iterate on changes. Rather than "make change, convert to polar, position correctly on actual UV map that might have mixed projection stuff so you can't just do polar and apply, save, check, go back and make more changes" you have a rapid "make change, save, check, go back and make more changes" loop. It's more predictable and more robust in the long run, even if it means a ton of time invested initially.
Believe me, the temptation is really strong to just throw my hands up and planar map it.
Do you even have to use Polar Coordinates? This ship has no Aztec, it just has blue circles and stuff. You can draw all of that using spheres in a vector graphics art program and you don't need Polar Coordinates.
I'm just saying this unwrapping method sounds like more trouble than it's worth. But, that may not be your view on it.
Do you even have to use Polar Coordinates? This ship has no Aztec, it just has blue circles and stuff. You can draw all of that using spheres in a vector graphics art program and you don't need Polar Coordinates.
I'm just saying this unwrapping method sounds like more trouble than it's worth. But, that may not be your view on it.
This ship has no Aztec? Says who?
The Aztec pattern isn't, for me, an artistic pattern Starfleet engineers apply to a ship; it's a natural consequence of using a bunch of ceramic-metallic composite plating to construct an enormous spacecraft. Those composite plates come from different places in the galaxy, have different ages, are installed at different points in the process. All of that gives rise to each plate looking subtly different from its neighbors, which in aggregate gives rise to the Aztec pattern. Every ship should exhibit something like the Aztec pattern, though it should not (arguably) be a pattern. The pattern itself is just a shortcut to creating the paneled effect with a bit of artistic flare to it.
So, yeah, this ship most certainly will have an Aztec.
I can kinda see the argument there. I wanted to do the plating with a spec map, even though the ship lacked a proper Aztec pattern. Assuming you'd even want to go the route I did, it would be possible to do it either way. I just felt like it was cleaner at the time, and easier for me to hand paint small details and such
I'd like to know how you did the glow effect o the ends of the nacelles, it looks like I could use it on a project I'm working on. Also, would what you did work in cycles?
I'd like to use something like you nacelle glow effect on this:
I'd like to know how you did the glow effect o the ends of the nacelles, it looks like I could use it on a project I'm working on. Also, would what you did work in cycles?
Almost every render you see in this thread is rendered in Cycles, with the exception of some of the very early ones. So, yeah, safe to say it'll work in Cycles.
Here's a screenshot of the Bussard collector exploded, along with material settings.
Well, it ain't much, but here's the product of about 15 hours of UV and texture work thus far. The map is just a simple color map with absolutely no detail to it whatsoever yet, nor any specular or normal/bump applied. Just trying to get the layout working. The narrow dark blue band is the end of the map, which is why the hull beyond it (where the phasers and sensor dome are) is just the normal blank off-white color.
Total project time so far is 338 hours now (about 293 of that in Blender).
I UVed the flattish, top-most part of the upper saucer tonight in far, far less time than the bottom flat section took. Used a different selection technique this time, which I cooked up at the very tail end of the bottom flat section UVs, and am delighted that it reproduced so well. Once I'd done that, I decided to start doing a little texture work to see how the Aztec pattern might look, along with a bit more detail to the hull panels themselves.
This is still just a single color map, no spec or bump work. I suspect I'll tone down the panel visibility a bit and I think I need to tweak some of the vertical positioning of the various "rings" in UV space to get a more uniform distribution, but I like how it's coming together so far. Next, before doing more UV stuff, I might play around with the hull shader a bit to see if I can't start making the pearlescent effect I have in mind work.
Farting around with reflectivity in the aztec and also adding in iridescence to the shader. If you look really closely, you can see the aztec pattern start to show a greenish tinge around the edges of the "bulb." It's an effect that'll be much more pronounced in motion than in any still.
(I turned off the other saucer materials for this render to highlight the area that actually has anything done on it.)
Finally an update! Although a somewhat unglamorous one. Been doing a ton of experimentation, cleanup, and method optimization to try to make this process less painful in the future by enduring the pain now. Stuff I've learned while doing Defender has also given me some ideas for improving how I approach certain problems, too.
One of the things I've been focusing on is trying to get my Aztecs to have a consistent scale. I looked over the Excelsior saucer and gauged that its Aztecs were each about 7m "tall" (if you think of each repeated element as a single "Aztec"), so I decided to match this scale. Some annotations in the image about this.
The other thing I've been futzing with, aside from correcting my over-zealous material reassignment (which wiped all the shield grid material assignments; figuring out how to quickly and efficiently select the "right" polygons for this has been a major timesink, but I've got it down to a science now!) is material unification. I've been wrapping my head around Blender's Node Grouping system, which is really cool. Took some getting used to, but I have all the materials setup now so they have three texture inputs going to a single Node Group that does all the fancy schmancy stuff like balancing specular reflections, incorporating the iridescence (which I've actually disabled for now, with the intent to revisit it once I get the hand-painted stuff nailed down more), and so on. The best part is that I can tweak this Node Group and affect all of the materials in one operation now, while keeping their texture sources independent. Fun stuff!
You're really putting a lot of thought and effort into this. Now I feel bad for all of the times I just made a strip of Aztecs, "spun" it and put it on a saucer.
All of the saucer materials now have correctly sized Aztecs...sort of. The sizing is correct on the texture, assuming the UVs are laid out correctly. They're...probably not. But I couldn't help but do some quick renders, since it looks like actual progress for once.
The orange/blue/red on the top of the saucer just highlights different UV shells. It won't be part of the final texture.
I temporarily dropped the smaller panels for these renders, since I need to regenerate them with my new Aztec scale calculations, which is why it doesn't look quite as interesting as before. Also retooled my light rig (again) to show them off a bit better. Still, pretty happy with the general direction this is going in, especially since it means there's light at the end of the saucer UV tunnel! I'm optimistic that the other parts of the ship won't be nearly as hard to UV.
I spent a bunch of hours this evening tweaking the UVs so that all of the Aztecs are the same "height" along the surface they span. They were close before, but not quite. I also used this as an opportunity to clean up UV distortion around the windows and RCS notches. To illustrate exactly what changed, here are before and after renders of the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the saucer with the contrast amped way up. It'll probably be easiest to see the difference if you open each render in a new tab and then flit between them. (Note: the position of the color bands shifted as a result of this too, which I still need to go back and correct for.)
Before / After
Hopefully, the majority of the saucer UV work is now done(!) and I can start doing some texture work on it in earnest!
Starting actually look something like a Federation starship now! All the colored bands are now in their correct positions, the Aztecs all wrap correctly now, and I've added some multi-colored paneling to both the diffuse and spec maps.
I need to tone the spec map down/futz with the balance of it a bit still. It seems a little strong at the moment. I also still need to make a bump map and incorporate a bit more grit and grime and surface structurey bits into all three maps. Still, I suspect the saucer UVs will end up having been the hardest of all of the components, so...yay!
Toned back the spec map to a level I'm happy with. UVed the dorsal saucer superstructure (A-C decks), with the exception of some of the greeble bits (escape pods, transporter pads, and the equipment over the shuttlebay). Started texturing the lateral edges of B and C decks.
Kind of amazing how much difference just a little panel variance makes. Realistically, I should probably correct the skew that shows up as B and C deck stretch toward the back, but I'm not sure that I will. I suspect it will end up being a lot more of a pain than will be visually worth it. I'm also thinking about toning down the shades of blue. The darkest blue, in particular, feels really dark. On the flip side, I kind of like how striking it is, so...who knows?
Contrary to my statement that I probably wouldn't correct the skew, of course I did. I can't leave well enough alone! Also went ahead and finalized the material that goes in the shield grid troughs. It's a pretty generic dark metal, but I think it works pretty well. Of most obvious note in this update, however, are the textures for the bridge.
I'm thinking about toning back on the intensity of the colored panels. The idea is to introduce subtle variation, but at this range the variation isn't subtle at all. I also still need to make bump maps for, well, everything. I'm holding off on that for now, though, and focusing instead on diffuse and spec maps while I hammer all the UVs into place.
Next up is probably that stuff above the shuttlebay. I also need to do something about those escape pods...
Posts
But, I've been doing enough posting without anything to show for it that I wanted to at least post something. So, here's the "progress" I've made thus far on correcting the initial projection of the saucer's underside. This is the trickiest part of the saucer to UV, thanks to that completely flat section, and after trying a bunch of different approaches, a straight-up spherical unwrap with significant manual manipulation has produced the most promising results thus far.
Blue indicates minimal UV-to-geometry polygon stretching, while red indicates severe UV-to-geometry stretching. While stretching isn't necessarily an awful issue for something like this, minimizing it and getting the UV space close to the polygon space will help with things like aztec panels and such.
Have I mentioned yet that I really don't enjoy UVing? Oh, I have? Okay then. :shiner:
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Looking good on this one, sir. Far more detailed with your interior than I managed to get!
Easier, yes, but not as "good." By unwrapping it with these sorts of projections, you don't have to do any fancy rectangular-to-polar coordinate conversions in your hull maps and it's a lot easier to iterate on changes. Rather than "make change, convert to polar, position correctly on actual UV map that might have mixed projection stuff so you can't just do polar and apply, save, check, go back and make more changes" you have a rapid "make change, save, check, go back and make more changes" loop. It's more predictable and more robust in the long run, even if it means a ton of time invested initially.
Believe me, the temptation is really strong to just throw my hands up and planar map it.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
I'm just saying this unwrapping method sounds like more trouble than it's worth. But, that may not be your view on it.
