SciFi Renders

[CyAn1d3]

nice one baz!

[Vortex]

Actually thought that that was a model kit at first. 

[baz1701]

lol your not teh only one  ;)

[King Class Scout]

I took a look.  you've got the wrong look on the transparent pieces  turn up the transparency and refracions, and tint it a little bit blue. 

[Lionus]

also, the sides of the box are never straight.

[Shadowknight1]

lol your not teh only one  ;)

I did for a bit, but the very perfect shadows gave it away lol

[ACES_HIGH]

I took a look.  you've got the wrong look on the transparent pieces  turn up the transparency and refracions, and tint it a little bit blue. 

actually, I would stick with the white color.  I don't know about the JJ-prise kit, but usually unless they are aftermarket, clear parts are almost always molded in colorless plastic, and turn the reflectivity way up, they'd be a lot shinier.  Also, sprues are never that big, that would waste too much plastic.

Otherwise it's good.

[Killallewoks]

A quick battle render of my League Dreadnought in action.



Full size: https://imageshack.us/scaled/large/153/eveningtheodds.jpg

[Toa_Kaita]

Gorgeous! Cookie inbound!

[Toa_Kaita]

Did I spell your name wrong Killa? :L Ah well, this was one of my favorite missions of the game.

[Killallewoks]

Replace the last O with an E and it's about right. 

Looks spot on! 

[Toa_Kaita]

Can do, my bad Thanks!

Here's a video I've done for a new project I've been working with called Star Trek Begins; this is a compilation of animations showing off the Big-E we're using for the project. Check it out! (And yes, I'm trying and failing breaking the habit of using lens flare :/ )

[Vortex]

Definitely tone the lens flares down, but you could still keep them a bit. Just reduce the size and brightness. Also, maybe the specularity, there seems to be a lot of white-out.

Please, please break the habbit of insane/spastic/ADHD shaky cam instead. That's a far more hideous crime than the lens flares. :p A little bit of it is alright, but that shot where the ship goes to warp near the end is rather disorientating. I really, really hate that everyone jumped on that band wagon when BSG started doing it.

Everything else looks great though. (Except that planet, it needs an atmosphere. :p ) The Asteroid field is impressive, did you use Element 3D for that?

[AllotoniFan]

[Toa_Kaita]

Definitely tone the lens flares down, but you could still keep them a bit. Just reduce the size and brightness. Also, maybe the specularity, there seems to be a lot of white-out.

Please, please break the habbit of insane/spastic/ADHD shaky cam instead. That's a far more hideous crime than the lens flares. :p A little bit of it is alright, but that shot where the ship goes to warp near the end is rather disorientating. I really, really hate that everyone jumped on that band wagon when BSG started doing it.

Everything else looks great though. (Except that planet, it needs an atmosphere. :p ) The Asteroid field is impressive, did you use Element 3D for that?

Ill keep all of this in mind once I start up the trailer.  Thanks And the asteroids were created with Max's PFlow Particle System. I havent experimented with Element 3D all that much.

Allotoni, thats a gorgeous shot!

[nxadam1701]

Nice video, love the mini preview battle scene.
And that is one beautiful shot with the Prometheus. 

[Phoenix Bondi]

Can do, my bad Thanks!

Here's a video I've done for a new project I've been working with called Star Trek Begins; this is a compilation of animations showing off the Big-E we're using for the project. Check it out! (And yes, I'm trying and failing breaking the habit of using lens flare :/ )

Please tell me how you did that warp sequence and how you got the lighting for the fly by from the sun, ok i don't like the connie, but other than that HOLY FRACK!!!

[Toa_Kaita]

The ship and the blue energy tunnel were rendered out in 3DS Max as separate passes (one render sequence for the Enterprise, one separate for the tunnel). The stars and streak effects were done in After Effects using Trapcode Particular and Trapcode Shine, respectively.

For the scene with the sun in the background, I believe I added in a separate light (probably a direct targeted) just above the main sunlight and with a higher intensity. Thanks!

[Phoenix Bondi]

bah..lost me, any chance of a bit more detail?? lol - really wanna do somthing similer with my work

[Toa_Kaita]

In 3DS Max:

Basically what I did was set up two lights on either side of the Enterprise (one key light closer to the camera at 1.2 intensity with a bright blue hue, one fill light on the other side of it with an intensity of about 0.2 with a darker blue hue), then rendered it out by itself, animated, as a TGA image sequence. When that was finished, I then used this old tutorial I made a while back for Sci-Fi Meshes to create the wormhole, using an extremely long cylinder gizmo and rendering that out separately by itself as an animated TGA sequence.

Then I used a nifty tool known as Max2AE to export the camera data from 3DS Max to After Effects (you could also export camera data by rendering out your individual elements as an RPF sequence, though I have yet to really experiment with that).

In After Effects:

I placed my Enterprise TGA sequence over my Wormhole TGA sequence and did some color correction on both layers using curves and levels adjustments (I really can't give an exact estimate on how well, bottom line is I made my whites a bit whiter and my darks a bit darker).

Then I added a new Adjustment layer and added in the Trapcode Particular plugin to that layer (Trapcode Particular is an advanced After Effects Particle Editor), then I used the "Galactic Orb" tutorial on VideoCopilot to create the stars. (Andrew Kramer is awesome, he actually did the opening title logo for Trek XI if I'm not mistaken ^_^)

I also added the Trapcode Shine effect to my Enterprise to give it those streaks coming off the hull by messing around with its built-in color values. Trapcode Shine is basically a plugin that generates light streaks (think Volumetric lighting).

Ultimately, I was inspired by this warp effect, which I unwittingly helped contribute to. http://youtu.be/9HXz2oOlN0A?t=7m50s

For the sunlight, what I did was create an omni light with a medium intensity (I want to say 0.4) and a yellowish hue and set it far off in the background. This served as my "decoy" light, if you will (that's what I applied the sun flare to). Directly above that light, I placed a target direct light, with a much higher intensity of 1.2 and a brighter yellow hue. I set the target to the middle of my scene.

Then I added in a skylight with a dark blue hue and an intensity of 0.2, and then I enabled the "Light Shader" plugin in the Render Settings menu.

Hope that helps a bit more, any questions let me know