Sulaco by theSea
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Description
Once again, thanks for visiting.
The muse's holiday continues unabated. In the abscence of inspiration I continue to doodle in 3D.
Due to some recent overime at work I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase a new Dell 2408WFP display.. so now I'm working widescreen @1920 x 1200. This required a new desktop background.
Necessity will serve where inspiration lascks... so here we have the 'Sulaco' from Aliens, available free from Vanishing Point. She is rendered in Vue6i with a background created in POV-Ray and composited in Photoshop.
I'm really pleased with the planet, which was done in entirely Vue from a short tutorial that appeared in 3DWorld #102. Basically you set up the default spectral atmosphere and take the camera up 10km on the Z axis. Add a cloud layer or two and *instant planet* The ground is textured with a material from Monsoons 'Outer Rim' Collection.
The 'Sulaco' herself features the texture that came with the model, enhanced with some procedural shader work in Vue. Some 'Random Altitude' noise nodes are blended with the texture map and also pumped into the bump and specular channels to give that 'Sci-Fi panel' feel.
To avoid utter blackness where she is in shadow, the ship is lit with some two dozen point lights and four spotlights, all placed to suggest a realistic self-illumination feel like they gave the Enterprise in the Star Trek movies. This was my first go at playing with the different lights in Vue and I was pretty pleased with them once I got the hang of placing them.
The whole thing was rendered out with global illumination and high quality settings in about an hour on my quad core machine.
The background stars and nebula were created in POV-ray with Chris Colefax's excellent 'galaxy' scripts and rendered out in several layers.
These were all composited in photoshop with titles added in and a bit of color adjustment.
Do try the fullsize view - this one is rather large and the detail is lost on the preview.
I think it makes a nice desktop backgound :)
As always your comments and constructive critique are most appreciated.
Comments (32)
Amethst25
wow this does looking a scene from a movie.. Incredible
Alex_Antonov
Lovely image! 5+!
Pewter7
Awesome pov in this colorfully dark, magnificently created sci-fi image. Excellent work! :)
scooby37
Superb work, it could be the opening credits for the Aliens movie and you make it sounds oh so easy.
DarkStormCrow
Very nice work, well done....
ESarge
Excellent sci=fi scene!! The planet looks fantastic.
maraich
It DOES make an excellent desktop background - it's now being utilized by me for that very purpose. You definitely got the hang of the Vue lights. They work perfectly to show some detail of the ship without losing the sense that it is cruising through space.
lethalliam
Wow awesome.
MRX3010
Looks great!
Akhbour
Wow, awesome work, now I know where to ask when I need a new wallpaper! ^_^
RWM2
What a diff a screen makes.
PsychoNaut
Super wonderful bringsd back the memories!
Naoo
-- cool --
Lyndseyh
Brilliant - well worth a full size view
ThomasMacCallum
Michael, you do not need you muse, your doing fine without her. This is fantastic. I think it will be my desktop too. FAVE
swjkie100
Superb detailing! Everything is perfect here, from the ship to the star with its corona and such OO Wow ^^
722
wow
mhossack
Awesome scene! Looks amazing.
thefixer
Outstanding!
liltawen
Very subtle lighting on the ship.
kobaltkween
wow. i wish my work was this good when i was uninspired. very dramatic lighting and composition. i love the soft lens flare star; it looks a lot better than the more default ones most use. kudos!
amirapsp
Awesome job on this!!
Tsalmaveth
That's just simply beautiful work.
lorddarkwolf
always love the aliens movies
ynottry
Masterful--first rate! And thanks for the description of the creative process!
grafikeer
Nicely done..like the POV and lighting.
dshield
Cool Image! D
callad
Great outer-space render Michael!!
shotgung0d
Outstanding image Michael! I doubt a still from the movie could look any better.
hideakifuji
you success made great scene about movie aliens.