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3DSilent Running - Valley Forge

TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
edited April 2014 in Work in Progress #1
Started work on a new project. The Valley Forge from the movie Silent Running. Started off working on one of the domes first. The framework was a pain in the butt to do, but I am pretty happy with it now. The studio model had 3 layers of the framework, but when I did that, it looked too busy. I opted for just 2 layers.

Al
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  • BrandenbergBrandenberg1655 CaliforniaPosts: 1,937Member
    That movie takes me back. Excellent start Tralfaz (love your logo too). Attending the Olympics?
  • AvianAvian203 Posts: 210Member
    I'm looking forward to see the progress on this one!
    That movie takes me back. Excellent start Tralfaz (love your logo too). Attending the Olympics?
    You might want to re-read his location... ;)
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Thanks everyone.

    About the Olympics, I am in the other London. Reminds me of the old 'All In The Family' episode where Archie Bunker is supposed to send a package to London. So, he sends it to London, England. He screwed up because he was supposed to send it to London, Ontario, Canada. He makes some comment about where in the hell is London, Ontario! Lots of folks here in London got their backs up and the city invited him to come and visit our fair city. LOL

    Al
  • publiusrpubliusr550 Posts: 1,746Member
    That dome by itself would make for a nice ship--Cities In Flight style.

    Imagine it much, much broader, but shallower. A huge citiscape is under the dome. Behind the dome, you have the aft end of the SGU Destiny as the main drive block, with the rear of Destiny's tower block creeping up along part of the aft domes surface.

    Below the dome--on the ventral side, are Aries IB engines all along the undersurface.

    A true city-ship.
  • WizWiz28 Posts: 0Member
    Cool, an ambitious project, how you going to handle the forests on the interior?
  • BrandenbergBrandenberg1655 CaliforniaPosts: 1,937Member
    Yup, didn't know there was a London Ontario either. I thought your location indicated that you moved between the two. My bad. Gotta look at a map. I believe the only Canadian province I have been in is BC. Numerous times. Twice in the last year.

    This is going to be an exciting model. Will be following closely. Wish one existed in real life.
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Thanks again everyone.

    This is a quick test of the forest. I downloaded a bunch of free 3D tree models and imported them into C4D. The grass and road are seamless textures. For a first go at it, it's not too bad. But (and there is always a but) there is something that is not right. In the movie, the forests look like they are highly populated with trees, bushes, streams, etc. When looking at photos of the model forests, they are not near as populated as what I have done. Adding more trees and bushes would make it more like the movie, but will become a killer for polygon count and rendering. Not sure how to handle this properly yet.

    Al
  • biotechbiotech171 Posts: 0Member
    Try a picture of a tree texture mapped onto a plane, with an opacity map so where there is no tree the rest is invisible, rotate three or four copies around the centre so you can see it from any angle.

    You can have as many of those as you like.
  • TALON_UKTALON_UK2 Posts: 0Member
    Exactly what I was going to suggest. That is probably your best bet, and using that method you'll be able to make the forest as dense as you like for a relatively low poly cost.
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Thanks for the tips guys. I found a program called TreeMagik which allows you to generate high or low resolution trees. It was only $20 so I gave it a go. Worked really well in creating low res trees (approximate 200-300 polygons each). The image of the dome shows the forest now looking more like a forest should. I am quite happy with how this turned out and if not for your help, I wouldn't have found the program. Thanks again.

    Al
  • colbmistacolbmista2 Posts: 0Member
    id shrink the trees a bit more and add a few dozen more
  • BrandenbergBrandenberg1655 CaliforniaPosts: 1,937Member
    Wow. That's a program I've got to look up. I was wondering how you were going to do the flora. This is going to be such an interesting project. Does the program give you the ability to subtly alter the tree color from one to the other?
  • AvianAvian203 Posts: 210Member
    That looks really good so far! And it looks like you've gone back to the three-layer structure of the geodesic dome.
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Colbmista,

    When looking at photos of the actual model, the trees are around the same scale. Might be a bit larger, but close enough. I do have to keep in mind that there are a total of 6 domes on the ship as well and the forests won't really be too visible when rendered.

