I think the current detail level is a pretty good balance between detail and poly count for HD resolutions. Looking to weigh about 1-1.2M polys when finished the features are rendered sufficiently small as to look good so long as you aren't trying to fly into the hangars or otherwise get very close to the mesh. That kind of shot would require a closeup model of some subsection of the ship.
I'm not sure how well it holds up at 4k, though it seems like such displays are rare and will probably stay so for a while.
that looks like an awesome model, how do you achieve that much detail. doing all the inside would be amazing aswell. i ought to do something like this.
Detailing is a whole lot of small objects scaled and overlapping one another, then clumps of these are placed on the ship and adapted to their position. I have 10 or so primitives I use to create most of the detail. On that note though the file has a very large object count which is starting to strain MAX on my 32-bit system.
I actually have the ship complete now but it's a real pain to get a rendering in the model's current state. Some cleanup and I can probably get good renderings in a few days.
The size is approximately 4km. As for class name, perhaps something like majestic or valiant? Or perhaps something more sinister like vengeance or fury (implying it can quickly drain its energy reserves).
I'm working on combining objects and hope to be ready for rigging at the close of the weekend. It's easy to add stuff to the mesh regardless of what stage it's in though. What kind of missile clusters are you thinking about? Anti-fighter missiles would be too small to see on this scale. I could put some anti-ship missiles/torpedoes in but those would probably take the form of a tube (with actual torpedoes stored inside of the hull) to protect them from fighter attacks.
I managed to get the file size down to 55MB from 240MB - much easier to handle now. Exact same polygons just grouped differently with modifiers collapsed.
The final poly count turned out a bit lower than originally predicted - only 770339 (almost entirely quads, a few tris too - no ngons).
saw the latest images. fantastic, but try to put some more details in those large empty spaces, perhaps some turrets or aerials, hangar doors or some bulges, perhaps more windows or a section of deck jutting out of the sloping hull. very good detail on the bridge and turrets.
I wanted to go for a Star Destroyer look, primarily large flat planes of armor occasionally interrupted with small bumps, all of which surrounds "cliff dwellings" of detailed areas. I love adding detail but I'm afraid that breaking up the flat areas too much will reduce the ship to a clump of objects that no longer has well-defined lines.
What I would need to do is reduce the size of the hull panels and then turn some of the larger bumps into recognizable functional pieces, but still small enough that they don't amount to much more than small bumps or slightly raised areas from a distance. Perhaps I'll play with this more once I get a new rig - for now I'm getting close to the limits of my system.
paneling was done with cut to hand-draw the lines and extrude to pull up the pieces. Cut does some annoying things though like leaving extra vertices around so there was some cleaning in between these steps. I also varied the extrude height a bit for variety and even left some panels out altogether. It might look a bit better to vary the color from panel to panel as well, maybe with 3 slightly different shades - I haven't experimented with this yet though.
Grats on making the Featured Threads list! This is a very cool-looking ship, though I think the underside looks a little *too* busy with all the terraces in all directions. It's better balanced than a Star Destroyer (which I still don't get why it had no ventral batteries at all), though with this ship, it's hard to tell which part of it you're looking at because it's so busy.
Not that this is a totally bad thing - and I don't have anywhere near the patience needed to build anything similar. All that greeble *shudder*...
Anyway, nice ship, hope to see more, maybe something smaller like an escort, perhaps even some fighters to go with it? Good luck!
I've been working on a nicer render using the cloud tutorial from this site (adapted to MAX 2008, it's missing some of the features in 2009 but I sort of have it working). I still need to tweak things a bit though.
As for support ships I did some a while back - not quite as nice but probably worth mentioning.
I'm working on a video of the mesh as well, no background just some closeups of the geometry - taking a while to render but maybe done in a couple of days.
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Congrats on well deserved the header.
I'm not sure how well it holds up at 4k, though it seems like such displays are rare and will probably stay so for a while.
To me she looks like the flagship of some wealthy sector fleet. Something analog to Imperial mainstream.
Once finished, do you have a name for is Class ? And a size for ?
:thumb:
I actually have the ship complete now but it's a real pain to get a rendering in the model's current state. Some cleanup and I can probably get good renderings in a few days.
The size is approximately 4km. As for class name, perhaps something like majestic or valiant? Or perhaps something more sinister like vengeance or fury (implying it can quickly drain its energy reserves).
The final poly count turned out a bit lower than originally predicted - only 770339 (almost entirely quads, a few tris too - no ngons).
the most recently completed work:
afhbc2012_update7_aft.jpg
some other views:
afhbc2012_update7_upper_fore.jpg
afhbc2012_update7_upper_aft.jpg
afhbc2012_update7_front.jpg
afhbc2012_update7_typical.jpg
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
What I would need to do is reduce the size of the hull panels and then turn some of the larger bumps into recognizable functional pieces, but still small enough that they don't amount to much more than small bumps or slightly raised areas from a distance. Perhaps I'll play with this more once I get a new rig - for now I'm getting close to the limits of my system.
Not that this is a totally bad thing - and I don't have anywhere near the patience needed to build anything similar. All that greeble *shudder*...
Anyway, nice ship, hope to see more, maybe something smaller like an escort, perhaps even some fighters to go with it? Good luck!
As for support ships I did some a while back - not quite as nice but probably worth mentioning.
Station:
g34_new.jpg
Destroyer:
destroyers_at_firey_planet.jpg
Frigate:
aff_asteroids.jpg
Interceptor:
AFI_HANGAR.jpg
Outpost and Frigate:
afo_space.jpg
I'm working on a video of the mesh as well, no background just some closeups of the geometry - taking a while to render but maybe done in a couple of days.
[video=youtube_share;YP7bRlyM3Mc]
This gets closer than I intended for normal renders, but shows the geometry up-close.
It goes all the way up to 1080p.
Daaayyuuumm!
Very nice work.