Updated: 8-10-12 -- Earth's First Warp 7 Starship
Hi everybody! I've been browsing for a while and have taken the time to improve my modeling in the down-time. And now for t he updates!!!
UES Avenger - Earth's First Warp 7 Starship
I have updated the design of the Avenger "Earth's first warp 7 starship" to blend the hump and deflector into the primary and secondary hulls. This ship is my vision of the Warp 7 ships that are created by Starfleet a short time after the NX-01 is launched. This ship is going to star in a series i'm making for the Romulan War. Also, my friend and I have decided to go with the name Pegasus! This ship has been an endless WIP for me, but I finally feel I have the design and mesh nearly completed minus a few details (e.g. hull markings and additional weapons ports, airlocks etc.)
Planets -
I am learning how to make some FANTASTIC planetary scenes, and I recently figured out how to make convincing looking rings.... and how to use Mental Ray! :-)
Animation -
[video=youtube_share;78idOKYoxbk]
This is a video of the ship going into warp. Note that I have not yet added a distant boom... working on it...
Please take a look at the work and let me know what you think! Check the last page for additional updates!
More to come!
Posts
The UES Reliant is the explorer variant. The ships in the first post are of the warship (UES Avenger).
The station is about 1/3 complete, and the starships aren't completely textured here. Wanted to show four of my WIPS in one shot.
Comments?:p
Hi Somacruz! As usual, thx for commenting on the work. You actually keyed into the next two areas that i'm experimenting with now. Logos and lighting (i.e. shadows, etc). I am trying to decide now which logos these ships will have but I know how to layer textures now. Will be working on something this weekend. Regarding the other colors, I may use brighter colors for the thruster areas, good suggestion. Also, can you explain what you mean by contrasting elements?
Thx!
Also, the story behind the altered design for the series i'm working on is that Andorians and Humans collaborated in the design, so there are some andorian asthetics included. Earth exchanged advanced warp drive for andorian shields, and they took some cues from andorian ships.
Just a thought, but I Love the design as it is. I am designing some other more traditional starships and will post here as well.
The contrasting elements are just shadowed/highlighted areas. You should add one bright key light with strong shadows and some filler lights. Anyway, experimenting is the best way to go. Using final gather might help a lot. Also, you can render one image with standard colors, then the same shot with ambient occlussion material (you must set your renderer to mental ray and then it will appear as a diffuse material) and combine them in photoshop (or something else that enables for image mixing) to better bring out the shadows/details.
Somacruz,
Thanks, I haven't even began to experiment with lighting yet, but will soon. I wanted to make sure that I was happy with the physical modeling of the ships since i'm a novice, and still trying to learn to model certain shapes. Right now I am using 6 omni lights for ambient bakground light and one spotlight, but I don't have shadows enabled.
How long have you been rendering? Are you in school to become a 3d artist? I am still learning quite a bit and have never used mental ray (yet) to render. I also just figured out how texturing works, and i'm basic learning animation. I'm very much self-taught at the moment; learned 3d studio max by reading a book and getting tutorials. I am currently reading a How to Cheat in 3d studio max guide now for help w/ lighting! BUT, I will look into using Mental Ray for some rendering. I am using Paint Shop Pro for image mixing... Right now, I am currently working on my first animation which will be the Avenger flying at high warp w/ a starfield.
I would love to learn from someone who is much better @ 3d modeling that can teach me some tricks.
If you're open to it, I'd be open to sending you one of my models. I'd like to see what you could do with the lighting and rendering.
Thanks!
As for my work, no I am not in any kind of 3D (or even arts) school. I got to learn 3D and 2D with tutorials and such but mostly I've been experimenting on my own since I don't have patience for tutorials. If you want to you can send me a model but right now I'm pretty busy with exams so I might not be able to get into that before the weekend.
Apparently, you've learned quite a bit! :-D I am not an Arts major either... Finished Engineering and Business School recently. I am going to tweek the model further, and will contact you then. More to learn!!! Am going to post an animation next, along with Vulcan and Romulan ships. Have you posted any galleries of your 22nd Century ships?
The ship has the designation NX-100, an experimental designation, as the NX-01 was redesignated as the Enterprise Class and given a new designation.
Thank you Starship! BTW, I recently went to Sao Paulo... AMAZING city! Great atmosphere, great food! I was in brazil for a week and loved it!
I have also attached my Romulan Warbird and one of my ringed Gas Giants. :thumb:
I'm practicing my hand at lighting and planetary scenes. Lots more to learn! Let me know what you think of the pics.
I'm still working on the warp-out boom...
would love to hear some thoughts on the ship and animation!! :fishslap::thumb:
[video=youtube_share;clenU5ej-2I]
I also think the ship does the transition from warp to impulse power to much faster.
As a side note and just for curiosity purposes, look how much the warp effect changed along the years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-1kkB_qF28
HI Starship, thanks for the continued feedback :-). What kinds of details would help the ship's features to stand out better? I'd like to show the plating geometry a little better, as the hull plating is only really visible the closer you get to the hull. I'm very much a novice but the skills are gradually improving! I also set out to redesign the front hump to better blend with the hull. I'm glad you like the planets... this was my first foray into space scenes. I am also very new to animation as well...The warp effect I was going for was the one used in the latest trek movie... i.e. where the ship exits warp quickly and resume impulse speeds as soon as the warp field dissipates.
This is the ship i'm going to use in a Fan Series i'm producing that will be set during the Romulan War. I'm working on planets and warp effects now so that I can make a demo reel. I'm also considering hiring someone whose a better modeler than I am to create a highly-detailed model of the Avenger now that I have the look finalized...
ALSO::: See page 2 for pictures of my Romulan Warbird and more Avenger pics.. the Romulan ship is also a WIP.