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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    edited November 2021 #2522
    Took a few bleah feeling days off. . . . lol and started some of the conversions. First up is the Lovell. I really wanted to just convert the Daedalus over then add in the lovell parts as replacements but it seems that is not going to work as I just modeled new crap onto many of the parts. [snip]

    Anyhow some nacelle bits. . . . NO real Lovell uglies just yet. Materials are rough as I will tune most of the common ones once I complete the conversion. Stuff like hull A and Hull B parts that create physical aztecs on the hull are not tuned well and have the same mapping obscuring the effect even more.
    lovell-vray-003.jpg
    Post edited by MadKoiFish on
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Nacelles done, just the bussard guts to go and those will wait until I finish the rest of the ship. Limited material slots means it is a pain to do all the "bulbs" as I will give up 5 slots and then will have to resample and risk "copying" materials. Max will randomly instance or COPY a material if the latter happens and I adjust it it wont affect the copies. Also final caps are not in place either as I do not think the old trick of multiple glass domes will work in vray as things do not seem to trace past the first dome. EG get that matte look and diffusion I want for the inner domes with the glossy finish. If I do just one object with glossy surface it diminishes some of the diffuse "frosting" effect. Refract glossiness just does not give the same effect of a reflection glossiness setting.

    Still having issues with reflectance in vray. Using a hdri so it should be kicking any reflective material but it seems to just not work or some setting is not set right or as I expect it to. Stuff is either "flat paint" or super bloomy spec bombs.
    lovell-vray-005.jpg
    lovell-vray-006.jpg
    oops ignore the whiteish glows behind the ball things, wrong material.

    yeah definitely something off even rendering with a large white plane below them gets very little bounce, even using a light gizmo there is not much going on.
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  • BolianAdmiralBolianAdmiral1114 Torrance, CaliforniaPosts: 2,560Member
    Nice nacelles.
  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Messing with the dirt shader to do some edge rust effect. The milk can top is gone nuts and this is the same material you see on the neck however the shader is confined to those edges and not so obvious. Have to say id love for it to look like the milk cap cause than I can use a texture mask to make it very uneven. I think what it wants is a long 90deg face to another large face before it would do anything.

    lovell-vray-004.jpg

    lovell-vray-007.jpg
    lovell-vray-008.jpglovell-vray-009.jpg
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  • VALKYRIE013VALKYRIE013547 Posts: 1,473Member
    Looking good.
  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Vray dirt just does not gather like the mental ray AO shader does, most of the hull donkey marks are all not so visible as they are not highlighted unless the light hits them just right. Might have to do a alpha mask paint job on it or least on some key areas and map a grime or scorch ID to certian areas of the ship. Probably wont do that right away though.
    lovell-vray-012.jpg
    lovell-vray-013.jpg
    lovell-vray-014.jpg
    Rory1707BolianAdmiralLizzy777LoopholeMustang13Camaro68ashleytingerStarCruiserpubliusrsrspicerSoul Scream
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  • BolianAdmiralBolianAdmiral1114 Torrance, CaliforniaPosts: 2,560Member
    I’d forgotten how nice this ship looks.
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    My favorite version of that ship.
  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    edited November 2021 #2530
    Thanks guys.

    Upper bridge bits and attempting to recreate the sensor dome effect. Bit hard as original was light tracer foolery badly translated to Mental Ray and now in vray. . . lol. Not exactly the same but close. Seem to be lacking the glossy surface feel this seems more like solid haze instead. It is really odd how glass like materials can go from feeling ok to looking unreal. Also having to really screw with the IQR. Use anything close to glass and it distorts like it is a solid material EG the dome is solid with a flat bottom so it lenses things strongly vs a hollowed out dome which should to very minimal lensing or distortion. To avoid that I am near a 1.2~1.3 IQR. I have found a crap load of people elsewhere placing a shell modifier onto glass objects to fix this but all it is doing is making it well a thin shell object. When it is a solid physical thing it means it is turning it into a glass block like thing that is hollow inside.

    Also ight have goofed on the white marker lights, the lum material might not be bright enough. I was being lazy in an attempt to cut down on how many mats are in the scene by using an existing lib interior light material I used on other ships. . . . gonna have to make it unique so I can adjust the brightness. BLEAH.

    Also had to replace some of the corroded metal parts with another material as the dirt shader goes all whacky when it is on objects overlaying another. More so if that object is hollow behind itll trace a ghost of objects behind. Really showed up on the blank hull panels blocking out the arboretum windows.

    lovell-vray-015.jpg
    lovell-vray-016.jpg

    Might have to do something with the science module that is replacing the nuke silos. Something I probably should get memory beta to correct, they are calling them pods.

