A study in ships

I "sketched" out a few ships in 3d, some using some reference material from conceptships.org, and one from a vague mental image I had of the ship in the early sequences in the movie "The Fifth Element". The latter is what I started to flesh out first (in Houdini):

From 3D 2009-2010

From 3D 2009-2010

From 3D 2009-2010

More details:

From

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And more details!

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Command tower:

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Engines:

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Quickie experiment for adding thrust:

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Foo fighter finished

Say that three times, fast!

OK, here's the basic model that I'm hoping to base a tutorial off of:

From 3D 2009-2010

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Earth, from Houdini

Here's an Earth (and the Moon peeking out to the side) scene built from scratch with Houdini and several custom shaders. This was built based on techniques from 3DBuzz's "Maya Fundamentals" tutorials, and adapted to Houdini. I'd strongly recommend these to anyone getting started in 3D, really worth the money!

First initial cut (youtube video), using low resolution texture maps:


After looking around a bit, this is a render with much higher resolution texture maps, and the result is pretty dramatic, in my opinion:

From 3D 2009-2010

A few changes to the settings, and using even better imagery for the texture maps, I got this. The images can be found at Tor Oera's site.

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Same thing in video format:

Another cut of the foofighter

Here's version two, which I think is what I'm going to stick with:

Clay shot

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Wires

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More clay shots:

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With materials:

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Detail close up, near the power charging unit:

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New model for tutorial

Started a new model, intended for a modeling and materials tutorial for Houdini. The model is a "Foo-fighter", what was recovered, and now stored at places like Area 51!

Initial shape:

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Detailing:

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Close up:

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Now some initial attempts at adding materials:

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Underside "glow"/lights:

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Details:

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Close-ups:

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Finally a crude attempt at compositing:

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More texture work on the E

Got more uv/texture work done on the Enterprise. Stuff like the various registry decals on the nacelles, saucer, saucer rim, hull got applied. Various bits of clean up in the mesh got done. Most of the core textures now applied.

From 3D 2009-2010

From 3D 2009-2010

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From 3D 2009-2010