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3DThunderbrid 5 (reboot)

ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
edited October 2011 in Work in Progress #1
Followin gon from TB2 and TB3, I've sort of figured out what I want to do with 5. Shown here with my TB3, hopefully it should begin to take some reasonable shape over the course of the next few days while I work on it.


TB5_1.jpg

TB5_2.jpg

TB5_3.jpg

TB5_4.jpg
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Post edited by Armondikov on
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  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Getting a few more details in. I have my own Endless Station now!!

    TB5_5.jpg

    TB5_6.jpg

    TB5_7.jpg
  • Dr LeeDr Lee2 Posts: 0Member
    As with TB2 & TB3... i think it looks great & i'm interested in how you re-invent TB5.
  • L2KL2K0 Posts: 0Member
    is that a greenhouse ?
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Botanics, of course. It's a self-sufficient space station!
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Quick question; how the hell do you guys who do panelling and hull plating all the time do it? It's more soul crushing than painting hair!

    TB5_10.jpg

    TB5_11.jpg
  • PagrinPagrin171 Posts: 0Member
    WooHoo More Tbs. You're off to a solid start. I'm wonder what the extended frame work is for? Solar cells maybe.
    As for the paneling thing. In Lw the easy way would be to cut the poly into the panels you want. (just with the knife tool.). Then select the lot and use the bevel tool to crimp the size down a tiny bit, and then left them a tiny bit. (Do the whole lot with just a couple of clicks.
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Solar panels are a good idea. Certainly beats "I saw something like it on Tobians thread and thought it looked cool" as an excuse! As for paneling, I'll probably go for different techniques depending on what I can do with what's there. Currently it's using stencil/core to cut the shapes out of a copy of the bodywork. It works well for panels with this shape but it's damn repetitive stuff trying to replicate the pattern over a bunch of random polygons...
  • L2KL2K0 Posts: 0Member
    for panelling, the secret lies in doing it by layers (bigs under, smals over).
    and of course making it easily replacable.
    so, go happy with big screws, locks, bolts. for both layers (or more if you go real crazy)

    so, if this is a greenhouse, i'll expect some things real green in there. like trees and so on :D
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Hmmm... actually doing the greenery... well... erm... I'll think about it.
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Well, speaking of green and trees. Might be able to try out the demo and see what it produces: http://www.polas.net/trees/index.php

    I'm getting used to the panelling now, it's a little messy in places at the moment but it's getting there. Not much else to say for this update.

    TB5_14.jpg

    TB5_15.jpg

    TB5_16.jpg

    EDIT: Here's some greenery. It's subtle, but should be enough to convince you that it's a botanics module.
    TB5_17.jpg
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    The moral of the story here seems to be that by the time you've finished figuring out the optimal settings for rendering, you may as well have cranked it up full in the first place. It's still having trouble picking out and smoothing some of the details, so perhaps I might have to bite the bullet with the number of panels and greebles on this one and increase the number of passes. Or perhaps finally getting around to getting a newer computer so these things don't take as long, I'm a bit behind on the hardware front.

    TB5_AA_comparison.jpg
  • L2KL2K0 Posts: 0Member
    dual core 1.5ghz ?

    i've got thos kind of time on my old laptop for that kind of images.
    you'll love your new computer :D


    for the greenhouse, the windows are too thick. and maybe think the windows distribution again. they shouldnt be cut on the first and the last line.
    that plugin looks powerful
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    L2K wrote: »
    dual core 1.5ghz ?

    Dual? :lol: But having taken an order of two quad-core I7 computers (we call them Bert and Ernie) for work and noted they did in 2 seconds what our last rig did in over 20 (quantum mechanics calculations, since you didn't ask) I realise that I really, really need to get with the times. It's just that various things have been getting in the way and it works perfectly for all other things I need. Since I upgraded the graphics card and the RAM, it manipulates and does all the real-time modelling stuff fine, I really can't fault it there. The rendering times, well, I can live with that as it's a case of hitting F9 and going to do something else.

    Anyway...

    Not entirely sure what you mean by "too thick". But I can see where the lattice pattern doesn't quite fit properly, I admit that wasn't very elegantly done. Actually, come to think of it, a lot of it isn't particularly elegant. I noticed when doing the panels that the main bodywork isn't as planar as it should be, so it was difficult to align some things. Next time: plan ahead.
  • L2KL2K0 Posts: 0Member
    i was speaking about the frame. a thinner frame will do better.
    1st, its not a combat station where you would need armored windows.
    2nd you would have more sunlight entering the greenhouse, making happy your vegetables.
    3rd we would see better the inside from out here, and it will look even cooler.

    for the patern alignement, i suggest using (i dont know LW's name for that) the 3d equivalent of photoshop's transform tool (ctrl-T).
    in max, its called free form deformer. it generates a box outside the object where you can move the corners, and everything inside deforms acordingly.
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    L2K wrote: »
    1st, its not a combat station where you would need armored windows.