    Post edited by MadKoiFish on
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    edited November 2021 #2531
    Almost done just interiors and fine tuning of some bits mentioned last post as well as corrections to some wrong materials placed on some of the glow objects (mostly the blue stuff) Oh and the x-mas lights in the bussards need doing.
    lovell-vray-017.jpg
    lovell-vray-018.jpg
    render with light gizmos to see how the materials react. Need to redo it with spheres vs a main plane emitter. It really alters the colors.
    lovell-vray-019.jpg
    sphere gizmo.
    lovell-vray-020.jpg
    Post edited by MadKoiFish on
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  • Rory1707Rory1707232 Posts: 238Member
    Very beautiful design! 🖖🏾
  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    All done, interiors etc. Not gonna render all the details as archived files should do that. Mostly cloned chairs and office rooms with bulkheads etc. Just need to fine tune the lum mats and so something with that module so it looks less like a "blank" spot. Maybe add some more patches or damage.

    lovell-vray-024.jpg
    lovell-vray-025.jpg
    lovell-vray-026.jpg
    lovell-vray-027.jpglovell-vray-028.jpg
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  • EBOLIIEBOLII204 Posts: 360Member
    You have really mastered the design, modeling, texturing and render of everything you do. Well Done bud
  • BolianAdmiralBolianAdmiral1114 Torrance, CaliforniaPosts: 2,560Member
    God, I love that iteration of the Daedalus.
    publiusr
  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    edited December 2021 #2536
    Added in some stuff to that module a few days ago and just got round to rendering it out.
    lovell-vray-032.jpg
    lovell-vray-033.jpg

    ANYHOW tempted to continue those paired lines around the airlock and up the "baseball bat" thing (bit with the pipes in) Fusion reactor 2 sits just aft of the strut split which powers the aft impulse and secondary hull stuff outside the warp core. Reactor 1 is in the ball for the main impulse assembly. There is probably more work to do for a hero model of this particular ship but for now it should suffice for the use I am putting it to.

    Now is to decide what other TOSish era ships I want to include. I have the Lovell and a Saladin rigged up as well as the connie. Options are the Wedge or the tos miranda Not sure if I will use them all but best too have too many than too little. . . . lol

    Some images of the ships in question just in case. These are MR versions hence the need to convert.
    WEDGE
    wedge-trek-308.jpg
    https://bolidecascade.wordpress.com/2017/03/24/wedge-trek-part-6/
    Miranda
    miranda-tos-362.jpg
    https://bolidecascade.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/tos-miranda-class-part-3/

    Once all of this is done it will be time to take another look at that video Howard linked. And if I can implement it in 2019 sans any plugins. ( or least plugins that wont affect the save files when opened without the plugins) Then back to the Assidous Class to finish it off and then probably the D.
    Post edited by MadKoiFish on
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Meh Started converting the Miranda over. Real nightmare as I found a new bug in either vray or max where itll randomly cycle through all the open menus and critical halt, EG it hangs and flicker through the menus as it renders. Not a issue of ram as it is only using 8gigs. Previously I had the lame ASUS system monitor open and closing it fixed it, but this last time I had to sit and wait for the entire render to end. Early issues were using gizmos over HDRI as the gizmos seem to just take a whole lot more calculations. Meh but this time I am using a hdri but lots of lum mats and transparent translucent frosted stuff so BLEAH. A real issue as all the glow crap I set up in mental ray is being guessed at as I have no idea if I had gradients or anything else in the glows as it just says "missing material/shader" and I have no access to any basic setting info unlike the regular arch vis mats at least have their settings viewable. SO yeah. . . . I am also having a real hard time doing those fogged up materials. Maybe I have to switch to roughness for the settings instead to get it. I have messed around with the translucency settings but most of those are all so faint in the effect EG it is mostly solid looking not that looks solid in direct light but allows a faint touch of back lighting to pass through such as a bussard or a sensor dome. I can only blur the things inside of the domes and control how glossy it appears and the reflection blur (to a rough extent, it is mostly sharp reflections or sorta blurry or flat cant see any reflection. It just skips to doing spec hotspots. Shrug.

