Thanks, dude. It's a linear fall-off. Quickest to set up. I could get it messing around with inverse or inversed squared eventually, but this less hassle, eh. deg
deg3D - that ship is amazing. Self-light and still true to the spirit of the Enterprise... There are improvements (visible phasers, rcs thrusters, etc.) but none of it detracts one bit from the ship. She's recognizable and real-looking. If this were the model used on TV or in the movie, I could see it as a real ship. Excellent work!
Well, that's definitely workable... looks nice, makes sense, etc. And per "tradition," I'm very happy with the "re-copper-ized" dish. I like your dish detailing, but the color really makes a difference, so this is just about perfect. Of course, you know that there's gotta be "quibbling" no matter what, right? Get one detail right and the next one gets questioned... I'm curious about the dorsal docking port. It just seems a bit... "bold." Any chance of making it a bit more subtle? I see something that looks (in the side view you just posted) like a big heavy black outline all around it. Similarly, with the "gangway hatch." the lighting around that makes it seem a bit too glaring. (More like a neon sign than anything else.) Particularly since nobody ever just "docks" there (it's only for use in drydock/spacedock situations, after all!) there's not much reason to play it up to that extent, is there? Beyond that, and the aft area of the B/C deck "ring" I mentioned earlier... and of course my preference for the old-style typeface, granted... I'd say this is just about PERFECT for a "big-screen-ready" version of the TOS ship.
I realize these are really just WIP images but one suggestion I would make is to tone down your specular bloom, especially on the windows. In reality, the amount of light spilling out of those windows should be nowhere near bright enough to cause that effect. It should be reserved for things much further toward the high end of the dynamic range like navigational beacons or sunlight reflected off the hull. Another suggestion, if you haven't thought of it already, is to put some more normal lighting on the ship before you finalize your brightness and falloff settings for the self-illumination as ambient lighting conditions could make it look very different than it does in darkness. Awesome work. Keep it up!
Thanks all, glad you likey. Posted a couple more shots back there along with the others... Thanks, Cary. Oh sure sure, there always room for improvement in someone's eyes, even mine as time passes. But for now, I gotta git 'er done and updated on my reel to go get work. This redo is the last thing I wanted to finish up before sending me reel out to find more work. Art is rarely finished, more abandoned. I have tried to work in as much time as I can for my (our) gal, but she can't turn into a never-ending project, for the sake of finding more work. Overall, I'm pretty happy with her... for now, LOL. The dark outline you are seeing is the twin red circle outline stripes, per TMP-E dock. It's a clone of the dock. As to the "gangway hatch" lighting, I concur 100%. I meant to dial it down and maybe even kill it altogether, but that detail got missed on my continually updated project E "to-do" list. Thanks, my friend. Yeah, every single thing that lights up on this gal, be it lights, lum surfaces, bloom/glows, you name it, if they light up or glow, they're all linked to a series of heads-up display slider controls, for the ease of adjustment per any given lighting scenario. So yeah, again, another thing I meant to dial down, but forgot to. I'm a big proponent of "less is more" insofar as when going for photo-realism. Just because you can do something. doesn't mean you should, or at least as much. Always a sign of a newbie to overdo stuff. Thanks for the reminder there, V. Other eyes: always a good thing. deg
This is really good, but the bussards need work. They should be lit from within, and be much much brighter (should be lighting up the trailing edge of the saucer). The color needs adjusting too (a bright orange with a bit of red in it).
Thanks, guys. Well, I'll have to disagree, for my own reasons, darkwing_duck1. For one, I am not trying to re-create the old bussard efx. Way too x-mas tree-light cheesy for my tastes. I am attempting to keep with the basic feel, but update it to my tastes. I will say this, they are lit from within, and they pulse, and this render frame caught them perhaps at a lower brightness. At max, they are very bright, as bright as I want to go without them becoming garish and overdone, to my tastes. As to the color, again, these are my take, and toned down and away purposely from the multi-colored x-mas light classic efx. That I will not do, ever. Copper dish, yes. X-mas bussards, never. I may add a light to simulate the radosity efx of light coming from them onto the hull though, as I don't render with radosity. Good call, thanks. Thanks again, guys! deg
Did you makes this like suggestion, Disillusioned? I must have missed it. I'll read back. If so, great minds, eh... deg
Well, I'm anxious to see an animation of how those are going to look. Any chance of putting one up sometime soon-ish? The "front dome" effect is one of those things that really is "most likely to be reinterpreted," I think... and it all comes down to what you choose to treat the domes as. For me, they'll always be "gas collectors" so whatever is in there, it needs to look like there's superheated gas swirling inside (something that the TOS effect did quite well, IMHO) This was my main quibble with Gabe's take... and with that of many others. I don't care for "glowy mechanical bits." The "glow" should be coming from the hot gas, as far as I'm concerned. That fact that it flashes and sparks and so forth is fine... that's what real plasma tends to look like in similar situations. Still... on Vega, I did my own "gas intake" effect using an animated "3D texture" in Maya, which I was very happy with (and once I get my new system up and running, I do plan to finish that!). Here's a shot of the Vega's nacelle (replicated twice, of course!) The "TNG-era glowing primary-color red orbs" never really worked for me, because it never felt like anything except "red L.E.D.s." (Which, of course, it was, essentially!) Something dynamic has to be happening there. So, let's see your "dynamics," shall we?
