3d artists on ATS?

That's the finished version, kinda disappointed, but on a deadline. Mother's day gift, now I need to print it out and hope it comes out close....... Stuff I print out always seems to come out way darker than what it is on screen. I guess I need to go and spend a huge chunk of change next on a pro monitor, and a pro calibrator for it next. That comes after I upgrade my PCU though, I want a good i7 bad, and I got to upgrade my motherboard first. Always more and more when it comes to computer hardware lol. I wish I had a good 20 grand to blow on a monster system at once

a reply to: TKDRL

Nice. Hair is such a pain in the ass. Maya hair looks amazing if you can get it right, but I find I struggle with it. I guess that's why there are people out there who do nothing BUT maya hair and make a good living doing it.

a reply to: DeadSeraph

Although I can not operate the software for creating 3d models and able to show you things I do like this thread.

SnF

Some of what I've been working on lately for CBS/Paramount, yes I can show the vessel.. the graphics on the NC 10 and NX 01 were provided by the ubertalented Michael Okuda..

Of course a planet in progress

a reply to: vkey08

Thanks vkey8, that looks really and very cool...

Any chance you know what designtools are used for such stunning pictures?

a reply to: DeadSeraph
I am hoping the more I use it, the easier it will get lol. For now it is painstaking. Tweak a setting, test render, tweak a setting more, test render. Over and over until I get it right or I run out of time and go with what I got.

originally posted by: zatara
a reply to: vkey08

Thanks vkey8, that looks really and very cool...

Any chance you know what designtools are used for such stunning pictures?

Lightwave 3D, is the program I use to make the models and the shots, I clean up a lot o stuff for stills in Photoshop afterwards, pretty simple pipeline, i'm not an animator so they use other programs after LW than i would.. I'm just a modeler..

a reply to: vkey08

Pretty awesome. What is your texturing process like? Do you paint right on the model and use photoshop for other things? I like to use zbrush's polypaint feature for a lot of texture work and noticed you didn't mention it. Also curious if you use anything to sculpt finer details for a normal map or if it's all modeled right in lightwave?

Very nice work at any rate. I'm hoping I can one day become skilled enough to make some money doing this stuff. Seems like the market is being crowded more and more these days, as every 13 year old call of duty kid and his dog wants to make video games for a living now.

I like doing textures, specially guys actually ( girls are too pretty )

I like organic stuff modeling and never really into space stuff which VKey does amazing !
You can easily ruin the excellent model with lousy textures and many lowpoly models are saved with excellent texture details.

originally posted by: DeadSeraph
a reply to: vkey08

Pretty awesome. What is your texturing process like? Do you paint right on the model and use photoshop for other things? I like to use zbrush's polypaint feature for a lot of texture work and noticed you didn't mention it. Also curious if you use anything to sculpt finer details for a normal map or if it's all modeled right in lightwave?

Very nice work at any rate. I'm hoping I can one day become skilled enough to make some money doing this stuff. Seems like the market is being crowded more and more these days, as every 13 year old call of duty kid and his dog wants to make video games for a living now.

Textures are not painted right on these meshes because they need to be changed so often (damage etc) that it becomes a problem. They are all baked out from the software as a smooth radisoity map, then colored, detailed as needed, and applied via the Surfacing Editor to the mesh. All the little details are modeled, I hate using normal maps except for areas I'm too lazy to model or for things that don't need to be seen up close. For instance all of the rooms on this ship are actually modeled behind the windows, we can put digital people behind them and they cast the right shadows etc, if they were just textures we couldn't do that..

a reply to: vkey08
Wow, impressive. What is the poly count? Also is it all raw polygons, or is there some "nurbs" type trickery going on?

originally posted by: TKDRL
a reply to: vkey08
Wow, impressive. What is the poly count? Also is it all raw polygons, or is there some "nurbs" type trickery going on?

no nurbs/SubD in this, it's optimized for TV production, so we're just under 2.5 million for this version. She's a beast to be sure, but it shows in the renders that have been done in full HD and the print version ones at 7000x3500..

Now, the Relativity in my earlier post, (the blue one) was all SubD (Nurbs) then frozen to detail her.. However, again for TV work, it takes too long for the program to freeze the mesh then render for each frame to make keeping things SubD practical..

a reply to: DeadSeraph

Hey cool thread.

