Blenderstar Galactica

David Kerin · January 15th, 2012, 09:55 AM

Hey all... Been doing more stuff with Blender 3d, and decided to see if I could convert Ray Folk's Battlestar mesh into the program. Ray was kind enough to let me use it for the Adama Journals. Here are some shots of the model in Blender. Just a simple one light setup, and a post filter glow added. Texture mapping still needs adjusted in places, but this is the initial conversion result. The glow is a bit more than it needs to be, so may have to tone that down.

And getting further into Blender, I have to say its becoming a pretty impressive piece of software. And its completely free!!! They added a 3d motion tracking ability and there are some great examples around the web.

gmd3d · January 16th, 2012, 03:00 AM

stunning work...

what is the polycount and stuff like that,

how long to render the images

David Kerin · January 16th, 2012, 05:10 AM

Ray did an amazing job on that. If only I had the patience to do what he did here.

Not sure of the polygon count, will have to check and see. Each image took maybe a few minutes to render. Really not bad. I'm on a newer computer, but an off the shelf Dell available at your local Best Buy. I know its a Pentium I-5. I'm using Blender 2.6, and with each development the program gets better and better. Blender is all I use at work anymore for our commercial/promotions stuff.

gmd3d · January 16th, 2012, 06:26 AM

yes it renders fast in Lightwave too....

did you have to do any work converting to blender, or was it a straight load into it.

David Kerin · January 16th, 2012, 06:50 AM

It was pretty nearly a straight import. I did a "remove doubles" on the verticies, and some parts looked better with either the smooth or flat shading enabled. So really just some tweaks. I tried it before on my old computer but it just locked it up. So when I got the new computer I decided to try it, and it worked! Sweet!

I do find with some other imports from LWO meshes that now and then some faces do not come in. I did try the Land Ram and some of the faces didn't translate, so that would need some additional work. Think I may go through in my free time and build a collection of BG models in Blender format.

gmd3d · January 16th, 2012, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Kerin

I do find with some other imports from LWO meshes that now and then some faces do not come in. I did try the Land Ram and some of the faces didn't translate, so that would need some additional work. Think I may go through in my free time and build a collection of BG models in Blender format.

The land-ram I built? .. or another...... if you tell me where I can have a look and see if its something I can correct....

David Kerin · January 16th, 2012, 07:23 AM

Yeah, its the Land Ram you made. When I get the chance I'll render an image so you can see what its doing. I've seen this happen on other models too, where certain faces are just not there. Could just be something finicky in the translation code. However the Landing Bay interior seemed to open just fine. Need to reapply the textures, but structure wise it all looked complete.

martok2112 · January 17th, 2012, 01:49 AM

Dave, that looks gorgeous.

I've found Blender to be a great model building program, but I have tons to learn about texturing and such. ( texturing I do in iClone, and that's probably why my ships look a little more cartoony, and not so photorealistic.)

gmd3d · January 17th, 2012, 02:28 AM

Its been a few years since I last really looked at this model and now I what I thought was a good idea at the time, I now regret....

I have cleaned up the model a bit, short of rebuilding it again (no time at the moment) but there is a lot I would not do again......

I will send you the revised landram and see if it works any better

David Kerin · January 18th, 2012, 03:09 PM

Hey Taranis... checked out your site and glad to see you too enjoy the great scifi artist of back when. Love the designs where there was so much color to the ships. Sadly it seems after Star Wars space ships all became grey. Until Babylon 5 came along though. That series had great artistic designs to their ships.

gmd3d · January 19th, 2012, 02:15 AM

Thanks

I agree,,,,,,, I am a fan of Chris Foss and Peter Elson.

Love the colours and the designs where also a lot of fun

Thunderstruck · February 9th, 2012, 10:21 AM

Those look fantastic.

Also, I never thought of using a glow like that......will have to try it....Thnx.

Regards,

Randal