    Who says that in my continuity that it wasn't designed to be that in the first place? You think all the Thunderbirds were hand built by Jeff and Brains from scratch, rather than stolen military hardware? ;) Also, in space there's one atmosphere of air inside and near-vacuum outside producing quite a bit of force. And any meteorites or debris striking it would do so with considerable force. This is the largest window ever put into space, it's pretty tough even on a civilian craft! But that's me waffling, generally I agree with you and will probably rework it.
    for the patern alignement, i suggest using (i dont know LW's name for that) the 3d equivalent of photoshop's transform tool (ctrl-T).
    in max, its called free form deformer. it generates a box outside the object where you can move the corners, and everything inside deforms acordingly.

    Yeah, there are tools that can do that. I just liked the regular shaped window panes, even though they don't perfectly "fit" in the gap. But the cleaner edges from deforming it into place will probably make up for that.
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    So, building up some details slowly. I haven't redone the windows yet, that's on the list. I've occupied by day off mostly reading the Battlestar Galactica "series Bible" and trying to sketch out one of my own for Thunderbirds - I am that sad.

    TB5_22.jpg

    EDIT: I love this backdrop so much.

    TB5_orbit.jpg
  • PagrinPagrin171 Posts: 0Member
    She's looking good. I like the details building up on the ring.
    As for the greenhouse windows, the frame might be thicker because of a layered window. One of the main things people for get about with windows in space is the radiation filtering aspects. The sunlight which reaches us here on the ground has been filtered and reduced by Kms of atmosphere. Raw sunlight (Such as in orbit) is not just much brighter, but also a lot hotter in terms of radiation range.
    to make a green house using trees etc, you don't need just sunlight, but the right level of sun light. From the outside the glass would likely seem black to the naked eye. Much like looking a heavily tinted windows on a car from the outside.
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Yeah, but if they were black you wouldn't be able to see the cool stuff inside. On the other hand, that means I don't have to model that stuff. Win-win either way, really!

    Now, did I say I had some free time on my hands? The reboot project goes a little beyond merely making a few meshes. (of course, I've only now just noticed the squiggles, I should have formed the PNG from the PDF, not the DOC. Obviously. Oh well.) Also, I'm open to any suggestions for actors to base Jeff Tracy on. I'm reasonably fond of Bill Paxton's portrayal, but I think that would be too obvious a nod to the 2004 movie.

    Time_Magazine.png

    What do you mean it looks like a BSG flight suit?!?
    TB_1_pilot.jpg
    Flight_suit.jpg
  • PagrinPagrin171 Posts: 0Member
    A nice background piece. It reads very true to that sort of article. However I have one small edit I'd make to the content. You've described Mars as lifeless, where there is a lot of anecdotal evidence o say that there is at least micro life on mars. (also the original show had plenty of life on Mars) So I'd alter it to say something like, "virtually lifeless" for example. If only because it leave the doors open.

    As for the windows. I see your point. It's the same as seat belts on the Enterprise. :)

    I like the IR uniform idea. You've retained the blue which I think is important, while making it seem more up to date. I'd also make it a bit like a flight suit and rock climbers suit, so you have the bonus of high G flight and gear carried with ease.
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    It's just that the whole alien life thing is a bit iffy. I don't want to risk getting to the stage where Jeff goes to Mars, finds himself in an opera house and then meets Dirk Benedict who introduces himself as God. But "lifeless" still leaves doors open to do that.

    The uniforms are based pretty closely on existing aircraft flight suits. It's pretty realistic that way.

    TB2_HUD_2.jpg
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Starting to work on the underside now. This will hopefully balance out the heavy "bridge" bit at the top and evoke the original TB5 shape a lot more.

    TB5_23.jpg

    TB5_24.jpg
  • PagrinPagrin171 Posts: 0Member
    Yep, that array on the roof also helps bring back the TB5 look. Nice update.
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    More or less done with the mesh itself, plus some behind-the-polygons stuff for rigging/texturing. So here are some larger shots of it for the sake of image spam!

    EDIT: The idiot that I am, I haven't loaded the objects that make up the interior, so all the shots through the windows are wrong. Doh.gif

    TB5_26.jpg

    TB5_27.jpg

    TB5_28.jpg
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    L2K wrote: »
    for the patern alignement, i suggest using (i dont know LW's name for that) the 3d equivalent of photoshop's transform tool (ctrl-T).
    in max, its called free form deformer. it generates a box outside the object where you can move the corners, and everything inside deforms acordingly.