Here are two models I just made for a mod I am developing for an OLD PC game called Star trek Armada 2.

The first is the shuttle from the TV show Star Gate Universe. It was made from scratch including all textures. It is made to scale for the second model. Whats cool is I made a special weapon for the game that uncouples the two shuttles for launch. Its bad ass...lol

The second is the actual "Destiny" exploration vessel from the same show (SGU). It was previously done by another modder and he gave me permission to fix it up for use in my own mod to the game. I pretty much made it from scratch as well since I only used a quarter of the previous model for reference purposes. The textures were done by me as well.

Both were done using "lithium unwrap" and "milkshape 3d".

and thats it.

I will post an ingame picture of both...
































EDIT:
Here are the in game pics with better resolution

a reply to: vkey08

wow thats really nice work. Michael Okuda is awesome. I wish he would have been consulted by JJ´s team for the terminal displays on the new bridge. Okuda Lcars is at the heart of that trek feel. I hope he is still working on the fan project "renegades".

One thing I always liked about the NX was the textures. I like the ship you are working on. NC is it? Why dont you make the Pylons for the nacelles swing up or down instead of going straight back like on the NX? You already have the vertical pylons coming up from the engineering section below it. Instead of the cross section being at such opposing angles from the old NX hull, why not have both meet at below or above the engineering section like a "V" instead of a "T".

Just a thought from an amateur. You are really good and it looks fantastic anyways. The Aeon Time ship is beautiful too.

!!

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: vkey08

wow thats really nice work. Michael Okuda is awesome. I wish he would have been consulted by JJ´s team for the terminal displays on the new bridge. Okuda Lcars is at the heart of that trek feel. I hope he is still working on the fan project "renegades".

One thing I always liked about the NX was the textures. I like the ship you are working on. NC is it? Why dont you make the Pylons for the nacelles swing up or down instead of going straight back like on the NX? You already have the vertical pylons coming up from the engineering section below it. Instead of the cross section being at such opposing angles from the old NX hull, why not have both meet at below or above the engineering section like a "V" instead of a "T".

Just a thought from an amateur. You are really good and it looks fantastic anyways. The Aeon Time ship is beautiful too.

!!

This is the NX Class, it's had the secondary hull upgrade added on, per Doug Drexler's drawings (actually this *IS* the real NX Class update, when I got it it wasn't totally finished) CBS signed off on it mid year last year and she has already been shown off many places, right now it's just some minor refinements and texture changes..

The NC Designation was just given to me as a friendly nicety by Doug and the gang for all the work I've done. The ship's name is personal to me, and I use this version almost exclusively, unless the NX01 is needed for something official.

I play around with blender a bit




I like to try and make stereoscoptic renders when I'm bored lol





I also made a few models for Arma 3 for a clan I use to play with



custom shoot house for training

shoot house areal



Before I moved I started messing with displacement maps

this is the bass-star lol





a reply to: DeadSeraph

I made a minion:





I'm still rigging and weighting him, so no facial expressions or poses just yet.

a reply to: DeadSeraph

I feel your pain when it comes to animating a figure...

Even though the following is just a prototype, I actually found it for sale online about two months ago.

Unfortunately it was listed at $4,200.







It appears that the left and right sides are symmetrical.

If the front and back are also the same as well, then you would only need to design one quarter of this project and use that on the other three sides.

I know that UPS now offers 3D Printing Services.

The UPS Store

I asked a physicist how one might get started on making one of my own and his response was,

"I'm thinking that a 3d brownian motion for each branch would be good, applied to a PDE, in a spherical domain, which will ease the travel out from the center.
Then thinning the branch proportionally to the length of the branch.
And perhaps additional thinning for the further branches, which could be simulated through a 2d random variable (angle and length).

The simulation should be able to be done with matlab, yielding position, thickness and direction of each branch point.

It should then be possible to translate that into a 3d program. Hopefully."

I guess he's been having some fun trying to recreate that spooky forest chandelier.

Here are two images of his work in progress.





Does anyone here have some additional advice or even comments to give on this?

Cheers.