Edit: when I first started this post years ago, I was not good at materials at all, so the first few posts here are not the greatest. But I've since learned much more, so this is the quality I'm going for for ships going forward:
Hello! New to this forum. My 3D work isn't nearly as detailed as most of the amazing stuff on here, partly because I'm working on all of it on not-the-strongest-of laptops. I made the 2D scale charts for the
StarCraft Field Manual book, which you can
see here, but I also always wanted to make my own StarCraft animation, as I was very inspired by the original game's cinematics, as well as some of the fan-made work by Freespace a few years ago. At the moment I'm working on a space battle animation, but I also plan to use my models in a nice chart or animation just showing the scale of all the ships. Here's a sampling of some of my models, in WIP stages, and an old Firefly in there as well:
Currently everything I do is pretty low-poly, which also gives me hope of sometime partnering with someone to make a realtime mockup, maybe just in Unity or something, so that people could fly around and see the sizes for themselves. Since I will have all the models anyway.
This is a pretty long, drawn out process for me, but I plan to keep steadily adding to my chart over time, and to post my first space battle animation here as well when it's finished!
Here are a couple of other small tests:
Posts
The next unit to be added will be the Goliath walker. It's just about 5m tall, so, smaller than an AT-ST (supposedly 8.6m tall). The model is in very early stages:
A lot of this is just planning the overall shape, and how stocky it should be (the original model in SC1 was much leggier). I may lengthen the legs and scale down the cockpit to maintain the height.
Additionally, today I downloaded Unity for the first time, and was able to get my models running in real time! So the 3D size comparison will almost certainly be interactive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUJ10i44eKU
Right now when I record the screen the framerate gets really terrible, so I'll be looking into alternate capture software... It looks much smoother in person.
In my first released demo I plan to have two capital-sized ships, the other being a science vessel (in early stages, with my orthographic concept as a reference plane in the middle):
Then you'll be able to take off from one ship's hangar and land in another. Should be fun.
SC2 changes things up a bit with the designs looking less thrown-together and a bit more advanced. At some point I'm going to make models of the SC2 ships, since the SC2 models are the only ones I discussed official sizes for with Blizzard, and for the most part they're meant to retcon the originals out of existence.
The Behemoth-class battlecruiser in my demo here is about the size of a Star Destroyer (~1250m I think is what I made it), but that's an unofficial size, and in the original games its a different scale in every cutscene, they weren't consistent. The actual approved size for the SC2 version of the Behemoth-class is around 980m.
^The SC2 one will be much smaller than that.
I really should be working more on finishing up the rest of the SC models, but I just saw the Force Awakens and it's really making me itch to add in some Star Wars stuff... The new Star Destroyer design is apparently 2,916m long! Not sure if I'll let myself be distracted or not.
Really happy with how the Zerg will look in this demo.
Most of the above models still have unfinished textures, so they aren't in yet.
Rear view (seen when flying it):
Front:
Angle:
The next thing I have to work on is the metalness map for the PBR shader. Right now you can just barely see I have streaks of grime in the diffuse map because they aren't breaking up the specular hightlights at all. And I'll add more drips and rust, and maybe some more rivets and seams as well.
The original design also has turbine vanes at the front of the engine... so, what, are they supposed to turn in space as well? I'll probably texture them on but leave them not moving.
http://i.imgur.com/10qSGXy.png
And with the beginnings of painting the bump map:
http://i.imgur.com/nswryKF.png
I've also got some higher detail models in the works, for animations and such, but I poke away really slowly at these, as, you know, life and work get in the way.
And a terran character in progress
This is the level of render quality I'd like to achieve across the board!
Join our fancy Discord Server!
Here is another wraith texturing update, with some more matte paint. Looks less accurate to the original, which was unpainted rust-streaked bare metal, but probably looks better. I think it still feels very Starcraft-y overall.
Ref:
Here is a bit of progress on the supply depot in substance painter.
https://gfycat.com/angelicimpeccablefoxhound
Here is a little more progress, nearly done with the depot.
Frequent updates at our Discord channel!
In the mean time, another Zerg in progress... texturing the classic hydralisk design from the original game.
This model is absolutely my best work. The only problem with it is I can't really use it alongside my older models because the quality is such a step up.
I do want to add some more organs/veins/xenomorphy variation in that fleshy neck/torso area! And then still need to add detail in the mouth.