    Just a quick point on this as I tried it. It's not as straightforward as it seems at first. To get those perfectly tessellated triangles they need to be equilateral. As I've constructed it from a series of overlapping bars rather than individual triangles, deforming and tapering the whole structure sends them out of alignment, destroying the tessellation. So to do this, the windows would have to be constructed out of a sheet of triangular polygons rather than with by the simplified method I used. Alternatively I can taper them in 2 dimensions, altering the heights as well as the widths of the windows but this produces less nice results. In short, it was surprisingly just a little more complicated than just a straight deformation, but I'm working on it.

    The one in the middle is unaltered as it currently is. The one on the left is deformed to fit, so instead of straight lines it produces a slight curve. The one on the right is edited to fit but the pattern isn't terribly sustainable. Probably will need something a bit more cleverer to jam this triangular peg into the square hole.
    Triangles.png
  • L2KL2K0 Posts: 0Member
    i like the curved very much ;)
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Got it sorted now, have a slight combination between the left and right versions. So it curves slightly but matches up to the edges nicely too. Will have to wait for any more renders of that, though.
  • stolistoli79 Posts: 130Member
    That is a beautiful scene I have to say and the station is looking very,very good, love the ship and its skin (share how you do that one day pretty please). May I ask where you get the background scene and how it is lit, I am trying to get same results. When station is complete and operational can I dock my ships there for a quick re fit and a beer.

    Regards
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    For this one? http://postimage.org/image/h7doxi1w/full/ I'll try and translate the Lightwave techniques into something more general.

    The image is from NASA, taken from the International Space Station a few years ago - public domain for the win, you can find appropriate backdrops with Google images, NASA itself or Wikimedia Commons. The lighting is fairly straightforward, there's only one light in the scene, a "distant light", which just means all the rays are running parallel and so perfect for the sun. It has a slight, but not overpowering yellow tint. This is then positioned roughly to match the sun in the background image, this is just trial and error. To speed that process up I actually have a low-poly proxy object that I can render out in a second to check the shadow (and of course, switching off other effects). It's slightly not in the right position as you can see the shadows on the cloud formations are much longer than the shadows on the station, and the light source is clearly a lot more central on the planet. The rest of the lighting is with background radiosity, which is a radiosity calculation using the background as lighting rather than the more complex calculation of bouncing it off all the surfaces (which produces a negligible difference anyway unless you're cranking your scene lights up well over 100%). But the background isn't just white as it is in the other clay renders and it isn't an image as you'll see with image-based lighting, it's a gradient. Lightwave allows two background gradients representing the sky and the ground. The ground one is brown-ish, and actually the default setting. The sky is a blue gradient, just a darker version of the default setting, really. If you look under the ring there's a slight brown tint, that's because it's effectively being lit by a brown background gradient, whereas the top is lit blue. It's basically a better version of simple "ambient light" and a quicker version of image lighting (e.g., lighting it with the background image). Then it's just a case of tweaking the intensity of the one light vs the intensity of the radiosity - in this case I don't think there was much to change, radiosity at 100% and the light at ~75%. To bring the image together, there's a "bloom" filter applied (or it might have been "corona", they're basically the same effect but done differently) which just simulates white bleed, as if the brightest parts are glowing. It's straight out of the render engine, nothing else done to it although you could certainly composit the background and the bloom effect afterwards and perhaps get better results. In one of the shots of Thunderbird 3 on the same backdrop I added some additional lens flaring to try and make it look less like it was just pasted over the image, but I don't think it was necessary on this image.

    The texture on Thunderbird 3 is actually just a simple generic panels texture wrapped around the thing cylindrically. There's no UV mapping or anything complex like that, I don't even think it's applied as a bump map either. For the numbers and the text, I've cheated slightly. Instead of mapping a texture, I created the text as a PNG image with a transparent background. To position these, I've again cheated a bit. They're centred only on a set group of polygons, so I give these polys their own surface, then copy-paste the main surface to them (so in the render you couldn't tell they were different) and just layer over the transparent PNG and click the "auto" button to position size it quickly and easily, with a few tweaks. Perhaps people with more experience in texturing would hate that, but it's quick and easy way of adding decals to a surface without having to make a complex texture map. I'm not sure how that would work in other programs as I know texturing and surfacing works a little differently outside of Lightwave.

    Hope that helps in some way.
  • DCBDCB331 Posts: 0Member
    Flight suit boy kinda reminds me of a space-faring version of Vyse from Skies of Arcadia.
  • ArmondikovArmondikov0 Posts: 0Member
    Really? Interesting interpretation, but if I'm sketching quickly it always looks a little special.

    Anyway, working on another "from space" shot and getting some surfacing done.
    TB5_30.jpg
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