Ah, I see ya did. I was taking a queue from a mention (and posted pic) of the Kelvin hull lights, and I guess you mentioned it as well. I just figured the simplest and most practical as far as realism solution would be off to the sides, given the curvature of the nacelles, this angle of attack. Good thinkin' on your part. deg
I agree, Cary. And I think I've come close to that. I like them now, but I have another idea, that would take a long time to set-up. I'll see if I have to resort to that in the end. I'll render up as-is, and let you guys have a look-see. As to you posted take there, that just screams computer-generated procedural texture to me. I can't stand seeing procedurals used so obviously. Sorry. As far as TNG-eaa bussards, NEMESIS did a pretty decent job of moving the gases around inside the red, IMO. deg
For what it's worth, my own take on the "front dome effect" is that they're covers for the high powered gamma ray lasers that are used to ionize the gas ahead of the ship. They're opaque to the visible spectrum but not gamma rays. However, due to the power levels involved the cover will fluoresce when one of the beams is fired through it. Thus, what we're seeing is the residual fluorescent glow produced as a side effect of the array of gamma ray lasers behind the dome firing. (The gas itself is sucked in through the grilles behind the dome) That's my pseudo-scientific take on it anyhow.
Personally, I've never really liked the idea of those domes being bussard collectors, even though I usually refer to them as such along with everyone else. That notion was introduced in TNG and somehow got applied retroactively. I prefer Aridas Sofia's take on them, inspired by the Franz Joseph technical manual, as space energy/matter sinks containing a cluster of micro-singularities winking in and out of existence. What exactly does that do? Well, I suppose it's the warp physics analogue to a jet intake, while the sphere at the aft end of the nacelle is a corresponding space matter/energy restoration component, analogous to a jet exhaust. Bussard collectors were derived from the concept of a bussard ramjet, a type of rocket that uses powerful electromagnets to suck in ionized interstellar hydrogen and use it as propellant. In the Trek universe, warp engines are not rockets, hydrogen burning or otherwise, so why mount bussard collectors on the front of them? Supposedly the hydrogen they draw in provides the bulk of the matter reactants for the ship's matter/anti-matter reactor, but it still makes little sense to mount them on the warp nacelles, especially in the TNG era where the reactor is known to reside in the engineering hull. Even if we stick with established canon and allow that that's what they were on TNG era vessels, there's nothing official to say that's what the glowing, spinning domes were back in the TOS era.
Definitely looking forward to seeing it. "Static" images never tell the whole story, do they? No problem. You're a far more talented rendering-guy than I am (we've all gotta know our strengths and weaknesses, after all!) That's why I'm always saying that I'm in it for the technical side of things, not to make "movie-quality renderable" artwork (which is clearly what your point is!) If I can make my renders better-looking as time goes by, I'll be happy, but I'll leave the sort of "looks like it's real" stuff to those who have the time, knowledge, and inclination to devote their lives to that pursuit. That said... the IDEA there, of having super-heated gas (essentially "flames" albeit not from combustion) swirling through, hotter at the "tip" than further back, is what I wanted, and what I achieved. Could it be done better? Oh, I have no doubt that someone who's a professional-level rendering guru could take that idea and run with it and turn it into something utterly real-looking. Think of what you see there as an "animatic," I suppose. Hey, didn't you know... this is the TrekBBS, where it's a capital offense to say that you liked ANYTHING about that flick. (Personally, despite its flaws, I LIKED Nemesis... a lot more than I liked this latest "reboot" flick.)
It is, of course, your artistic vision and your call. My problem with the bussards was mainly in the "shine" on the tip, which to my eye looked like surface reflection from an outside light rather than interior glow. As opposed to, say, the sensor domes on the saucer, which (again to my eye) DO look interiorly lit. Bussard issues aside, this is still most excellent work!
I don't know what to say man. Lighting is everything in a good drama, and you've proven that THE Enterprise, has the potential of being movie quality. I can almost see your ship on the big screen, panning slowly across space, zooming in to see little people looking out the windows, and then pulling back as she flys out past Jupiter, leaving once more for another adventurous mission! Aaaah!!! I wanted to see her so bad on the big screen!!! sorry