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3DThe Star Wars Project

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  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    BigT wrote: »
    Sometimes it's good to pause and come back on the screen with "fresh" eyes :)

    That's very true. :)
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    Damn, since I had limited internet in summer, I missed this thread!

    Awesome models, I really like the Wild Karrde :thumb:

    And I read someone say that increasing the specular would make it look more metallic. Well, true, but that's not how Star Wars ships look, actually. When using Star Wars models, I generally make the specular profile very wide and extremely low, or even remove it completely. It looks much more like in the movies that way ;)
  • Did you make all the models yourself or did some come from other resources like SCIFI 3D? I like your landing gear mechanism test animation. You should try to let the big flat pads rotate a little bit and go flat when with some collision detection when they hit the ground. Just to give it a little more movement. Otherwise it's really good.
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    Uh.. I've missed to update this thread, sorry!

    First, thank you for discussion and hints, which led me to some important decisions how to proceed further.

    @Dark Sapiens: Some fellow members discussed the aspect of how to make the surface specular in an other thread in a similar manner. It's completely correct what you're saying. Though I've decided to go a different way for my project. I'm also a SW comic lover and I like different illustration styles. And to be honest: I'm afraid to stumble by trying to achieve the OT-Style. It's a thing of real props and settings, although some fan projects seems to match it very closely by CGI, which is nice to see.

    @George Mezori: Some of the models I made completely myself (Wilde Karrde, V38, Imperial Landing Craft) and also the landing gear mechanism. But I'll also use some of the really great models from SciFi3D in the project, f.e. Anselms fabulous Star Destroyer and the TIE's from James R. Bassett and other cool stuff. The Coruscant greeblie disc also inspired me to an epic expansion...
    It will be a pleasure to mention all this guys prominent in the project credits, and also to give my models free there after the project ;)

    Yeah, and here the latest progress on the Karrde. Working out the visual appearance from the front to the back.
    Initial "under the hood" greeblie work. Since all this models are destined to be mostly in motion, I go only as far as necessary with the details.
    103926.jpg103927.jpg103928.jpg
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    Looking good! :)

    And yes, I'm one of those people trying to imitate the OT style in their renders… :D If you like the look of the images in the links in my signature and want to know something more about them, don't hesitate to ask! (I've used Cinema 4D for those too)
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    Looking good! :)

    And yes, I'm one of those people trying to imitate the OT style in their rendersA… :D If you like the look of the images in the links in my signature and want to know something more about them, don't hesitate to ask! (I've used Cinema 4D for those too)

    Great! I specially like your animated sequence which is very well choreographed! And the look is really very OT like! :thumb:

    I usually make an additional very simple lo-poly version of each model, so that the later animations can be made and tested very quickly. Only when it comes to Dynamics it's better to use the final models from the beginning on, since the dynamic behavior depends on the models concrete mass and geometry.

    Do you use the Studio version of C4D? I think as an specialist in Astrophysics you must love that Dynamics feature! Ok, in a space battle without gravity that may not be quite as useful, but you never know...
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    BigT wrote: »
    Great! I specially like your animated sequence which is very well choreographed! And the look is really very OT like! :thumb:

    I usually make an additional very simple lo-poly version of each model, so that the later animations can be made and tested very quickly. Only when it comes to Dynamics it's better to use the final models from the beginning on, since the dynamic behavior depends on the models concrete mass and geometry.

    Do you use the Studio version of C4D? I think as an specialist in Astrophysics you must love that Dynamics feature! Ok, in a space battle without gravity that may not be quite as useful, but you never know...

    Thanks! :)

    And the thing is, I started using C4D as a hobby when I was in high school I think, with an old version (R8 or R9). Since I wanted to try a few quick things animating ships, I downloaded several models from SciFi3D.com and learned things about texturing and rearranging polygons and objects in order to fix many of the conversion errors, and also about lighting the scenes to try to make cool renders. I also used a couple of tricks in Expresso, Thinking Particles and such, but I never got around to properly learn how to model objects and didn't have Dynamics either. This is all I knew when I got involved in Threads of Destiny (the director recruited me in this forum, actually), and that project took almost all my 3D time for the following years so I didn't learn much more.

    Now that my work in ToD is done, and I have a Studio version of C4D R11.5 since a couple of years ago (with Dynamics!) I wanted to retake my Endor project to keep experimenting and learning as before. But as it turns out the life of a PhD student is much busier than being in college, so here I am, making extremely slow progress, and able to animate ships and render them with an OT look but can't make models and use cool features like Dynamics yet :P
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    Yeah, its a very time consuming hobby indeed ;)

    I have a (Swiss) profession degree in machine construction design but came to architecture ten years ago and made a lot of building visuals. During this time I never had the desire to do 3D also in my free time. It would have been just to much and I love my wife and my health ;)

    Since two years I'm professionally out of that task and reduced my employment on a part time system administrator job.
    Now I finally have a lot of time and the power to do my own 3D-thing and I will do this fan film project the next years.
    But after that I'm going to stop the virtual life, buy me a dog and just enjoy real life before it's definitely over ;)

    Hope you'll still find your way into Dynamics and Modeling, but considering your age there will be surely still enough chances to do so! Good luck for that and your studies! :)
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    Thanks! And good luck to you with this project and life in general! ;)

    It'll be sad when you stop your virtual life, but if you release the models after the project like you said before, you'll be remembered when we use them to make renders and animations and post them here :)
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    Thanks! And good luck to you with this project and life in general! ;)

    It'll be sad when you stop your virtual life, but if you release the models after the project like you said before, you'll be remembered when we use them to make renders and animations and post them here :)

    Thanks! :)
    I'll release my models for sure! But maybe Fractalspongue or some of the other supertalented folks will release much better models of the WK or V38 than mine in the meantime ;)
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    With the basic materialization of the WK the second last intermediate state of this project is reached.
    As a supporting actor in the background it's probably already suitable.

    But since it's to be a main actor I have to go to a much deeper level of detail that exists nowhere in the image.
    Less a problem of texturing, where you can still make more pronounced flaking and welts.
    But I think with the Greeblies you have to be pretty careful here. I recently saw an individualized plastic model of the WK, which looked terrible (in my eyes). Anyway, a good time for another project break ;)
    104064.jpg104065.jpg104066.jpg
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    Looks very good! :thumb:
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    For a certain animated scene I need a couple of less important "sidemen" around a Star Destroyer
    just to give the scene more spatial dynamics, which is known to be harder to achieve with only one ship.

    After spending several hours greebling my (CPU & brain burner) Coruscant model the last days, I felt the time was right to make a less exhausting quick and dirty build.

    So this came out what I call the "Lancer 'Bloodhound' Special Operations Vehicle".
    It will only be seen two or three seconds as a horde of a half dozend moving around the SD.
    The model is completely scratchbuild but contains two commercial mini-greeblie elements.
    And like all my stuff nothing's acurate in any way ;)
    104086.JPG104087.JPG
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    Lancer frigate variant, then? Very cool! : DDDD
  • spacefighterspacefighter2 Posts: 0Member
    nice work and a cool engine exhaust.
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    @DarkSapiens: Seems I'm only able to model variants due to less accuracy discipline... ;)

    @spacefighter: the exhaust was a lucky first try. I only placed a volumetric light inside and this brokes very cool on the bulges so I decided to keep this accidential effect :)
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    Yeah, the exhaust came out great. :thumb: The Wild Karrde looks great and I like the other ship too. Great stuff. :D
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    Yeah, the exhaust came out great. :thumb: The Wild Karrde looks great and I like the other ship too. Great stuff. :D

    Thank you evil_genius_180! :) :thumb:

    Over the holidays, I dealt for the first time in more detail with the particle system.
    The goal was to achieve a convincing acting traffic over Corsucant.

    I took the brilliant Corsucant Greeble Disc made by Luca Rodolfi, expanded it with an own greeble construction and put some of the great building models provided by scifi-3d (Willi, CButlerC, Dr. Jones) on it.


    It's only a cheap and low rendered feasibility study, not more. But I know now that it will work this way... ;)
    (!Attention! Sound included, and not a movie accurate one... forgive me please... :D)

    http://www.darth-vader.ch/tswp/previews/mov/imp_coruscant_ref_i_audio.m4v
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    Looking very good!

    Maybe the air traffic should be in more defined and narrow "lanes"? In the films it's organized that way :)
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    Looking very good!

    Maybe the air traffic should be in more defined and narrow "lanes"? In the films it's organized that way :)

    Yeah, exactly! I could not even talk to the Coruscant traffic officials, to learn how the traffic lanes are organized ;)
    For this test I just made four straight lanes (two with oncoming traffic) in the very upper area and individual lanes in lower area, where the ships fly on individual 'local roads'. I maybe should also organize this lower area even more strictly.
  • TALON_UKTALON_UK2 Posts: 0Member
    BigT wrote: »
    For a certain animated scene I need a couple of less important "sidemen" around a Star Destroyer
    just to give the scene more spatial dynamics, which is known to be harder to achieve with only one ship.

    After spending several hours greebling my (CPU & brain burner) Coruscant model the last days, I felt the time was right to make a less exhausting quick and dirty build.

    So this came out what I call the "Lancer 'Bloodhound' Special Operations Vehicle".
    It will only be seen two or three seconds as a horde of a half dozend moving around the SD.
    The model is completely scratchbuild but contains two commercial mini-greeblie elements.
    And like all my stuff nothing's acurate in any way ;)


    I really like what you've done with the Lancer, but from those windows along the side the scale looks a little off, it is only meant to be around 250 meters long.
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    TALON_UK wrote: »
    I really like what you've done with the Lancer, but from those windows along the side the scale looks a little off, it is only meant to be around 250 meters long.

    Yes, that's what I was thinking about lately when I placed it next to a SD. Thanks! :thumb:
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    After a break due to job change I went ahead with the project. One problem I still had, is the very nice but too less detailed and resolved Imperial Shuttle from the SciFi3D repository. That model I could not use prominent in focus or foreground of a (Full-HD) scene. So I decided, like quite a few here, to make a completely new model.

    As an example, I take mainly the "slender" version, as described in theforce.net. Some things I do as always a little different (it should not be the Tydirium) and stretch the ship slightly. In terms of an old beauty, I want more a '68 Ford Mustang than a '64 ;)

    There is still some work to do.
    104560.jpg104561.jpg
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    That is very cool :)
    Nice details! I wish I could do modeling too :D
  • TALON_UKTALON_UK2 Posts: 0Member
    You've made a great looking start to this classic ship. Good luck with it.
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    Thank you!
    Yes its great fun to try on this classic, a real modeling festival ;)
    It's of course an advantage that there are so many available models and pictures of this ship for reference.
    I've worked a bit on the front today. Again, no claim for film accuracy… I wouldn't come to an end… ;)
    104571.jpg104572.jpg
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    It's looking great so far. :)
  • BigTBigT77 Posts: 95Member
    Thank you! :)

    Again I have to say, it's much easier to create such a well known object, because there are so many resources that you can benefit from. Lately I encountered the fantastic model made by Christian Frohlich and I freely admit to have copied a lot from his interpretation. My special thanks to him that he has presented his beautiful work in such detail!

    When I first studied the bottom structure I thought, oh my god, that requires a huge effort.
    But then it was faster made than expected. Some other existing details have been corrected.

    Next stage now is the wings, and finally the (automated) landing gear.
    104666.jpg104667.jpg104668.jpg104669.jpg104670.jpg
  • DarkSapiensDarkSapiens174 Posts: 0Member
    Amazing details, great work :)
  • TALON_UKTALON_UK2 Posts: 0Member
    Excellent, that's looking sweet.

    :thumb:
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