I'll spare you all my continued loathing of all things Illustrator.
The short story is, I've finally found a way to make the Aztec pattern I want, even if it's a bit less authentic than the original. We'll call it my spin on the Aztec pattern for now.
I've got a lot more to learn and I'm only getting started on the texture but I'm really happy with this start. I've cooked up a few Cycles recipes that I think will take this to the next level but those will have to wait until the weekend. I've deferred a bit too much of my work studies for my liking so I'll be doing some serious cramming for the next week. I should have some updates as study breaks over the next two weeks, though.
Let me know what you think and I'm definitely interested in any suggested resources for Cycles/nodes texturing.
It looks great, nice and subtle. From what I can tell, the pattern looks good. I wouldn't worry about trying to be too faithful to the original. That ship has been painted and repainted so many times that it's hard to say what is "original."
The first only had the lettering stencils while the second has the beginnings of my Aztec pattern to break up the surface. It's a beautiful way to lend some sense of reality to the otherwise 2 dimensional plates. I can only hope that I do it some justice.
I've already packed it in for the night. I'll do some close up shots tomorrw with a spot to highlight the effect better.
The Aztec pattern is barely noticeable right now, which is just how I wanted it. What I've done is use my Aztec PNG as a mix vector, blending two brick shaders, each with two different mixes of diffuse and glossy white, each with different roughness values. You can see this best observed around the spot light and in the shadow of the bridge/VIP sections. I am extraordinarily happy with how this part worked out.
The results are close to what I'm looking to achieve, though I do have some UV problems where the 'bricks' are becoming progressively smaller from the rim to the center. I'm sure with more experimentation I can make the effect more convincing. I'm going to save that for a fine tuning pass once the textures are largely completed.
The spot light for the registry is a rough draft, though again I'm pretty happy with the early results. I only just discovered that Cycles lacks a lot of the fine controls I expected for spot lights. I've got a few ideas how I might work around it in the long run but it's working acceptably for now.
Now for the markings for the hatches and the phaser arrays, then it is on to the bridge/VIP deck.
Yeah, the Aztecs were done with high gloss pearlescent paint, so you don't really see them in direct light. They're there, but they're very faint. When you see them is when the indirect lights hit them, like when you get the right angle with those spots. That's how they wanted it. The effect you've got there is about perfect.
All looking good. If you aren't too concerned with keeping to the studio model in the finer details, you could always build some lights and use an emission material for the spotlights. It's one of the things that I like about the JJPrise that they did those.
I love texturing. Sometimes, I'd rather do that than modeling. Though, on average, I'd say I prefer the modeling side as well. I especially hate it when I have to unwrap something because Lightwave has crappy unwrapping tools. I have a plugin that works better, but it can be a pill sometimes.
This is very new territory for me. I did some texturing on my models in Max though I never did unwrapping. That tech came about after my basic skillset had cemented itself in stone. Part of my adventure with Blender is to get familiar with concepts that have passed me by over the years.
My biggest challenge right now is Illustrator. It beats the pants of Photoshop for line art but it's running VERY poorly on my system right now. Fortunately the saucer comprises the biggest pieces so it should be down hill once I do the lower saucer.
I find that modeling is and will likely always be my primary source of joy in this arena. I may need to start a side-project so that I can blow off steam every few hours after fighting with Adobe products. I don't want to get too distracted but a few smaller and/or simpler objects along the same theme could be helpful.
I guess I do need a work bee, inspection pod, and a dry dock. And that raises another challenge. Dare I model a rough proxy for Doohan and Shatner?
That is coming along really, really nice Gestalt. I'm like you in preferring to model over texturing. Quite frankly, I suck at it and lighting. Partly lack of talent and partly not fully understanding how it all works.
My biggest challenge right now is Illustrator. It beats the pants of Photoshop for line art but it's running VERY poorly on my system right now. Fortunately the saucer comprises the biggest pieces so it should be down hill once I do the lower saucer.
I don't know how it compares to Illustrator or how it will run on your system, but I use Inkscape.
I know it's supposed to be an open source "alternative" to Illustrator, CorelDraw, etc., but alternatives don't always work as well for people who are used to the paid software. (I could never get into Blender, despite multiple tries) Anyway, I use that for a lot of my texture work because I have GIMP for photo editing/post work but I don't like drawing in it.
I'm starting to get my legs where Illustrator is concerned. I'd planned on using Inkscape until my work got an absurdly good deal on the entire Adobe suite. The mechanics of the two apps are largely the same though I think Adobe has gone out their way to mess up the interface.
The VIP deck and the bridge dome are largely done. I'll be doing a separate pass for windows and possibly interiors where necessary.
Yesterday I realized that I had neglected the stenciling on the aft half of the saucer. I'll address that next before transitioning to the impulse pod and then the lower portions of the saucer.
