Having gotten a bit more familiar with the tools in Carrara 4 I decided this weekend to redo the model of the Traveller space ship I've been working on. This is the progress I've gotten so far. Unlike the original this is a single mesh so far, and I believe all but "movable" piece will continue to be part of the single wire frame. Shader Domains make this, not only practical but preferable, while previous versions of Carrara made it easier to make the model out of several small objects. I've also build most of the detail into the mesh, that I was earlier using a bump map for. This is just a test shader used to show off the hull details. As always comments, suggestions or criticism welcome. mike

The ship looks great except the shader need some work. :)

Great work! I agree with GWeb I'd say just flop on a white texture with a slight amount of shininess and maybe some wear and tear and you'll be cruising.

Well, I reworked parts of the mesh again (never satisfied) and this time I have a very nice looking model. This is entirely one part making up all of the "non-movable" parts. The doors and the turret will be seperate objects so they can be made movable. Now I have the break out the Shader Domains and the UVmap and start on the bump (yeah I decided to go back to a bump map. Trying to model in all of the detail just made the model too "busy")and the final shader. Here are 4 pics showing the model from various angles as well as a pic of the wire frame. mike

Number 2

Number 3

And the wireframe. Thanks for looking! mike

These images make me want to drag out my old floorplan Snapshot combat rules. I can't find my Azhanti High Lightning deckplans. Putting on an environ suit and going into a zero-g liquid hydrogen filled room to defuse a bomb was cool stuff back in '82.

Ditto with Shonner!! :) You probably want to add glare and aura. I attached an image of ISS. You may notice that ISS reflect glare and little aura emitter from sun raditation.

I attached an image of Earth atmosphere and it may help you with glare and aura adjustment if you use the image in backdrop and background.

It was a quick expriment on this image. I am still struggling with Glow and Aura problem because both are bounded together. If I had to decrease glow insensity to be able to show the shape of base tube but it also decrease the aura insenity. I dont like this kind bounding idea. I have to report this to Eovia and hopefully they will put this in next patch.

But dont give up on glow and glare because your method on your model might be different than mine. The backdrop really help with adjustment alot. By the way, Glare effect works great

Message edited on: 11/25/2004 02:38

Thanks fellows, Shonner, I wish I had my original copy of Azhanti High Lightening, have you seen the price they go for on Ebay? I play on home made maps when some odler freinds drop by... Gweb thanks for the advise, I will use that backdrop with your permission, when I reach that point. Right now I'm just working to get the model right, which is hard enough.Everything right now is redered with eight distant lights, four above and four below, at the four "corners" and pointed at the object. mike

The image was taken by ESA or NASA's satelite.

Here's the first pass at the texture. There is still a good deal of detail to add, also I need to add the hatches. All in all though, I'm pleased with the results. mike

Here is the bottom. mike

Have you tried putting that texture also in the BUMP parameter of your shader? I'm curious how that makes the hull plating look.

The "plating" lines are mirrored on the bump channel with out the colors. I built the bump map with a 1 pixel black line (same as the texture map) bracketed by 1 pixel wide lines of medium gray to set it off a bit from the texture map. Here is a close up that I made to try and show the bump map. In this type of lighting, however, it doesn't show up very well. It looks better with light coming in from 2 or at most 2 directions. mike