3DFlat Eric's Voyager 'beauty shot'

Deks

For some strange reason, I was looking over at some of the shots of Voyager online and stumbled onto the calendar image that had the ship in this position.
I tried matching it as closely as possible and did a few modifications on the materials, as well as complete lighting overhaul.
Flat Eric, your mesh is great, but the glossiness levels on the ship were a proverbial eyesore that I had to modify.

Anyway... I did the 1280x800 resolution shot... didn't feel like doing the 1080p as my laptop is quite old, and my resolution is limited to 1280x800 as well - a bit short-sighted I know... but still.


EDIT: Played around with the mesh a bit more (just couldn't let it go). Hope you enjoy it. I also did a 1200p version.

EDIT 1: UPDATED thread - made a new image.

Martocticvs

Overall that looks fantastic, but the lighting around the deflector is a bit weird right now. Why is there so much blue light on the forward-facing bulkhead surrounding the deflector? There's no way the dish can cast light on that area, except via bounce off the underside of the saucer, and then it wouldn't be that intense. Realism breaks down a little on the nacelles as well... the bussards in particular would really benefit from some internal lighting setup.

evil_genius_180

I agree. It looks like there's a light there to simulate light falloff from the glowy bit onto the hull, but it's too far forward. Otherwise, it looks great.

Deks

The deflector actually has its own light (which I apparently forgot to remove because it was casting a light onto the immediate surrounding area of the dish itself - still, there IS a glow in place, so you can chalk it up to that).
I did input the spotlight into it however so the deflector casts a blue light onto the lower saucer are where the yacht is.
As for the Bussards... they did have a bit of noise texture to them, but it would appear the effect was washed out for some reason.
I was planning on redoing them anyway... :-)
This was just a quickie though... so nothing too fancy.

Martocticvs

Might be a quick one but I think it's worth doing a few tweaks as it has really nice lighting, and the overall feel of it is good. Don't use noise maps though! That's what people did 10 years ago and it wouldn't sit well at all with the rest of the image. If you can modify the dish to be lit internally as well (correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks more like it has a self-illuminated material applied at the moment), you can do away with the need for a light there at all. GI will handle it nicely (as long as you follow linear workflow; the effect will be lost in the overly-gamma-corrected result otherwise).

Deks

The thing is that I prefer doing things with Scanline.
GI chews away at processor time, and I didn't have the time today to do things extensively or wait a long amount of time.
Yes... the deflector has a self-illuminated material applied to it (not sure what you meant by having it lit internally though - please clarify).
As for the noise... you'd be surprised at what the material can do... besides, Voyager didn't have any fancy settings for the bussards - they were mainly lit in a red fashion with no discernible details to them, and most calendar shots seemingly washed out any details they might have had.

I might come back to this image sometime tomorrow... but please don't take my word for it.

Deks

Ok... I've played around with the scene a bit more.
Modified images in the first post (also 1200p).

Martocticvs

That looks massively better right away. Although, what's going on with the colours? Looks like 256 colour dithered...

By lit internally, I mean exactly that. ie replacing the current self-illuminating material with a transparent one (blurred, of course), adding some rudimentary geometry behind the dish into which you place a light source that by bounced light illuminates the dish in a more realistic way. No good if you don't want to use GI though, and it's certainly not fast (and can be simulated to about 60% with the method you are using now).

IRML

yeah the new ones are miles better, but the colour depth is weird

Lonewriter

I like the first 2 but the deflector dish on the last one is to bright.

Deks

The last picture is the first one uploaded that had the problem of extra light on the Deflector.

As for the colors... Photoshop manipulation - some Posterization. I kinda enjoy the effect myself.

As for adding some basic geometry behind the deflector... didn't have the time. When I said 'quick' I meant it - besides, this got the job done, and I liked how it turned out.

I'll probably mess around with the mesh on another day, but I seldom have the time for such modifications due to a job (speaking of which, I have to get dressed and get moving).

Good morning btw.

evil_genius_180

The deflector area looks 100% better on the newer images, making this a gorgeous picture. Great work. :thumb:

Wiz

Love these shots, nice work mate.

Flat Eric

Great work Deks!!!
Nice to see that years old mesh can still make some good work in the right hands
What changes did you make on the textures? (just to know)

Deks

Nothing much really.
Played around with glossiness settings (Which was way too noticeable on the mesh btw) as well as reduced some of the overall self-illumination on various areas... bussards, warp nacelle grids, impulse engines and deflector.

Other than that, I redid the whole lighting setup as well, deleted the Deflector light you had, and played around with the nav-lights as well (both in textures and lights themselves).

Small things really, but they do tend to 'add up'.

spacefighter

something about the image makes it look like a physical model.

Deks

Hm... I hope that's a good thing.
:-)

Anyway, I made a new image.
Check the original post.

I only uploaded the 720p version - I wasn't really paying attention to making the 1080p version.

Also... I think I may have tracked down the reason behind this latest spur in Voyager images (and my reading my older Voyager pocket books)... namely the new Voyager pocketbook is due to be released, named: Star Trek: Voyager: Protectors

I enjoyed the ship's comeback to the Delta Quadrant and reading about the Federation finally utilizing various technologies, as well as focus of the books going more towards problem solving and usage of science/technology for this purpose as opposed to even more action.
Voyager's books did try to delve into 'higher things' on occasion.

Perhaps I should make a new cover for the upcoming pocket book (even though one already exists).

evil_genius_180

The new render looks good, I like the angle and the lighting. However, the edges of the ship kind of scream "composite!" (it has a bit of a cut and pasted look to it)

Deks

There's always something...
But I can assure you that nothing has been cut and pasted - it may look like that due to playing around with levels settings in Photoshop though).

evil_genius_180

Ah, that will do it too. I knew something was up.

Flat Eric

Love that last shot! It makes me think "Hey, who made that great ship? Ops.... ME! :rolleyes:"
Honestly, Deks, you can really bring out the best from other meshes!

Optics

Stunning! As a Star Trek fan I am greatly impressed.