Here is a quick and dirty lighting setup for test renders...

Create a poly plane.

Set the environment lighting to a light shade of grey. Camera attributes>environment.

Set the render mode to mental ray. Select production fine raytrace.

check final gather.

render.

Adjust env color, render, repeat until you are happy.

This gives a pretty good and fast result with soft shadows.

note:

(1) the model is just some crappy ass thing I box modeled in 30 sec to show the affects of the render settings

(2) for the dark shadow on the side you could add a small point light or and area light in the scene or you could play with global illumination and a reflector board but these basic settings are usually good enough for fast clear renders.

Attached Images

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"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

since there are currently more other-people-pictures in this thread than my pictures (not saying anything is wrong, i think it brightens up the thread) i'm linking 6 pictures

tweety:: i thought you put in more effort than that and downloaded the pictures to something so the ps3 could read it :p

ctbram::are you going to enter the challenge to? i'd be most interested to see what you come up with


first picture:
the original model of the schiva's ship. as you can see the wings are not the same and it's made of different parts from different pillaged ships
https://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...1_779057_n.jpg

second:
shot from below
https://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._8372359_n.jpg
i put off starting a thread for this until i decided which race this ship belonged to, because the ideas kept jumping around and it would fit all four races

in the end it became unity, but i think it could work as the vyrium

third
NEW LEGS, i gave it four only because it looked too heavy to be held up by two legs
not like the original concept sketch, but then i think with the change to having a quadraped mech down below the legs had to change to a quadraped build
(damn, the lower half of the legs still look WAY too thin....)
https://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._2614701_n.jpg

fourth
shot from above
https://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._3789680_n.jpg

fifth
wires of the legs
based on what i saw in Kurt's piggy rework thread (yeah the feet need more work)
https://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._7550582_n.jpg

sixth
wires from above
https://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._1823850_n.jpg

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

definitely liking the new design - still not crazy about the feet. mixing up organic and machines is hard - the feet just seem a bit slapped on - so look a little silly (to me) hope i'm not being too harsh - i kind of like it when you see it from below - but i tend to think they would work better if they matched the rest of the design a bit more.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

Im sorry there is only so much you can do with the ps3 - but thats not my fault.

I`m still not sold on the feet but I`m going to wait and see how they turn out as I`m getting more of the feel your after with it now and think they might work after all.

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arran, you're not being harsh, if you were you'd get all chef ramsay on me :p

tweety, that's cool
yeah, the feet totally still need a bit of work

the feet will likely be armored in some way, i'll be happy if i can pull this off really well...

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

I kind of liked the feet the way they were, maybe they didn't quite fit with this model but they may have looked nice on another one.
Hope you kept them...
I'm sure you'll do a good job armouring up the new set though!
Keep it up Chirone!

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Virtual City Challenge Apr 09



Spaceship Challenge June 09



Speed Machine Challenge Feb 2011


My Art and 3D Instagram
My DeviantArt Page

well, maya decided to crash on me while i was working on this, so i gave up on it for now

although i did manage to salvage this SM exclusive image

the arm-ish thingy has been changed

Attached Thumbnails

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Liking the gun arm thingy Chirone, sorry to hear about the crashing, hope you manage to get it back together and do some more, I was looking forward to seeing what you came up with!

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Virtual City Challenge Apr 09



Spaceship Challenge June 09



Speed Machine Challenge Feb 2011


My Art and 3D Instagram
My DeviantArt Page

decided to drop a fair amount of the ship for something a little more simple but with the key features of the original ship (the wings and arm thingy's cannons)

https://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...87_5637021.jpg

https://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...85_4563884.jpg

https://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...88_4178266.jpg

https://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...86_4610157.jpg

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Hey Chirone, you do have a much cleaner looking design and model now. Hopefully your Maya is happier now and allowing you to continue.

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View my Portfolio at
https://whyte.cgsociety.org

I agree. It looks cleaner. Nice job so far.

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Virtual City Challenge Apr 09

thought i would try out zbrush

after it freezing and crashing and me not knowing how to save progress i got some displacement maps...

displacement maps applied to the left wing and all the bits and bobs
the resizing from facebook made the darker blue spiky parts not show up the same as they do on the full sized picture
this took an amazingly long 2 minutes and 18 seconds...
https://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...36_5753538.jpg


i refuse to believe it took 14 minutes and 53 seconds to get this far...
https://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...35_8020599.jpg
there were problems with the colour map being out of whack and i remembered arran having that problem with a boot, so i found his thread and disabled the catmull clarke surface and BAM render time shot up with a very very large preprocessing stage...

i don't suppose i could use render layers to get the displacements on their own and then shove a diffuse pass over it could i..?

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Hey,

Normal maps aren't supposed to be used with displacement.... They are designed to be used with bump mapping. They are designed to alter the surface normals of an object, not displace it's surface, so you will only get mediocre results.

For the best results you need to convert the normal map to a Displacement map.

Your ship is looking nice BTW... the design is good, but there are some flaws. The wings are looking good, and they have nice shape, but the spikes sticking out of the sides of them just seem unpractical..... I mean what are they for? They can't be for ship to ship combat can they? As it is, they would brake off as soon as the ship entered warp drive>>>> let alone be used as a defensive/offensive weapon. (no offense) If they are there for purely aesthetic reasons then they need to have something more to them.... maybe they could carry the design of the ship a bit better.... curvy

nice work BTW..... just my thoughts.

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www.stevenegan-cgi.com

"Your weapons are no match for ours! People of Mars, surrender!"
"Um, this isn't Mars. This is Earth."
"Earth? Earth-with-nuclear-weapons Earth?"
"Yes."
[long pause] "Friend!!"

oh somehow i got the idea that you could pair normal and displacement together (when i did the normal map was warped like the colour map would be)
but anyway, this is all just displacement mapping i shoved onto the wing rather than the usual normal mapping i would do

the spiky things are detachable, they are sword-like weapons that float unattached to the ship. They just dock in the wing when not doing anything.

basically, since this race is telepathic they should have some mind control over stuff on their ship

also, you may not notice but the wings aren't actually attached to the main body :p
i think to keep the whole telepathy theme they won't be attached.

the barrel-like shapes on the main body also split up to charge up the giant particle-energy cannon in the center... being space energy weapons are greater than explosive weapons

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

I`m no pro when it comes to normal maps but crazy bump allows you to use both at the same time within its viewer and when you export it creates both maps. Turn one off in the viewer defiantly makes a difference to the texture, so I`m thinking he might be wrong there - no offence.

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