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3DLearning more about textures and lighting...

CaptainjerkyCaptainjerky62 Posts: 0Member
edited May 2013 in Work in Progress #1
Hey all-

I built a ship using Sketchup and Twilight Render a while back and slapped what I thought was a good hull texture on it. Well, this forum is a blessing and a curse, because I saw that in comparison to a lot of the work here my texture was lame but also picked up a lot of tips and ideas for how to make it better.
I'm now in the process of redoing all my hull textures, which is sort of pain because Sketchup often assigns the texture an angle not perpendicular to any of the corners, so I have to go and rotate most of the textures on the hull plates. Oh well, nobody said it would be easy! I'm about halfway done with remapping the hull, enough to post a render of the work in progress. I'm also experimenting with leaving the Sketchup 'sun' off and am using various point and spotlights to try to replicate the sun's rays. Anyway, here are before and after shots. The uniform silver texture on the star background is the first attempt, the aztec-style one is the second (no post production). I was thinking of increasing the lightness or ambient light of the aztec hull design, but maybe it doesn't look too dark to everyone.
Any thoughts? Too light/dark/muddled?
Any ideas appreciated, thanks!

Ryan
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Post edited by Captainjerky on
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  • spacefighterspacefighter2 Posts: 0Member
    good renders, ship is quite submarine like in structure which is sensible as both must hold out against great pressures(starships from inside, subs from outside). it is quite dark but and too dark below to make out details but that is realistic for space even if it is not so good to look at. texturing in sketchup can be tricky, for better endering try exporting from sketchup to blender or some other advanced 3d software.
  • CaptainjerkyCaptainjerky62 Posts: 0Member
    Yeah, I've been looking into Blender for a while but the learning curve is scaring me off. I realize I need to make the investment in time in order to get better, but as it is I'm stealing minutes here and there during the day from other things I probably should be doing instead of my 'fun' projects! :-)
    Thanks for the reply, and one day I will transition to a better program. I'm checking out your website's tutorial on going from Sketchup to Blender now!
  • spacefighterspacefighter2 Posts: 0Member
    if you are good with sketchup, which seems to be the case, you can model with it and then follow the tutorial marked "sketchup--->blender" (in my signature)to get it into blender after which you can animate and render.
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