    Here is a good example of that in the bussards and mostly the sensor dome.
    miranda-tos-334.jpg

    It is a real chore too to do the materials. . . I have more than the stupid lib slot thing can handle and max quit showing materials individually, only when they are NOT in a multi mat and applied wholly as a singular ID to a single object. I forget when they took that away, sometime when they started naming it by YEAR.
    Anyhow, got most of it done, all the little bits all over took an age as well as the lit up dome stuff. Just the upper decks and all the phasers and unseen marker lights then re rigging the ship lighting and tuning the main map materials.

    Loads of screwy things as max keep insisting on referencing textures in other folders even when I redirect it to the one in the root prj folder. . . . . I have to hit reload multiple times and then it will accept me redirecting the link. UGH. Another annoyance as in previous versions I could import mats in or stuff from the lib and it would first look in the root files folder for any textures with the same names. Not now, nope and if you change it it just reverts instantly or on the next time you open the file. -_-.
    miranda-vray-005.jpg
    miranda-vray-006.jpg
    miranda-vray-007.jpg

    Eugh watching the image render as I type and I chose the WRONG color for the impulse bat thing on this model. 3rd render has the mr bits turned on so your not looking into a gaping hole.
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Ok I think I zapped all the mental ray out renders done with the Lovell light rig. Needs lots of tweaking to the main hull materials as a lot of the gloss and other surfacing is just gone. Also need to go in and reverify all texture links as I had a few crashes requiring autobak and recovery files. ATM it looks like only the UVWed gloss maps are in effect, the overall weave map seems missing. Once this is done I gotta rerig this and the Lovell with vray gizmos and then tackle the Enterprise update. Unsure if I will light her though outside of just marker lights. I really hate the vray gizmos, no focus controls and they are almost always way to soft. I know they are probably more realistic than the old photometrics or MR ones but ugh. They also are a right pain to place and move around as their "hitbox" is super small so if there is anything within 20pixels it'll often select that instead. Right pain when you are selecting groups of these damned lights. Add in the fact they do not preview at all right in the viewport makes it even more aggravating. (more often your scene file would just be pitch black)
    miranda-vray-008.jpg
    miranda-vray-009.jpg
    miranda-vray-010.jpg
    miranda-vray-011.jpg
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Rendered out 2 samples so far, maybe a bit too strong. When full on though it almost fades away. A real pain to adjust these as I broke the ship into 5 separate texture maps. PFFF

    miranda-vray-012.jpg
    miranda-vray-013.jpg
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  • EBOLIIEBOLII204 Posts: 360Member
    I am sure you have answered this a 1000x's

    what is your platform these days? I know your modeling in maya are you rendering in maya as well?
  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    3ds max 2019 with Vray NEXT 4.3something. I composite in Clip Studio paint.
    publiusr
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  • publiusrpubliusr550 Posts: 1,746Member

    MadKoiFish wrote: »
    Rendered out 2 samples so far, maybe a bit too strong. When full on though it almost fades away. A real pain to adjust these as I broke the ship into 5 separate texture maps. PFFF

    miranda-vray-012.jpg
    miranda-vray-013.jpg

    A muscular ship
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    edited December 2021 #2543
    Ship lighting. . . .Only a hour or so today. . . .

    miranda-vray-015.jpg
    miranda-vray-016.jpg

    Forgot to render one out with the nacelle and strut lights. Thinking the upper back saucer needs something but dunno. Still debating if I should do this to my connie too. Kinda scratching my head as to why those domes are so much brighter on here than on the Lovell, same materials used. . . . should render the lovell in this scene and see if it is not something to do with the rendering set up.

    miranda-vray-017.jpg

    Also considering adding a level of sub decals to the existing maps on the connie. Sorta like the ones on this model where they just blur off at a distance. Example are all the hatchways on the saucer top that sit a panel above the registry number.

    Post edited by MadKoiFish on
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Think that does it for the light rig.
    miranda-vray-018.jpg
    miranda-vray-019.jpg
    miranda-vray-020.jpg

    I think it is time to get to the Connie after I verify no MR materials exist in this ships file. Then final tuning of the station and maybe getting that Wedge ship converted.
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Well I went and did it and put interior textures into the connie.