The Aztec pattern isn't, for me, an artistic pattern Starfleet engineers apply to a ship; it's a natural consequence of using a bunch of ceramic-metallic composite plating to construct an enormous spacecraft. Those composite plates come from different places in the galaxy, have different ages, are installed at different points in the process. All of that gives rise to each plate looking subtly different from its neighbors, which in aggregate gives rise to the Aztec pattern. Every ship should exhibit something like the Aztec pattern, though it should not (arguably) be a pattern. The pattern itself is just a shortcut to creating the paneled effect with a bit of artistic flare to it.
So, yeah, this ship most certainly will have an Aztec.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
I'd like to use something like you nacelle glow effect on this:
fl1_zps19759224.png
Here's a screenshot of the Bussard collector exploded, along with material settings.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Total project time so far is 338 hours now (about 293 of that in Blender).
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
I UVed the flattish, top-most part of the upper saucer tonight in far, far less time than the bottom flat section took. Used a different selection technique this time, which I cooked up at the very tail end of the bottom flat section UVs, and am delighted that it reproduced so well. Once I'd done that, I decided to start doing a little texture work to see how the Aztec pattern might look, along with a bit more detail to the hull panels themselves.
This is still just a single color map, no spec or bump work. I suspect I'll tone down the panel visibility a bit and I think I need to tweak some of the vertical positioning of the various "rings" in UV space to get a more uniform distribution, but I like how it's coming together so far. Next, before doing more UV stuff, I might play around with the hull shader a bit to see if I can't start making the pearlescent effect I have in mind work.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Whoops! That's what I get for posting right before bed. Fixed now!
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
I think we've all done that at one point or another.
(I turned off the other saucer materials for this render to highlight the area that actually has anything done on it.)
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
One of the things I've been focusing on is trying to get my Aztecs to have a consistent scale. I looked over the Excelsior saucer and gauged that its Aztecs were each about 7m "tall" (if you think of each repeated element as a single "Aztec"), so I decided to match this scale. Some annotations in the image about this.
The other thing I've been futzing with, aside from correcting my over-zealous material reassignment (which wiped all the shield grid material assignments; figuring out how to quickly and efficiently select the "right" polygons for this has been a major timesink, but I've got it down to a science now!) is material unification. I've been wrapping my head around Blender's Node Grouping system, which is really cool. Took some getting used to, but I have all the materials setup now so they have three texture inputs going to a single Node Group that does all the fancy schmancy stuff like balancing specular reflections, incorporating the iridescence (which I've actually disabled for now, with the intent to revisit it once I get the hand-painted stuff nailed down more), and so on. The best part is that I can tweak this Node Group and affect all of the materials in one operation now, while keeping their texture sources independent. Fun stuff!
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
All of the saucer materials now have correctly sized Aztecs...sort of. The sizing is correct on the texture, assuming the UVs are laid out correctly. They're...probably not. But I couldn't help but do some quick renders, since it looks like actual progress for once.
The orange/blue/red on the top of the saucer just highlights different UV shells. It won't be part of the final texture.
I temporarily dropped the smaller panels for these renders, since I need to regenerate them with my new Aztec scale calculations, which is why it doesn't look quite as interesting as before. Also retooled my light rig (again) to show them off a bit better. Still, pretty happy with the general direction this is going in, especially since it means there's light at the end of the saucer UV tunnel! I'm optimistic that the other parts of the ship won't be nearly as hard to UV.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
looks pretty!
I spent a bunch of hours this evening tweaking the UVs so that all of the Aztecs are the same "height" along the surface they span. They were close before, but not quite. I also used this as an opportunity to clean up UV distortion around the windows and RCS notches. To illustrate exactly what changed, here are before and after renders of the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the saucer with the contrast amped way up. It'll probably be easiest to see the difference if you open each render in a new tab and then flit between them. (Note: the position of the color bands shifted as a result of this too, which I still need to go back and correct for.)
Before / After
Hopefully, the majority of the saucer UV work is now done(!) and I can start doing some texture work on it in earnest!
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
I need to tone the spec map down/futz with the balance of it a bit still. It seems a little strong at the moment. I also still need to make a bump map and incorporate a bit more grit and grime and surface structurey bits into all three maps. Still, I suspect the saucer UVs will end up having been the hardest of all of the components, so...yay!
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Kind of amazing how much difference just a little panel variance makes. Realistically, I should probably correct the skew that shows up as B and C deck stretch toward the back, but I'm not sure that I will. I suspect it will end up being a lot more of a pain than will be visually worth it. I'm also thinking about toning down the shades of blue. The darkest blue, in particular, feels really dark. On the flip side, I kind of like how striking it is, so...who knows?
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
I'm thinking about toning back on the intensity of the colored panels. The idea is to introduce subtle variation, but at this range the variation isn't subtle at all. I also still need to make bump maps for, well, everything. I'm holding off on that for now, though, and focusing instead on diffuse and spec maps while I hammer all the UVs into place.
Next up is probably that stuff above the shuttlebay. I also need to do something about those escape pods...
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog