3DExperimenting with Blender's compositor and Gimp

Mach Crit

It's been a while since I posted anything, and this is something I've been messing around with for a while. I call it the Lassiter. Been using it to experiment with Blender's compositor (the drive plume) and Starfield and nebula courtesy of Gimp.

The Lassiter was my first attempt at a complete scene many years ago. I'm still working on this one, but I had to compare them...

Lassiter And StarField.jpg

And the original Lassiter ...
Lassiter2.jpg

Halo Buff

I like what you've done with the drive pods. The level of detail vastly improved there, and you usually don't see too many people do obvious maneuvering jets. They make it look functional. Looks like a fun work in progress.

spacefighter

interesting, not a pretty fuselage but great engine detailing at the back. good render though to my eye the gas clouds look too near the camera rather than spread over light years in the distance, not really sure how this effect could be corrected though.

Mach Crit

Thanks guys. I'm quite a ways from calling it complete. Not even sure I like the greebling on the drive pods. Mainly working on a method to produce a nice drive plume and starfield.

Here's another shot closer up with more intensity in the plumes. This is the Lassiter's star drive. The other engines are for higher g maneuvering, lift-off, and landing.
Lassiter And StarField.jpg

Oh, yeah. I'm trying for a more brutish, simple design. Heavy cruiser, planetary bombardment, that sort of thing...

uniderth

I love the design of that ship. I really like the white scifi style like in the movie Oblivion.

sorceress21

Just freakin cool start...I love the engines! And damn I wish I could create a thrust effect like that..

Mach Crit

Thanks, ya'll.

The thrust affect is surprisingly goofy, from a modeling standpoint. 99.995% of the work is done in the compositor with blurs and glows. I then overlaid it multiple times on the black background to get the brightness I wanted. The really goofy part is the modeling. Imagine 40 or 60 spline curves coming out from the engine in a radial pattern. These splines are a pale blue. Next I added 4 white disks inside the splines and a long white tube about 4 units away from the engine itself.

For materials, I used pale blue with a decent amount of emittance (light emitting property in blender) and the disks and tube got a white material with the same emitter value. When the render part is complete, I get a bunch of bright blue stalks and white disks and a long white tube. Blender's compositor is used to create a heavy gaussian blur overlaid on a lower blur. I then added some glow effects and viola! The trick is to completely blur the goofy splines and such so that you don't see the sticks and tubes. You can overlay this image back onto the ship to get the complete picture. I took that into Gimp and overlaid multiple copies of the ship onto a black background until the glow showed up really bright like I wanted it.

I may have to do a tutorial on this...

Mach Crit

Continuing to work on the drive pods. Primary hull plating is complete. Added some details up top. Now on to the second and third level details

Lassiter2.jpg

Mach:thumb:

stephan_ska

Mach Crit wrote: »

Thanks, ya'll.

The thrust affect is surprisingly goofy, from a modeling standpoint. 99.995% of the work is done in the compositor with blurs and glows. I then overlaid it multiple times on the black background to get the brightness I wanted. The really goofy part is the modeling. Imagine 40 or 60 spline curves coming out from the engine in a radial pattern. These splines are a pale blue. Next I added 4 white disks inside the splines and a long white tube about 4 units away from the engine itself.

For materials, I used pale blue with a decent amount of emittance (light emitting property in blender) and the disks and tube got a white material with the same emitter value. When the render part is complete, I get a bunch of bright blue stalks and white disks and a long white tube. Blender's compositor is used to create a heavy gaussian blur overlaid on a lower blur. I then added some glow effects and viola! The trick is to completely blur the goofy splines and such so that you don't see the sticks and tubes. You can overlay this image back onto the ship to get the complete picture. I took that into Gimp and overlaid multiple copies of the ship onto a black background until the glow showed up really bright like I wanted it.

I may have to do a tutorial on this...

Grat ! Have to give it try by myself !
Really well done :thumb:

Cheers, S.

Mach Crit

Onward and outward. Working on the primary hull now. Main details.
LassiterHull.jpg

Mach:thumb:

Mach Crit

Onward and outward. Working on the primary hull now. Main details.
LassiterHull.jpg

Mach:thumb:

spacefighter

ah, good to see more detail on it. i assume you've just hidden the engine pods for now.

Mach Crit

Here's the whole shebang.

Lassiter3.jpg

spacefighter

very nice, maybe consider showing us the ship from some other angles.