Sci Fi Docks

[Frobisher]

Spent some time over the past few days watching the Master Seminar Sci Fi Dock tutorial. Really enjoyed making it and starting to see it come together. Getting towards the final stages and have a screenshot to show:



Been making this in XSI and come across a few differences between it and 3DS Max. Quite often Cris will use hinge from edge and I can't see a direct equivalent in XSI. When I come across this I usually draw a curve and extrude polygons along this or sometimes will do an extrude along axis and then go in the transform tab and add a rotation. Not certain if this is the best way of dealing with it.

Another problem I have come across is with the lighting. While making some of the pipes and extruding parts I noticed that the lighting looked pretty bad so I marked all the edges as hard. Again not so sure if this is the right approach.

Ended up putting in quite a few more objects that can't be seen in this render. Turns out at close to 2 million polygons. Anyone got any ideas on how best to manage this as it's starting to slow down often.

[budweizzer]

Originally Posted by Frobisher

Another problem I have come across is with the lighting. While making some of the pipes and extruding parts I noticed that the lighting looked pretty bad so I marked all the edges as hard. Again not so sure if this is the right approach.

You could bevel edges. That could help a bit but will increase polygon count. It's up to you then.

Originally Posted by Frobisher

Ended up putting in quite a few more objects that can't be seen in this render. Turns out at close to 2 million polygons. Anyone got any ideas on how best to manage this as it's starting to slow down often.

Use layers and hide some of them. For instance, you could create a layers "level 1 base", "level 1 pipes", "level 1 details" and so on. If you don't need them, hide them in viewports. It will will increase frame per second and it will be easier to model.

You did pretty good with Master Seminar Sci Fi Dock tutorial so far

[richard_cousins]

Looking darn good so far Frobisher. Im not sure how you can manage the slow down. Maybe hide the parts of the model you dont need while you are modeling another section, or just put the object/part your modelling into isolation mode (im sure XSI has something like that), that way you can model on a specific section without the rest of the scene slowing you down

[Frobisher]

Thanks for the feedback.

Will start putting everything into layers shortly.

[budweizzer]

Isolation mode is when you are working on a object and it's the only thing you see. It could be helpful too. It's called "Object view" inside a viewport in XSI.

[Frobisher]

Started using isolation mode and layers and it is much easier to work with. Been having a play around with some different materials and here's a render so far:



Before getting too much into all this rendering will return back to the modelling. Want to make a Feisar to add into the scene. Also perhaps will do the weapons for the scenery or possibly change those areas into fancy looking windows. Quite like the idea of having some mechs down at the bottom as well.

Will have to spend some time studying the documentation as I don't know a great deal about lighting and such like but I'm making progress. Hoping to have a finished scene within the next few weeks and once I have a render I'm happy with will see about printing it out and sticking it on the wall.

This is turning out to be the biggest project I've attempted so far. Never really got so far into the other tutorials but this one had me hooked and it's inspired me to return back to the others once this is finished.

[Frobisher]

Ended up spending a few hours playing with lights and materials and making some adjustments to the models:



Tomorrow going to have a crack at making the Feisar.

[budweizzer]

Very shiny and reflective material! How long did it take to render that scene ?

[Frobisher]

There's something about shiny and reflective materials that I find hard to resist but maybe I have overdone it in this scene. Still got a lot of things to learn. I don't really understand all the settings yet so a lot of the time I'll experiment with values and light positions, do a quick render and try and figure out what is going on. What I'm trying to achieve in this scene is dark on the upper deck and outside areas and then quite bright within the interior.

It must have been around 40 minutes to render the scene. There are 5 lights in the scene, switched final gathering on and ramped up AA slightly and I can't recall changing many other settings.

[Saiya-jin]

The blue boxes, in my opinion, are too shiny. They look like lego toys. I think the rest of the materials are good. The darkness around the edges gives them the feel of a little bit of grunge, which contrasts with the blue boxes.

Great modeling and work with the textures so far.