The raised bump in the first shot IS the dance-floor. It's modeled after what I've seen in various banquet halls (Background: been in three weddings). I actually like the idea of a centralized bar so I'm going to rearrange the top level. This ship seems to violate a lot of "Imperial" rules about interiors, but who cares :P
Between switching back to drawing plating (boring!) and preparing for my relocation to Boston (first day of my job is June 20th) this ship hasn't seen much work. However, I did rework the bar and throw it onto the lower level.
Yes, it took me a year but I finally did all that f---ing hull plating. Only to be stabbed in the back by Rhino 5 and its projection issues (the projected curves landed on the surface but the extrusions ended up partially underneath). You can see this as the plating disappears into the hull. Don't know how to fix it, and honestly have given up.
Probably just going to paper over and install stuff on top of those areas (and delete the plating).
Between switching back to drawing plating (boring!) and preparing for my relocation to Boston (first day of my job is June 20th) this ship hasn't seen much work. However, I did rework the bar and throw it onto the lower level.
u know htere isnt any room for the people to walk to the chairs right? looks like they gotta clime over the counters to get to them
Apparently, the surface I used as a reference to create the plating (Duplicate edges of hull, run patch) is different than the hull which was created from EdgSrf commands... Once I replaced the existing hull with sections crafted from the patch command, this was the result.
Guess who's back in business, courtesy of Rhino 3D 5.0 x64 and V-Ray?
No more conversion mess, no more waiting hours to do anything, no more "conserve memory." Quite the contrary, Rhino uses ~13GB (of 16GB) during "building geometry list." Better to use it, right? The entire project may now be worked on in ONE app--which means I will actually continue this 35km behemoth!
That I wrote fanfiction involving it (unbelievably, it gets blown up) probably helps.
If I actually complete this monster (which is now actually technologically possible), this thread title's gonna look dumb. I might have to request someone change it...
The ship's gotten so big that I've had to split it like my Curator into multiple files--hull, guns, plating (several!), greebles... Otherwise, the main work file takes several minutes to save on a RAID5 array. The plating files are ~700MB, the greeble and gun files are ~150MB each, and the main work file is still 50MB.
The "greeble work file" has the main hull as a reference plus greebles--this is what you're seeing now (it's easier to work on this way).
Once finalized, the placeholder hull will be deleted.
In the mean time while I sort out how to make this render work (currently it runs my 16GB RAM right out and crashes)--this ship goes with a fanfiction I wrote. Only needs to have its engines lit, otherwise it's basically done.
Aspirations Toward Infinity Class Dreadnaught
- Fusion of Star Wars (far future from the "long time ago") and Mass Effect technology.
- Quad Tantalus drive cores
- Triple 3km-long main guns (12,500km effective range)
- Turbolasers for defense
Designed to kill Reapers.
Modeled and textured in Rhino 5 x64; textures made using FilterForge except for the logo. Bonus points to anyone who recognizes what it is derived from.
Here's something else to tide people over. I was going to show off the almost completely plated top side of my Revenant Class, but until that out-of-memory error is addressed, I cannot.
Right-click and view in new tab for full resolution.
The above render took hours (the longest one I've ever done!) V-Ray saves the day (lighting engines). Of course, I was doing this on a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo (desktop is way faster)...
There's some plating missing here and it shows. That's what I was wanting to post here--that I did, after literally years, finish the extremely tedious task of plating over most of this ship!
I'll never match fractalsponge's speed, but I still aspire to make something 10% as awesome as what he does.
Somewhat embarrassingly, my desktop is a bit difficult to use right now as it is stored in the basement and if I want to fire it up, I have to drag a 75LB machine up two flights of stairs. Plus a monitor, router, keyboard, cables, powerstrip...
Bit of a disincentive (hence the work slowdown/stoppage).
Some amount of massive chewing later (fix for out-of-memory: reset V-Ray to defaults)...
There are more guns along the center. Other than that, suggestions welcome. Not sure why the ship has "spots" in the render toward the back. I'm thinking of increasing the greeble density in some areas.
remember, more greebles mean more trouble for your machine... There's a quite physical limitation to the virtual fantasy. Unless you want to send your machine to happy hunting ground of computers, forever hunting after the latest and most juicy upgrades over vast and lush steppes of energy, riding on bytghning fast horses...
Still, if fractal can suffer through 12 hour renders, my 2.5 hour render (above) isn't that big of a deal...
Now, as for actually working on the file--there's a nasty problem if I've ever seen one. File-save times have become an annoyance, so I create a Work File, then Work File 2 with an instance of Work File (Work File 2 saves really fast), ad naseum. Once done, I paste ALL of these into a Final File, which is then instanced into the Main File.
So we have...
[Main File]
--Guns
--Plating, Top
--Plating, Center
--Plating, Bottom
--Shield Generators/Sensor Domes/Weather Vanes :P
--Greebles
----Greebles Work File
Greebles Work File, Fast
You can see how absurd this is getting.
Good excuse to buy an SSD...
EDIT: After poring over under-construction shots from fractal's Assertor, I've figured out why despite being "inspired" by him, my ship doesn't feel like a proper homage--my greebles (especially those on the center spine) are too big, detracting from the feeling of size. Furthermore, my original additional greebles were very rounded and fluid, not square/rectangular. Of course, it's pretty obvious the latter is more in line with Star Wars Imperial than the former.
I used to have this. compare01.jpg
I now have this (minus plating--which has to be redone--argh). fractal-ing01.png
I am calling these renders "fractal-ing" (aka add insane numbers of greebles). The bridge area of this ship looks the best to me detail-wise and I figured out if I force myself to work on one small area instead of trying to spray details onto the whole ship, it comes out much better. bridge.jpg
Posts
Between switching back to drawing plating (boring!) and preparing for my relocation to Boston (first day of my job is June 20th) this ship hasn't seen much work. However, I did rework the bar and throw it onto the lower level.