    Brandenberg,

    It really is a pretty neat program. You can choose from quite a number of bark textures for the trunk and limbs as well as quite a number of leaf textures. The bark textures are in .JPG format and the leaves are in .PNG. I am not sure if you can supply your own textures or not as I've just started playing around with it.

    Avian,

    You are right, I went back to the 3 layer structure for the dome framework. It just didn't seem right not having any structure on the inside side of the dome. In one iteration, I had filled in all the open areas of the 2nd frame with glass, just like a real dome would be. It just didn't look right when it was rendered out, so I got rid of the glass panels and went with a curved dome, like they did in the movie.

    Thanks everyone...
    Al
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Quick update:
    Started working on the dome body. Some progress has been made and this is going to be a bit slow to do. Most of the pictures I have found are of a single dome that had previously been 'refurbished'. I say refurbished instead of restored as some of the detail parts that were put back on don't match the video version. And the refurbished dome is now in disrepair itself. I am hoping to get some good reference material from the video. Luckily, a lot of the parts seem to be placed in the same part of each section of the dome body. Makes it easy to model 1 part, then copy and rotate 60 degrees, make a copy and rotate and so on.

    Al
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Quick update:

    Reworked the bottom wedge sections. This is much closer to the actual model. Added more detail to the bottom of the dome. When reviewing the reference pictures, section 1 and 4 are the same, as is 2 and 6, and 3 and 5. This makes it much easier to model 3 sections then copy and rotate them into their positions.

    Al
  • TALON_UKTALON_UK2 Posts: 0Member
    Looking good.
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Thanks Talon.

    Update: Finished with the greeble stuff on the bottom portion of the dome hull. Had to take artistic license in a few parts due to the reference photos being not that good.

    Al
  • TALON_UKTALON_UK2 Posts: 0Member
    Very cool.
  • BrandenbergBrandenberg1655 CaliforniaPosts: 1,937Member
    Amazing. And I hear you. It sure is frustrating when you don't have a good picture. Not doubt yours is better than the original anyway.
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Thanks everyone.

    Update: Pretty much finished modeling on the dome. Still have the connector from the dome to the ship to do, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Looking at screen grabs from the movie, I noticed there are panel lines on the side and bottom of the dome, so added those too.

    Al
  • BrandenbergBrandenberg1655 CaliforniaPosts: 1,937Member
    Nice! Looking good! :thumb:
  • StarshipStarship464 São Paulo - BrasilPosts: 1,976Member
    Looks EXCELLENT, better than the original, at least for my taste. ;)
  • alonzo11208alonzo11208171 Posts: 0Member
    Jeez! that looks great! Love the "greeble" you have there. And honestly those domes themselves can go a long way on being used in other fashions, like a habitat station of sorts, or a colony/generation ship.

    Great work!
  • TALON_UKTALON_UK2 Posts: 0Member
    Fantastic work. Looks great, loving the attention to detail.
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Hey, thanks for the kind words folks.

    So, I have finished modeling the dome. I am not sure how much further I will be taking this model as good reference photos and drawings are pretty scarce. I have created an OBJ version of the dome and will be uploading it to the downloads section tomorrow. It's been going for around an hour and a half already (it's a large file), and I need to go to bed.

    Anyway, here is an image of the final model.

    Al
  • TALON_UKTALON_UK2 Posts: 0Member
    Looking good. So are you not planning to do the rest of the ship?
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    If I can get better references, I will. I have even sent an e-mail to Douglas Trumbell asking if he had any good reference photos. Haven't heard anything back yet.
  • rtrowbridgertrowbridge171 Posts: 0Member
    Treybor at Foundation3d.com did a very detailed Valley Forge. Message #23 in the link below has a link to his references.

    http://www.foundation3d.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6906&highlight=%22valley+forge%22
  • TralfazTralfaz412 Posts: 846Member
    Thanks rtrowbridge for that link. Treybor had a great package of photos. I may just have to give the rest of the ship a go.

    I started the upload of the dome to the downloads section last night and let it run. I came home from work today, 17 hours after I had started the upload, and it was still running! Don't think that is quite right. Killed the upload and will try again later. I don't remember it being this slow for the other models I've uploaded. :confused:

    Al
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