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…]
A quickie for the Labor Day weekend: a peek through the portholes into Kirk’s quarters. On the right is his desk, where our gallant captain knocked back more than a few with Bones after a long day at the office. On the left you can see the edge of Kirk’s bunk, where our favorite spacegoing … [Read more…]
Modeling on the upper primary hull is finally finished! Here’s a quickie test video. The main updates to look for here are the little tiny static (non-blinking) outboard running lights, a test of a revised Bussard Collector effect on the starboard nacelle, and the completed grid system on the upper primary hull. Those razor-thin grid … [Read more…]
The Enterprise is not quite ready for her closeup, but I needed to zoom in from all angles to survey the ship and compile a punch list of everything that remains to be done on the model. I’ve provided three file sizes below; small, medium, and ginormous—and I do mean ginormous; the full-size image is … [Read more…]
Or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gloss” I can’t seem to stop fiddlin’ with the materials on the upper primary hull, but I *think* this is the right balance of shiny/dirty/glossy/not glossy. I think the main reason I keep dithering is because I know, deep down, that once I commit to … [Read more…]
Work in progress #13 shows the Enterprise sporting what I hope is her final coating for the upper primary hull.
I’ve joined the GPU rendering revolution. This 384-frame 1080p HD sequence took 87 minutes to render on my workstation using its GPU and OTOY OctaneRender for LightWave. This same sequence in 480p (DVD quality) would probably have taken over 87 hours back in 2008 on my four render computers chipping away at the pixels with … [Read more…]
The day job has been unusually busy the past few days, so I didn’t have much time for the project this week. I did want to see whether it was possible to render the Enterprise model in 8K (7680 x 4320) and well… it is! But rendering my model at 8K reveals several issues that … [Read more…]
A minor update to end the week. In this image you see that I continue fussin’ with the appearance of the Bussard collectors (the domed caps on the warp nacelles), along with some tweaks to the lights on the saucer-shaped upper primary hull. Happy Flag Day to my U.S. visitors!
Here is today’s work in progress on the star of my project, designer Matt Jefferies’ signature masterpiece, the original USS Enterprise from Star Trek.