Haven't posted in a while and thought I'd start a new WIP. Here's the start

Oh yeah! that's what I'm talkin' about!

I knew I could count on you Nancy, to recognize a piece of art when you see it

After hours and hours of work...the second piece. There's a lot of these to go.

My guess is the Millennium Falcon.

Somebody knows their Star Wars stuff down to the armor plates

I hope you're using the AI wizard.

I have PS CS2, so the AI wizard will not work. Wouldn't work anyway because the plates are compound curves. This way I have much more control over what I'm doing.

Well, there better be bevels on all the edges!

The plates were laser cut, they have no bevels

Blocked out the laser turret on top of the Falcon. I don't particularly like this design and will change it up a bit as I go on. More details too.

This is going to be tremendously cool, Eric! Always fun to see the insane amount of detail coming together!

Cool work so far. Keep us updated!

Exhaust flaps blocked out...
Also added more detail on the turret lasers, but need to play with it some more...

Docking port

is there an AO setting that would eliminate the noise?

This was only a 4 pass render. If I took it up to 9 or 16 passes, the noise would be greatly reduced.

my i borrow and never return your talent please?

If I had any talent, I'd give you some. This is only simple spline layout and lots of determination

Here is the same shot with 16 x multi pass

well, i have determination-ish, but i lack simple spline layout, mine are always warpy and bubbly and are just weird

Another really sweeeeeet model Eric.

Would love to see a wireframe render...

Al

Let me get a little bit further with the whole ship and I'll put up a wireframe of it, unless you want to see the detail of something specific. I am not looking forward to making all the little greebles that cover the ship, especially on the top back and all around the sides. I am not going to skimp here though, so you guys can expect a very detailed model of the Falcon.

Steve, seriously though, you do have a lot of talent and it shows in your modeling. Your latest Enterprise is very cool and not wobbly to my eyes. Ask and you shall receive - if there is something specific that you feel challenged by as far as modeling goes, post it on the forum and you'll surely get lots of replies to offer help and solutions. I'll gladly answer any and all questions about the construction of my models, although you may be disappointed when you see how simple they really are. The key thing to remember is to always think in three dimensions. I constantly reference the x/y/z axis no matter what orientation I am in. It will become second nature to you if it isn't already. Practice makes better and better

Eric

ok. good to know!

My knowledge of lighting is microscopic.

Wire for the hatch details.

Robcat, higher percentage AO settings equals less noise but higher render times. Experiment with a simple model setup such as a cube and sphere, then change the AO % and note the differences. I usually stay with 30% AO sampling. Just to explain, the AO settings in the chor are at 100%, the settings in the render to file dialog box I keep at 30% - see pic. Oops, I meant to underline the AO settings in the first pic, not the ambiance intensity

Finally got rid of the artifacts. This is only a 5x render that I stopped at 3x since I knew it did not have any distortions.

Great looking model, Eric!

Coming along really nice eric!

Very awesome! I'm re-experiencing the tragedy of my youth that my Mom wouldn't get me the Millennium Falcon playset when I was a kid. :-)

You are doing a great job! Awesome level of details. Keep it up my friend.
I'm glad you got rid of the artifacts.

Thank you guys for stopping by and giving me the much needed encouragement on a project that has it's tedious moments. More armor plates to go, than on to the little greeble details.

any plans for this?
looks great!

Nope, just a modeling exercise I wanted to put in my portfolio.

Small update

Yeah ... like you really need another great model in your portfolio

This is looking better and better each time I check in Eric.

Any chance of you explaining how you are creating your armor plating on the Falcon? I am playing around with the Discovery from 2001 - A Space Odyssey, and am having trouble getting smooth raised panels on the command module.

Thanks in advance...
Al

Al, post a pic of the area in question and I'll give you my take on it.

Something like this?

Actually, the first picture in this topic is a great example of what I am talking about. The Millenium Falcon's body is a compound curve. Not only is the main body circular, but the profile of it is also curved. So, how did you go about making the first armor plate with the indents so that it follows the compound curves?

I've been able to create a simple raised panel to follow the curves of the Discover command module, but like the Millenium Falcon, some of the panels have little indents and extensions along the borders of the panels. This is where I am having trouble and keeping the panel smooth.

The way I am starting is making a sphere for the 'inner hull'. From there, I created the profile of the section of 'outer hull' that I am going to work on with a spline, with the correct number of control points that I feel I will need to accomodate any indents or extrusions. Then I lathe the profile and then start breaking and deleting CPs to get the shape of the panel I will need. However, when I delete the CPs, it distorts the other splines and I no longer have a smooth patch. I've tried moving CP's along a spline, but haven't been able to get them to follow a curved spline properly. It may be that I am not using the correct key when dragging the CP. I've tried 1, 2 and 3.

I modelled the Discovery a while ago in a 'poly' modelling program, and this part was actually one of the easiest to model. It's been a while since I've done any serious modelling in A:M, and am kind of floundering right now. Amazing how quick we forget things as we get older...

Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Thanks...
Al

Reference drawing of Command Module showing panels with indents and extensions.

Click to view attachment

Raised top panel and simple body panel

Click to view attachment

Discovery model done in a 'poly' modelling program

Click to view attachment

My process is very similar to the one you are already using, but It does change a bit. I also created an inner sphere so to speak, except mine is off course the saucer shape of the Falcon. In order to get a very smooth and accurate base, I use a pretty high count mesh. This mesh will be deleted later on and replaced by a very low count mesh. There is also another reason I use a high count mesh; I copy and paste one of the vertical splines to give me the base for my first plate. Not only does the high count help in getting a smooth plate, but copying it from the base saucer insures that it will totally conform to the saucer's shape. Since the plates vary from one to the next and since some of the plate edges do not line up with the cps of the copied spline, I add cps to the spline using the shift key in order not to disturb the curvature of the spline. The spline will also be broken, as there are several panels along the vertical line of the saucer. Unless you take certain precautions, the break will cause distortions. One way to avoid these is to ....

Man, oh man, I need to do a visual tut on this. Let me put one together real quick....

Tutorial being completed in my spare time - only narration left to add.

Another update and different view.

great, now I feel like crying

You honestly are doing an extraordinary job. What do you do for a living? Because you should honestly be doing that, you're pro

Thats a real nice bit of modelling ,I really don't know how you guys do it and get it so smooth

Spray on starch and setting the iron to "Cotton" usually do the trick. Seriously though, thinking in 3D and lots of practice tweaking models did it for me. Once you get the hang of bias tweaking and knowing what effect the tweaking of one cp has on an adjoining cp will get you to really smooth models.

My son and I, we are huge Star Wars fan, have been following this thread. You are doing an excellent job.

Steve

Since I have a father and son team following this thread, I'd better not let you guys down

I'm in the middle of the very tedious greeble (small stuff) creation. This will go on for a while since the Falcon was kit bashed out of hundreds of models with hundreds of little parts. I'm not going to replicate all of them nor do it exactly the way it was in the movie, but it should look pretty good.

Greeble update

ps, the blck background looks a bit fuzzy because I photoshopped the ground plane out - looks a bit more like it's in space

This won't be anything you don't know but...

Wow. That's some great detail!
Very nice.

Amazing Eric!

I am really enjoying watching the progression of this model.

Al