I’ve been bad about publishing updates, but not because I’m slacking off, I assure you! Here’s a work-in-progress image of the Starship Constellation from a video I hope to have finished in time for the U.S. Christmas holiday.
Work continues apace on the starship Constellation. The Connie has haunted my dreams ever since I was a seven-year-old boy staring transfixed at the Trinitron whenever the local TV station reran “The Doomsday Machine”. How could a giant starship be wrecked like that?! Impossible! But as I got older, I started noticing how, er, undetailed the … [Read more…]
After a much-needed three weeks off I’m back in the saddle. The model as shown in this image does not include any new features compared to WIP video #121-A from three weeks ago; it’s just a test image that I rendered to reacquaint myself with the Enterprise model and see what’s left to do. Click … [Read more…]
Getting close to the finish line! Today’s work in progress is a test of the warp drive and impulse engine effects. I think the impulse engines are “throbbing” a little too much (as if they were under stress or malfunctioning); I may need to tweak that. I’m also still not quite satisfied with the appearance … [Read more…]
Hmm. Click here for the YouTube version. This is the same source material used in test #116 published earlier today, but without the heavy gamma correction applied (just some minor color curve adjustments that I made in the nonlinear editor I’m using to assemble these test videos). The only reason I’m publishing this is to … [Read more…]
Just a quickie for today. YouTube: https://youtu.be/AKGQ6o3QExs Vimeo: The exterior of the secondary hull is finally finished, and I revised (again!) the “Christmas lights” visual effect behind the domes at the front of the warp nacelles. Judging by this test clip, I still need to do a little tweaking on the brightness and color … [Read more…]
Busy week at work and some personal life stuff, so not a lot of progress this week. Materials for the secondary hull exterior are completed. I’m still working on adjusting the lighting for the interiors that are visible through the portholes; that’s going to take a while (there are a lot of portholes!). I also … [Read more…]
I spent the weekend visiting friends I haven’t seen in years, and it wasn’t until I was on the plane home this evening that I realized Sunday was Star Trek day. Fifty-three years ago on September 8, 1966, the little science fiction show that could premiered on NBC. So, here’s a picture to celebrate the … [Read more…]
Spent most of yesterday evening tracking down a lighting artifact that was manifesting itself as a leak of “radiation” from the impulse engines. OctaneRender is forgiving, but only to a point… the culprit was a couple of n-gons (polygons with more than four vertices) that were also light emitters. Unfortunately, they were not only projecting … [Read more…]
Happy Labor Day to U.S. visitors… I’ve been laboring. The Enterprise primary hull is now completely finished top-to-bottom and inside-out. Now it’s onto the rest of the ship, which I hope won’t take all fall the way that summer disappeared while working on the saucer section.