The Illustrator 'ah ha!' moment was when I discovered that the majority of the tools are now hidden by default. Now it's a quest to find which hidden/obscured tools I need to get the job done. Actually, I think it got easier at that point because it was so easy to relate it to Blender itself where 99% of the magic is hidden behind 12-key long hot-key combos
Backlog cleared, school is done (which is both work and supplementary training), and I'm free from 90% of my regular obligations for the better part of two weeks. Back to work!
Just finished the first draft of the texture maps for the airlocks. Illustrator is becoming less of an obstacle but I am seriously itching to get back into Blender.
I'm currently impaired by a damnable cold and fever so I'm calling it a night but tomorrow, bright and 'early' I'll finally be resuming work on this grand ship.
I'm currently impaired by a damnable cold and fever so I'm calling it a night but tomorrow, bright and 'early' I'll finally be resuming work on this grand ship.
I know the feeling, I myself am just getting over a cold.
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Gigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 12GB 1TB NVMe SSD, 2 x 1GB SATA SSD, 4TB external HDD 32 GB RAM Windows 11 Pro
This flu is really kicking my butt. I did manage to get some work done, but not nearly as much as I would liked. I've finally addressed my oversight on the aft lettering on the dorsal saucer and the airlock hatch is finally done.
In retrospect, I've put WAY too much detail on the airlock door relative to the details on the model. If I ever do any closeups in this area I'm going to have to invent some additional details to make it more interesting.
And after fighting cycles/emission texture problems [fireflies] for the better part of the day I decided to opt for faking it with a spotlight. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.
Tough crowd! Maybe this will be more to everyone's liking
Impulse is nearly done. Next I'll be building a proper grill for the impulse engines. Then it's on to the saucer rim.
I've recently discovered Chocofur's shader tutorials and they have seriously opened my eyes for how to properly use shaders in Blender. I may end up rebuilding all of my shaders but the result will be worthwhile.
I'm reasonably happy with the effect I've achieved with the illuminated dome. I'll be tinkering with post processing for a proper halo glow but that is for after the hull is properly textured.
I like the effect on the impulse dome a lot. Though, the docking hatch looks like it's glowing.
I'm particularly happy with how that turned out! I had a trick in Max to achieve that that same effect and I had almost given up on reproducing it. The final mix was almost accidental but I'm quite overjoyed with how it turned out
I agree regarding the lighting of the airlock. I'll see what I can do to make it look more natural. Unfortunately the lighting on the studio models were done quite unrealistically so I've got my work cut out for me. Fortunately I'm approaching the torpedo bay so I'm coming up on my next opportunity to tune-up the effect.
It took a bit more work than I had anticipated but I'm happy with the mesh grill for the impulse drive. I'm faking a very slight halo with an opaque layer over it. I'll do a proper glow and halo with a post-production pass once the texturing is completed.
I've always loved the mix of shapes for this part of the ship and I really feel that I've captured at least some of what the original model builders achieved.
Lower saucer textured. I'll almost certainly be revisiting the hull tiling process I've been using. The results are passable but I think that I can make it better with practice. Since that is something I can swap out at any time I'll continue with the remaining texturing and do the tuning once the first texturing pass is completed.
The aft spotlight gave me fits. The physics-bound lighting in cycles forced me to nudge and tweak a spotlight ad nausea to get it just the way I wanted. I'm not entirely certain I'm done with it but I'm willing to stick a pin in it until later.
This is looking pretty darned good. Would love to see a wire frame.
I'll happily get some wire frame shots posted. Is there anything in particular that you would like to see? She's a beast in wire mode so I can't promise too much in the way of beauty, unfortunately.
Posts
The short story is, I've finally found a way to make the Aztec pattern I want, even if it's a bit less authentic than the original. We'll call it my spin on the Aztec pattern for now.
The upper saucer with Aztec v0.5 (portion by the VIP deck not yet started).
Constitution_Refit_654_002.png
I've got a lot more to learn and I'm only getting started on the texture but I'm really happy with this start. I've cooked up a few Cycles recipes that I think will take this to the next level but those will have to wait until the weekend. I've deferred a bit too much of my work studies for my liking so I'll be doing some serious cramming for the next week. I should have some updates as study breaks over the next two weeks, though.
Let me know what you think and I'm definitely interested in any suggested resources for Cycles/nodes texturing.
What's different about it compared to the original?
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I've already packed it in for the night. I'll do some close up shots tomorrw with a spot to highlight the effect better.
All looks good.
Right you are! I'll have a use for the stock hyphen after all!
The results are close to what I'm looking to achieve, though I do have some UV problems where the 'bricks' are becoming progressively smaller from the rim to the center. I'm sure with more experimentation I can make the effect more convincing. I'm going to save that for a fine tuning pass once the textures are largely completed.
The spot light for the registry is a rough draft, though again I'm pretty happy with the early results. I only just discovered that Cycles lacks a lot of the fine controls I expected for spot lights. I've got a few ideas how I might work around it in the long run but it's working acceptably for now.
Now for the markings for the hatches and the phaser arrays, then it is on to the bridge/VIP deck.
A minor update for now. The top of the saucer is textured. Next I'll be working my way up to the bridge then to the impulse engines.
I find I am missing doing the modeling. So much easier than the texturing...
I love texturing. Sometimes, I'd rather do that than modeling. Though, on average, I'd say I prefer the modeling side as well. I especially hate it when I have to unwrap something because Lightwave has crappy unwrapping tools. I have a plugin that works better, but it can be a pill sometimes.
My biggest challenge right now is Illustrator. It beats the pants of Photoshop for line art but it's running VERY poorly on my system right now. Fortunately the saucer comprises the biggest pieces so it should be down hill once I do the lower saucer.
I find that modeling is and will likely always be my primary source of joy in this arena. I may need to start a side-project so that I can blow off steam every few hours after fighting with Adobe products. I don't want to get too distracted but a few smaller and/or simpler objects along the same theme could be helpful.
I guess I do need a work bee, inspection pod, and a dry dock. And that raises another challenge. Dare I model a rough proxy for Doohan and Shatner?
I don't know how it compares to Illustrator or how it will run on your system, but I use Inkscape.
https://inkscape.org/en/
I know it's supposed to be an open source "alternative" to Illustrator, CorelDraw, etc., but alternatives don't always work as well for people who are used to the paid software. (I could never get into Blender, despite multiple tries) Anyway, I use that for a lot of my texture work because I have GIMP for photo editing/post work but I don't like drawing in it.
Heh, ain't that the truth. Cracking work so far.
:thumb:
I'm starting to get my legs where Illustrator is concerned. I'd planned on using Inkscape until my work got an absurdly good deal on the entire Adobe suite. The mechanics of the two apps are largely the same though I think Adobe has gone out their way to mess up the interface.
The VIP deck and the bridge dome are largely done. I'll be doing a separate pass for windows and possibly interiors where necessary.
Yesterday I realized that I had neglected the stenciling on the aft half of the saucer. I'll address that next before transitioning to the impulse pod and then the lower portions of the saucer.
The textures for the bridge and structure underneath look fantastic. :thumb:
Just finished the first draft of the texture maps for the airlocks. Illustrator is becoming less of an obstacle but I am seriously itching to get back into Blender.
I'm currently impaired by a damnable cold and fever
I know the feeling, I myself am just getting over a cold.
Gigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 12GB
1TB NVMe SSD, 2 x 1GB SATA SSD, 4TB external HDD
32 GB RAM
Windows 11 Pro
In retrospect, I've put WAY too much detail on the airlock door relative to the details on the model. If I ever do any closeups in this area I'm going to have to invent some additional details to make it more interesting.
And after fighting cycles/emission texture problems [fireflies] for the better part of the day I decided to opt for faking it with a spotlight. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.
Impulse is nearly done. Next I'll be building a proper grill for the impulse engines. Then it's on to the saucer rim.
I've recently discovered Chocofur's shader tutorials and they have seriously opened my eyes for how to properly use shaders in Blender. I may end up rebuilding all of my shaders but the result will be worthwhile.
I'm reasonably happy with the effect I've achieved with the illuminated dome. I'll be tinkering with post processing for a proper halo glow but that is for after the hull is properly textured.
Gigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 12GB
1TB NVMe SSD, 2 x 1GB SATA SSD, 4TB external HDD
32 GB RAM
Windows 11 Pro
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Well, you did post a few days before Christmas. People were a bit on the busy side.
I'm particularly happy with how that turned out! I had a trick in Max to achieve that that same effect and I had almost given up on reproducing it. The final mix was almost accidental but I'm quite overjoyed with how it turned out
I agree regarding the lighting of the airlock. I'll see what I can do to make it look more natural. Unfortunately the lighting on the studio models were done quite unrealistically so I've got my work cut out for me. Fortunately I'm approaching the torpedo bay so I'm coming up on my next opportunity to tune-up the effect.
I've always loved the mix of shapes for this part of the ship and I really feel that I've captured at least some of what the original model builders achieved.
Lower saucer textured. I'll almost certainly be revisiting the hull tiling process I've been using. The results are passable but I think that I can make it better with practice. Since that is something I can swap out at any time I'll continue with the remaining texturing and do the tuning once the first texturing pass is completed.
The aft spotlight gave me fits. The physics-bound lighting in cycles forced me to nudge and tweak a spotlight ad nausea to get it just the way I wanted. I'm not entirely certain I'm done with it but I'm willing to stick a pin in it until later.
Now to the neck and photon torpedo bay!
I'll happily get some wire frame shots posted. Is there anything in particular that you would like to see? She's a beast in wire mode so I can't promise too much in the way of beauty, unfortunately.