Just Playing with my Cylons

[rjandron]

Here's a couple of quick radiosity renders of a Cylon Raider I'm building. The model just has a basic texture on it at the moment, and may have to undergo some modification to its geometry. C&C appreciated.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonfront001.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonrear001.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonunderside001.jpg

[Gemini1999]

RJ -

That's fan-fracking-tastic!

A wonderful rendering - I could almost hear that Raider flying....!

Really excellent work!

Best,
Bryan

[Fragmentary]

You'll go blind :D

Wow, that looks amazing. You must keep us posted on this thing. :salute:

[Darrell Lawrence]

Very very nice job. Would love to see my Viper and Cobra blow it up :D

[gmd3d]

That's awesome .. can't wait to see it fly

[Titon]

Excellant work RJ.

Excellant.

I see you seemed to get that curvature of the body very well.

;)

[Stevew]

Very Very nice RJ, can't add nothing
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Spike The Cylon]

Cool :)

[axg423]

Outstanding

[rjandron]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I've still a lot to do on this one--texturing is proving to be especially interesting.

Here are some additional stills with some upgraded textures, this time in different types of lighting.

Radiosity:

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonfront_Radiosity1.jpg

Traditional 3-point Lighting

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonfront_Tradlighting1.jpg

And the Babylon 5 Single-point lighting...

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonfront_Thornton1.jpg

Still some work on the geometry and textures needed to make it look less like a Monogram model, and more like a real spacecraft.

[jewels]

Sweet!

[Titon]

Traditionally i like how the single lighting setup always looks. Everyone is into lighting the entire model with the 3 point lighting setup.

Of course in space you really are only going to have (in most cases) the sun to light the model from one direction.

Excellant work RJ.

:)

Now from one modelor to another, did you model the raider from a ball?

[rjandron]

Jewels: Thanks. I'll try to get some more on this done in the next few days. I want her in the finished category by this weekend.

Titon: I laid out splines for the main hull of the Raider and meshed those. Certain areas, like the notch in front of the cockpit and the tab between the engines, were done by slicing the splined hull to get something close to the right profile. A lot of the surface detail on the hull was Sliced and Smooth-shifted. The rest of the surface structure is a combination of boxes/discs or extruded custom profiles.

She still has some repair work to be done, and a fair amount of texturing as well.

[Titon]

Cool.

Never did get much into splines.

;)

[Fragmentary]

Of course in space you really are only going to have (in most cases) the sun to light the model from one direction.

Ironic isn't it, that the most realistic lighting is also the most unforgiving for models, both real and digital.

[Titon]

Ironic isn't it, that the most realistic lighting is also the most unforgiving for models, both real and digital.

Exactly!

:)

[rjandron]

A couple more renders. The Geometry on this craft is 99% done...I'm going to have to add some more detail to the weapon hardpoints tomorrow, and then I can keep going on texturing.

I did an almost complete rebuild of the rear hull deck between the two engines to get it closer to the Studio Scale model. I think I'll leave that section alone for the duration. :)

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonearth002a.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonrear001a.jpg

The Earth in the background of the first image is based upon the Realistic Earth tutorial by Dean A. Scott located here (http://personal.southern.edu/~dascott/tutorial01/nasa-earth.htm)

[Stevew]

Excellent work RJ
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Gemini1999]

RJ -

Those pics are absolutely beautiful. I love how the Raider looks flying over the planet, it's a view that we don't see very often (if at all). The pair of Raiders with the galactic "streamer" going across the middle of the frame is very dramatic.

I think that the thing that amazes me is that they don't look like "models" and the pics are almost breathtaking in composition.

Well done!

Bryan

[Titon]

Great work sir, top notch!

;)

[gpdesigner]

cool renders, I think I dig the single point lighting effect the best, it gives more warmth to the model. Shadows and edges stand out a lot more. .
Excellent detail in the raiders, put a boat load of time into them I can tell.
3d

[TopGun]

Mother of god that ship is great

[Titon]

think I dig the single point lighting effect the best

I concur.

;)

[gpdesigner]

the texturing job on that is awesome as well, I just took another look at it . . I am totally digging the mung/spooge on the fusalage, the gritty stuff hylighted by the sun . . . . nice touch
3d

[Titon]

Hey RJ, have you ever attempted to use radiosity renders as your diff and spec maps?

It's what we used at Zoic for alot of the ship texturing. It adds that realistic texture to your models and adds that special look.

:)

[rjandron]

Thanks again for the kind words.

I haven't had a chance to get back to Lightwave to work on the Raider for a few days--though I did manage to sit down yesterday and do some plumbing (so to speak) on the Viper.

