StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Okay, these are the first batch from my second attempt to learn 3D Studio Max (Version 5.0)

The Connie is by Dennis Bailey, the planet is my own creation using a GeoSphere shape with the standard Blinn shader, to which I applied a Marble material (switching in a reddish color in favor of the standard beige.)

I then created a second Geosphere over the top of the first, assigning a yellowish Smoke map for the material and turning down the Blinn opacity to 17.

I'm not happy with how the lighting sources and targets matched up, and for some reason the skin of the Connie's hull looks different in shot 2 -- and I have no idea why. Oh well, that's part of the learning process. Here they are:



And



Let me know what you think of them.

Well, you still have to work on those lights... But keep practicing, that is the best advice.
Oh, and check the tutorials in Scifi-meshes.com, they teach how to do a proper planet, and have loads of Trek stuff.

Cool.

Yeah, I do need to work on the light sourcing. BTW, I'm still compositing backgrounds to objects, so that Connie is actually its own scene -- I had to guess where the sun should be according to where the sun was in the background pic. But I think I'm getting a little better with that.

Anyway, I'd also like to find a mesh of a TOS shuttlecraft to composit into shot 2 -- as you notice, the Connie's bay doors are open.

Credits ON THE IMAGES please.

tip for modelling: make the balls a higher number of divisions, and closer together so they look like an actual planet and atmosphere.

tip for texturing: get better textures, learn to do better planets. here: http://personal.southern.edu/~dascott/t ... -earth.htm

tip for rendering: turn down the antialiasing, its very blurry. remove that lense flare thing on the star.

two more things: stars overburn the stars, so you shouldnt be able to see them, not enough contrast.

also, the planet is getting lit from the bottom left, but the star is behind it!

kojikun wrote:tip for modelling: make the balls a higher number of divisions, and closer together so they look like an actual planet and atmosphere.

Good tip.

tip for texturing: get better textures, learn to do better planets. here: http://personal.southern.edu/~dascott/t ... -earth.htm

Thanks for the pointer, I'm reading it pretty much in between typing these responses.

tip for rendering: turn down the antialiasing, its very blurry. remove that lense flare thing on the star.

two more things: stars overburn the stars, so you shouldnt be able to see them, not enough contrast.

D'oh.

also, the planet is getting lit from the bottom left, but the star is behind it!

That I already knew.

Howedar wrote:Credits ON THE IMAGES please.

Photoshopping in credit text would mean making another picture for public display, and I don't plan to display more of my work for quite awhile, at least until I've addressed the concerns brought up here.

That far out from a planet you normally wouldn't be able to see the atmosphere to that degree...

Dalton wrote:That far out from a planet you normally wouldn't be able to see the atmosphere to that degree...

Thats moot. The atmosphere on earth is only 100km thick, the planet is a few ten thousands, so the only real atmosphere youd see even right up close would be a might smaller.

Yeah, I totally didn't scale that right.