Good luck with the move!
The purple trench-work is done completely with scripts (unlike Ansel's god-forsakenly-complicated hand-done, library-based greebles).
This ship is so big I don't forsee too many close-in shots.
Still only 6 million polys.
New computer guts!
i7 2600k @ 4.4GHz (Hyper 212+)
16GB RAM
Dell UltraSharp 24" 1920x1200
Everything else is the same
Yes, it took me a year but I finally did all that f---ing hull plating. Only to be stabbed in the back by Rhino 5 and its projection issues (the projected curves landed on the surface but the extrusions ended up partially underneath). You can see this as the plating disappears into the hull. Don't know how to fix it, and honestly have given up.
Probably just going to paper over and install stuff on top of those areas (and delete the plating).
u know htere isnt any room for the people to walk to the chairs right? looks like they gotta clime over the counters to get to them
Good luck with the plating...
As they say in the commercial (or did, I'm not sure if it's still on): the revisions to this project...are going to be HEFTY HEFTY HEFTY!
Apparently, the surface I used as a reference to create the plating (Duplicate edges of hull, run patch) is different than the hull which was created from EdgSrf commands... Once I replaced the existing hull with sections crafted from the patch command, this was the result.
Did not realize the "click to expand" thing was gone.
3000 x Something
5000 x Something
No more conversion mess, no more waiting hours to do anything, no more "conserve memory." Quite the contrary, Rhino uses ~13GB (of 16GB) during "building geometry list." Better to use it, right? The entire project may now be worked on in ONE app--which means I will actually continue this 35km behemoth!
That I wrote fanfiction involving it (unbelievably, it gets blown up) probably helps.
http://sdrv.ms/17K96BB
Trench Greebles.png
The ship's gotten so big that I've had to split it like my Curator into multiple files--hull, guns, plating (several!), greebles... Otherwise, the main work file takes several minutes to save on a RAID5 array. The plating files are ~700MB, the greeble and gun files are ~150MB each, and the main work file is still 50MB.
The "greeble work file" has the main hull as a reference plus greebles--this is what you're seeing now (it's easier to work on this way).
Once finalized, the placeholder hull will be deleted.
In the mean time while I sort out how to make this render work (currently it runs my 16GB RAM right out and crashes)--this ship goes with a fanfiction I wrote. Only needs to have its engines lit, otherwise it's basically done.
Aspirations Toward Infinity Class Dreadnaught
- Fusion of Star Wars (far future from the "long time ago") and Mass Effect technology.
- Quad Tantalus drive cores
- Triple 3km-long main guns (12,500km effective range)
- Turbolasers for defense
Designed to kill Reapers.
Modeled and textured in Rhino 5 x64; textures made using FilterForge except for the logo. Bonus points to anyone who recognizes what it is derived from.
Right-click and view in new tab for full resolution.
[IMG]http://www.alliancemodding.com/sovereign/Aspirations 8.png[/IMG]
The above render took hours (the longest one I've ever done!) V-Ray saves the day (lighting engines). Of course, I was doing this on a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo (desktop is way faster)...
[IMG]http://www.alliancemodding.com/sovereign/Giant Render 5.png[/IMG]
There's some plating missing here and it shows. That's what I was wanting to post here--that I did, after literally years, finish the extremely tedious task of plating over most of this ship!
I'll never match fractalsponge's speed, but I still aspire to make something 10% as awesome as what he does.
Somewhat embarrassingly, my desktop is a bit difficult to use right now as it is stored in the basement and if I want to fire it up, I have to drag a 75LB machine up two flights of stairs. Plus a monitor, router, keyboard, cables, powerstrip...
Bit of a disincentive (hence the work slowdown/stoppage).
There are more guns along the center. Other than that, suggestions welcome. Not sure why the ship has "spots" in the render toward the back. I'm thinking of increasing the greeble density in some areas.
[IMG]http://www.alliancemodding.com/sovereign/Giant Render 6.png[/IMG]
uh, sorry....
Still, if fractal can suffer through 12 hour renders, my 2.5 hour render (above) isn't that big of a deal...
Now, as for actually working on the file--there's a nasty problem if I've ever seen one. File-save times have become an annoyance, so I create a Work File, then Work File 2 with an instance of Work File (Work File 2 saves really fast), ad naseum. Once done, I paste ALL of these into a Final File, which is then instanced into the Main File.
So we have...
[Main File]
--Guns
--Plating, Top
--Plating, Center
--Plating, Bottom
--Shield Generators/Sensor Domes/Weather Vanes :P
--Greebles
----Greebles Work File
Greebles Work File, Fast
You can see how absurd this is getting.
Good excuse to buy an SSD...
EDIT: After poring over under-construction shots from fractal's Assertor, I've figured out why despite being "inspired" by him, my ship doesn't feel like a proper homage--my greebles (especially those on the center spine) are too big, detracting from the feeling of size. Furthermore, my original additional greebles were very rounded and fluid, not square/rectangular. Of course, it's pretty obvious the latter is more in line with Star Wars Imperial than the former.
compare01.jpg
I now have this (minus plating--which has to be redone--argh).
fractal-ing01.png
I am calling these renders "fractal-ing" (aka add insane numbers of greebles). The bridge area of this ship looks the best to me detail-wise and I figured out if I force myself to work on one small area instead of trying to spray details onto the whole ship, it comes out much better.
bridge.jpg