    Need to retune the lighting some to get some more of the colored light and dim rooms back from the conversion process.

    tos-connie-vray-110.jpg
    tos-connie-vray-111.jpg
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    ok tossed on a very faint hull paneling to the ship too. Next up for it is the texture updates and light rigging. Going to replace all the hidden object lighting with gizmos.

    tos-connie-vray-117.jpg
    Heh maybe to subtle. What pops on the saucer is barely discernible on the rest of the ship. Ah but render with gizmo lights and stuff is much more glossy so eh. Plan is to not use the hdri in final passes anyhow.

    tos-connie-vray-118.jpg
    tos-connie-vray-119.jpg
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  • johnl2112johnl211248 Posts: 54Member
    Your work is excellent. I really like the TOS style Miranda Class. Its a little weird that the ship registry is lit on the side of the nacelle in a place where no light can realistically get on it. But it matches the ST:TMP aesthetic well.
  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    Since I have things to do on my other pc (one with the cintiq) I decided in the down times I would try giving the connie a light rig too. Plan is to match the TMP refit. Given Vray lacks any sort of projected light focus I am a bit limited in the effects (avoiding projection maps for now but those might be a solution, maybe) I am also avoiding the cutoff setting because it seems to affect the near light cast of the lights as well as the distance so they look "clipped"
    tos-connie-vray-121.jpg
    tos-connie-vray-122.jpg
    tos-connie-vray-123.jpg

    Also replaced all the hidden object lighting. This is where I have a object with a lum material on it to create diffuse light to add light to things like markers and right of way lighting. Vray seems to treat light differently than max and these lum lighting techniques just do not look as nice as putting gizmos there. Not to mention vray I can place the gizmo inside of the bulb and it will act like a colored lens so all the bulb lights are just a warm white. SO that said I really should consider rebuilding the markers and right of way lights with this in mind. This also means likely removing all the bulb elements inside as I could use the gizmos instead. Only place this falls down is with say the sub lights on the right of way lights on the nacelles and the ones flanking the larger bulbs as those are suppose to look like solid cast resin around a bulb. The gizmos dislike this arrangement. I probably have to drill out a bulb shape into the solid object to get them to render properly. All of this also disables the tuning done to get the bulbs to replicate the in show look. As of now being close to those elements is not called for I will leave that re-tuning for later.
    tos-connie-vray-124.jpg
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    edited December 2021 #2549
    Well, plan was to only add in small detail panels and hatches etc to mini detail the ship. Instead I am doing a map per map spruce up and re detail to make some of the weathering less ham fisted. While it worked with grain and denaturation etc in past projects I figured Maybe I could do without so much of the gradients to show possible panels and just put some of them in. So far it is just the nacelle bodies and only portions of them. Idea is to replicate the dry brushing efx which is a bit hard with digital. Not to mention how I unwrapped this thing is a bit of a pain to line things up. I never did do a AO render template. (least I think that is the word, or a "baked" render to show where bits overlap onto flat hull or unwraped parts. SO lots of scribble save and refresh 3dsmax viewports. Al of which entailed getting the cintiq back onto this pc as doing all that over the network would be a impossible task of patience.

    tos-connie-vray-126.jpg

    tos-connie-vray-127.jpg

    Oh yeah back to the hdri for the diffuse light so ignore the over saturation it creates. The gizmo renders is where the pallet is set up for as I do not plan to use a hdri in the final renders. HDRI is just for modeling and wip.

    And another OH, before anyone asks I am still using ONLY original film shots of the 11foot model. And only using publicly available photos. NO "insider" images. OHHHHH again, ignore the shadow on the damned 1384 marking that's the fing light gizmo disc as it is too close to the hull. Need to move it out and re-angle the target.
    Post edited by MadKoiFish on
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  • Mustang13Camaro68Mustang13Camaro68328 DetroitPosts: 156Member
    MadKoiFish wrote: »
    ...Given Vray lacks any sort of projected light focus I am a bit limited in the effects (avoiding projection maps for now but those might be a solution, maybe)...
    What might you mean by projected light focus? Do you mean like a spot light? Or, do you mean having a hot spot in the middle of the light?
    You can make a vray plane light act like a spot light by increasing the "Directional" amount (defaults to 0.0).
    You could add a vraySoftbox texture to the light to simulate hotspots, vignettes etc without having to make a custom map.
    yvy0c60trrmn.jpg
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  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9711 Posts: 5,302Member
    edited December 2021 #2551
    I refer to the edge of the projected light not the directionality cone. Hopefully that makes sense. I do not have any old images to really point this out with a MR vs Vray results.

    I'll take a look at the softbox shader once I have the time.

    Ok softbox does as the name seems to suggest just makes the already soft edge softer. It will let me do all the fringing crap I have had to do with gradient ramps or textures. But maybe I missed something in the settings. I was just randomly adjusting things and rendering out to see how it affects a set of lights directed at a plane.

    [edit] edited for clarity.
    Post edited by MadKoiFish on
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