Titon, I did try using radiosity to do an access map of the Raider, which I would have added into the ship's diffuse and specular textures, but didn't like the results I got. I'll keep playing around with it until I'm happy with it because it is a very good technique. Even so, the current upper texture maps are "good enough" for a lot of the work I have in mind.

Old Russian Saying: "'Better than' is the enemy of 'good enough'."

It's hard to step away from a project when there are endless amounts of tweaking possible. ;)

[gpdesigner]

Hey RJ, have you ever attempted to use radiosity renders as your diff and spec maps?

Titon you'll have to explain this to me, I think I know what you are talking about but knowledge is power
3d

[rjandron]

There are a few ways that I can think of doing this.

The first is to set up a radiosity render, using basic texture maps and colouring on the mesh, and then render out still images--these still images are then applied as planar maps to the surface of the mesh as a colour texture, and with modification, as a diffuse and specular texture.

The second is to use LW's built-in Suface Baker plugin to write the radiosity information into a UV map. This is what I was attempting to do to create an "access map"--the access map measures, roughly, how much light can reach certain polygons and simulates weathering extremely well by darkening creases in the mesh. The UV map that is written is then able to be applied to diffuse and specular textures (with modification) and combined with existing colour maps.

Surface baking does, however, take a lot of render time--so I'd suggest rendering overnight if you want to try this approach.

By the references to "with modification" I mean in the case of diffuse and specular maps, converting those to greyscale, painting on any additional grunge and adjusting the contrast as needed. My specular maps tend to be copies of the diffuse maps, with the contrast cranked up by 80% or so.

Both of these approaches can give radiosity-style looks without the render hit of radiosity.

[gpdesigner]

I thought that was the theory but I needed to make sure I was right, I have necer tried anything like that before . . . . hmmm I have this one project I am working on that could benefit from this sort of surface treatment . . .
are there any tutes on this technique out there anywhere?
3d

[rjandron]

Try this one (http://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/tutorials/rendering/lw_baker_beethoven/lw_baker_beethoven.html) to start.

This one's not exactly on point, but the core of the tutorial does deal with using radiosity to create a UV Texture map.

Here's a shot of the Access Map described in Method #1 (Non-UV)

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/CylonTopsideAccessPlain.jpg

You can see how crevasses tend to be darker, simulating grunge collecting.

And here it is composited (using mulitply layer mode) with the ship's colour/diffuse map:

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/CylonTopsideAccess.jpg

For the Surface Baker, the same sort of principle applies--except using UV mapping.

[rjandron]

Just to show a comparison of the original Raider, and the one with the Radiosity access map added into its texturing, compare the following:

Original:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonearth002a.jpg

With Radiosity in the mapping:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/CylonearthRadiosity001.jpg

You can see the darkening between the engines, engine louvers, and weapon hardpoints. And you can also see that I have some alignment issues with this map :erk:

[gpdesigner]

Huge difference . . . the diffuse level is better . . .
yep I like that, I will have to try it on my LOTR scene . . .
3d

[Titon]

Best way to do it is break up the maps.

Hide the details when you render on seperate layers. Then combine them in the end. It will help elimate some of the problems with adjusting the fit of the maps. I really like the looks of a rad render. More realistic. Some artist's say it's a cop out when you do it this way. Some figure texturning is an expression of artistic endevour. I personally hate it since it takes to much time. Rad renders speed up the process and that's what i'm looking for.

;)

Nice job RJ.

[mikala]

Great details on this fighter! Fine piece of modeling.

[ff_a_r8hrefefef]

Ironic isn't it, that the most realistic lighting is also the most unforgiving for models, both real and digital.
the most realistic would be a point light with a nice bit of radiosity, and a few dozen low intensity distance lights, but that might be a bit more unforgiving to your cpu :rotf:

[rjandron]

the most realistic would be a point light with a nice bit of radiosity, and a few dozen low intensity distance lights, but that might be a bit more unforgiving to your cpu :rotf:

You might be able to simulate something similar to that without the render hit using HDRI. I haven't even cracked open LW's HDRI toolkit--there's a lot of other parts of Lightwave that I haven't used yet.

In animation, CPU cycles are more precious than gold, and cheating to save CPU cycles is highly encouraged. Of course, if you can't cheat--add a render farm. ;)

[mikala]

Give Imageworld a try with a nice HDRI and I think you'll like the results!

[chooch]

niiice

[infinityloop]

them model looks very good!

[Master_M]

Just to show a comparison of the original Raider, and the one with the Radiosity access map added into its texturing, compare the following:

Original:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/Cylonearth002a.jpg

With Radiosity in the mapping:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1044740/CylonearthRadiosity001.jpg

You can see the darkening between the engines, engine louvers, and weapon hardpoints. And you can also see that I have some alignment issues with this map :erk:
C00l!
:viper2: