Nacelle stuff from a few days ago and messing with the rim sensor pits./ Odd how focusing on it they seem really tall but on whole ship not so much. so I am debating on narrowing the height down. I am undecided on the rim front if I should model something there for those 3 sensor rings on the TOS connie or just rum the sensors around that area as the refit never had this detail.
Welp lost al that work cause I found welding in patches I didnt double check the ratio and welded a mess out of the rim and was not about to deal with patching it back to what it was. So instead I went and did more busy work and cut out a mess of windows. Kinda meh with these too but w/e.
Some ceiling windows that I am not sure on yet. Also fenced on them as I used the wrong cutter to make them so they do not relate to the smaller windows elsewhere on the ship.
Only problem with all these fwd windows is it add up to alot of lounges bars and messhalls. Breaking this one up with some pits and standing or stool bars I guess. None of the colors are fixed just dumped rando stuff on it so it isnt a raw object color. Idea is a bar counter in each corner in that notch area in back. Flanking room might be private mess or maybe some other sort of social area. dunno. The lower deck ones the ceiling window rooms might become officers quarters or VIP rooms. One above the rendered room I think is a mess hall it is C deck (I think lol, lots of I thinks here) Dunno I might be making these spaces a bit small vs say the Onimaru and other ships. Hopefully you get a idea of the space with just half the room. And yeah, I do a lot of mirrored spaces. I suppose I could work against it more often but so much easier for rooms no intended to be rendered from inside.
I suppose I will just import furniture from other ships to populate these rooms. I do not remember much from picard for lounge areas in the ships. Then again the aesthetics of that series for interiors wasnt that great, unlike SNW.
More panel stencils on this one. Also some re tuning of materials here and there to eliminate the color mix in reflections. (mostly the blue inner panels with the windows)
There is some stuff done to the central blue and teal bits but it really doesnt stand out as much with these views. I might have to work the materials over more. I want to lean on subtle but not so much you need a round table and harsh lighting to see it.
Not much time today but working out sub decals for the lower plates. It is a very contrasting material for now to make it stand out. I will probably match these full plate mats to match something matching plates elsewhere on the ship. Pretty much pulling lines off other elements and plates near these areas.
oops and here you can see what kind of day it has been, so I will alter things to not clash with stuff like the registry and emitters. These green areas will more than likely get that dark hull colour seen around the sensor dome.
Some of the corrections or alterations and a render of it with that other material applied. Ignore the UVW as this area has not been detached and gotten the unique uvw applied to it yet so patterns cross panels etc.
got a few more hours in, detached all the dome panels and uvwed them in the usual manner and added in some more panel details to the larger panels. I will likely be detaching those to UVW them up soon as well. I dunno if any of the uvw stuff will transfer over in conversions or not so might be moot.
More detached and reuvwed panels (most not really noticeable unless at the right angle) and a test of bay lighting sourced from the "spine" or central hull. Toyed with it sourcing from the pontoon area but the light diffused or looked ot be coming from no where. Adjusting gizmos in this ver of max sucks too as you cannot easily click the damned things you often have to go in from a left orr right view zoom in and click drag to select the emitter. Or play the game of 50 clicks before max decides to select the gizmo vs everything else in viewport. YES I know I should just freeze all the other bits so I can select it but eugh. That and the game of angles to get the lights to appear the same brightness. Note all the lights are clones.
To directly answer yes I use gizmos for this type of lighting.
I only use gizmos on projected light or directional light. Everything else like enclosed spaces and bits the glow are emissive mats. Sometimes in large spaces like cargo bays I will use a planar gizmo, again especially if it is a projected light I want to have in that space like spot lights to light a ship going into that bay etc.
HOWEVER vray gizmos are less controllable IMHO because they are limited in what you can control. It is mostly part of how they work vs say old mental ray and even the scanline lights. Also vray giznos will cast shadows or other odd things when the size of the gizmo gets too close or intersects geo. In the above image I am using disc emitters and if those are too big or get too close to the hull itll project a backwards disc shadow on the hull. So it is more of a game of getting the disc size to get the effect I want but keeping it above the hull enough and still make it look like it is coming from a source ON the hull.
Image shows how it looks in viewport.
sadly cause max doesn't accept vray gizmos in viewport VPR is the only way to actively see the lights it is a large guessing game as VPR is painfully slow.
TLDR; I hate rigging lights on ships.
Renders just show new lights and a try at using gizmos on the nav lights as the lums are not doing the job without ramping them up to silly levels. I do not like the idea of a hundred gizmos all over so I might detach the lens elements and make all the nav lights unique and just go with the silly levels. I think I need to rework the registry lighting.
Dumping this here as I am not sure about the comp so it might just still be a WIP.
consider it my 2025 sotl entry as I never got the call this year. I only worked this 2x rez from output so it has that rough feel vs anything output at a higher rez.
That looks cool. There’s no new content in this coming SotL… it’s going to be comprised of selected images from previous calendars… basically just like the SotL books.
so consider this V1 or just something to enjoy till I d something else. one I started a few days ago and fought for a while then took a break, now Im being rushed a bit to get something out so it isnt fully looked over. I will probably refine or just do a different thing altogether. Fought the HDRIs on this then just resorted to a few gizmos instead. Lots of bounced light in a attempt to match the planet I shoulda just flushed the planet, oh well.
clearly a unfinished model lacking some lights on some things like the ship name etc. But wanted to render something with it.
one thing I have found is I need to target a output, be it a high color lcd or various high nit output screens. The Klingons (the final post) for example look really good on my high nit gaming panels and TV, but are not as impressive on older screens say 200nit even though they are set to 10bit color, shrug?
Very nice. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, either in-thread or via PM, but it looks like on the top front (primary) registry, there should be a space between the period after the last “S” of the USS, and the start of the name Emissary… or it might just be the perspective, IDK. But it looks like there should be a space.
nah not been mentioned but it def is not perspective etc. Dunno if I missed it or during messing about with the layout it got lost. I do manually place each letter and do not use any bend or other warp tools for the decals as that distorts the text and the original decals were all hand placed, be it in layout or on the model itself. A real tell in many decals when illustrator or similar programs were used as they all have polygonal pinching. ANYHOW here is an adjusted and realigned layout (fits the curve base stencil) I might have to recut the decal part as it might be sitting too proud of the hull. I always want some to give the feel of paint on the hull but not so much it creates the drop shadow effect.
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I suppose I will just import furniture from other ships to populate these rooms. I do not remember much from picard for lounge areas in the ships. Then again the aesthetics of that series for interiors wasnt that great, unlike SNW.
More panel stencils on this one. Also some re tuning of materials here and there to eliminate the color mix in reflections. (mostly the blue inner panels with the windows)
There is some stuff done to the central blue and teal bits but it really doesnt stand out as much with these views. I might have to work the materials over more. I want to lean on subtle but not so much you need a round table and harsh lighting to see it.
oops and here you can see what kind of day it has been, so I will alter things to not clash with stuff like the registry and emitters. These green areas will more than likely get that dark hull colour seen around the sensor dome.
More detached and reuvwed panels (most not really noticeable unless at the right angle) and a test of bay lighting sourced from the "spine" or central hull. Toyed with it sourcing from the pontoon area but the light diffused or looked ot be coming from no where. Adjusting gizmos in this ver of max sucks too as you cannot easily click the damned things you often have to go in from a left orr right view zoom in and click drag to select the emitter. Or play the game of 50 clicks before max decides to select the gizmo vs everything else in viewport. YES I know I should just freeze all the other bits so I can select it but eugh. That and the game of angles to get the lights to appear the same brightness. Note all the lights are clones.
I only use gizmos on projected light or directional light. Everything else like enclosed spaces and bits the glow are emissive mats. Sometimes in large spaces like cargo bays I will use a planar gizmo, again especially if it is a projected light I want to have in that space like spot lights to light a ship going into that bay etc.
HOWEVER vray gizmos are less controllable IMHO because they are limited in what you can control. It is mostly part of how they work vs say old mental ray and even the scanline lights. Also vray giznos will cast shadows or other odd things when the size of the gizmo gets too close or intersects geo. In the above image I am using disc emitters and if those are too big or get too close to the hull itll project a backwards disc shadow on the hull. So it is more of a game of getting the disc size to get the effect I want but keeping it above the hull enough and still make it look like it is coming from a source ON the hull.
Image shows how it looks in viewport.
sadly cause max doesn't accept vray gizmos in viewport VPR is the only way to actively see the lights it is a large guessing game as VPR is painfully slow.
TLDR; I hate rigging lights on ships.
ok the unevenness triggered so update to the update. Also yanked the lights on the transporter emitters area cause it was just too busy.
consider it my 2025 sotl entry as I never got the call this year. I only worked this 2x rez from output so it has that rough feel vs anything output at a higher rez.
A second go at this still meh about it. Kinda annoying how it'll look ok in viewport but when you start compositing you see the flaws.
Slight change to the image can be found here
clearly a unfinished model lacking some lights on some things like the ship name etc. But wanted to render something with it.
one thing I have found is I need to target a output, be it a high color lcd or various high nit output screens. The Klingons (the final post) for example look really good on my high nit gaming panels and TV, but are not as impressive on older screens say 200nit even though they are set to 10bit color, shrug?
ATM I think it is just some more busy work and right of way lights on the nacelles. Then a fine tooth comb over to make sure there are no errors.
euh oops these are 1440p not 2160, gotta remember to swap back.
ehhhh think I will be recutting them