Scribble's scribbles

[Sibyl]

Hi Scribble! Sorry it's been a while.
In my humble opinion, I think the light's too bright. Your rank insignia look so realistic, but to my eyes (which aren't great, admittedly) the glare and shadow make them seem "off".
However, I have just noticed some sort of burnishing or pattern on the steel/silver parts that I hadn't seen before - it looks great!

I agree with @Cyfa, the materials and overall render are definitely realistic, but those glares are just too big and unnatural IMO.

Agreed that the glares are strong, but if you don't mind me explaining...

What I have here is that there are lights directly in the path of the reflection where those glares are. I was more playing with the "realism" of how the direct glare of the lights would play off of the shiny metal (bloom, glare, dispersion). I then saved the render as an OpenExr file and went in to bring out some of the details of the rest of the image in PS, basically just to adjust some of the exposure and cut back on some of the yellows of the brass.

In this next render, I've changed the HDRI environment light to something a little different. The last one I used basically had a black top and bottom (not that you would see the effects of the bottom) and all of the light was coming from the sides. With this one, the light is more evenly spread and you can see that there is a greyish metal surface rather than only highlights and shadows.

@Cyfa, thank you for noticing the secondary surface distinctions on the silver/chrome/nickel/whatever.

I'll rid this image of glares (or lessen those lights' intensities) if they're people think they don't belong after this render (also saved as OpenExr and adjusted slightly):

The only other thing I'm considering adjusting about the materials, themselves, is the brass...on the Roddenberry pins that I have, I've noticed that what I have here as brass is more like polished bronze, completely unlike the darkened bronze of the Commander Starfleet, upper Admirals, and the jacket insignia's delta (not seen here).

 

[Rekkert]

Ah, the HDRI change definitely helped, before the sides were being way too illuminated IMO.

I'd personally still lower the intensity of the glares a bit, but as far as realism goes, it's looking a lot better to me.

 

[Sibyl]

Thank you.

Yeah, maybe I was trying to be too artsy-fartsy about the glares. More than anything I was pushing the capabilities of Octane, not necessarily for the benefit of this image, but for the possibilities down the road. Basically, I was just seeing what it could do.

 

[Sibyl]

I know this is the fan ART forum, but I'm not sure we see enough of the humble beginnings of models and rather we get the results of being far into the process.

I get that a lot of my posts are early-process renders and not so many of them get finished, but this one is important to me and I've been wanting to do it for over a year now. I finally have a reason to complete it.

Let's see how far I get by morning.

Very humble beginnings. Much vertex pushing to go. Should resemble something recognizable in a short while.

 

[cardinal biggles]

The chest piece from the TMP/TWOK spacesuit?

 

[Sibyl]

Yuppers.

 

[Donny]

I know this is the fan ART forum, but I'm not sure we see enough of the humble beginnings of models and rather we get the results of being far into the process.

I get that a lot of my posts are early-process renders and not so many of them get finished, but this one is important to me and I've been wanting to do it for over a year now. I finally have a reason to complete it.

Let's see how far I get by morning.

Very humble beginnings. Much vertex pushing to go. Should resemble something recognizable in a short while.

Good luck! I had a hell of a time trying to get the curvature of that thing right. And I had to make a low-poly AND a high-poly version!

 

[Sibyl]

Good luck! I had a hell of a time trying to get the curvature of that thing right. And I had to make a low-poly AND a high-poly version!

Thank you.

I have a pretty decent collection of reference images for the suit, both collected from the 'nat in its darkest corners and one person that had some BTS images that he said almost no one else has. For example, the reference image seen in that render is actually perfectly exposed but I blew it out for the render because I was told not to share it.

I didn't get quite as far last night as I was hoping, but I do have a plan of attack to hopefully be able to finish the shell tonight. That's the first and most important part I need to finish.

@Donny, I didn't know you did a high-poly version, as well. I guess it makes sense if you need to get the normals for the low-poly version.

 

[Donny]

Thank you.

I have a pretty decent collection of reference images for the suit, both collected from the 'nat in its darkest corners and one person that had some BTS images that he said almost no one else has. For example, the reference image seen in that render is actually perfectly exposed but I blew it out for the render because I was told not to share it.

I didn't get quite as far last night as I was hoping, but I do have a plan of attack to hopefully be able to finish the shell tonight. That's the first and most important part I need to finish.

@Donny, I didn't know you did a high-poly version, as well. I guess it makes sense if you need to get the normals for the low-poly version.

I do a high poly bake for all my models.

 

[Sibyl]

Good luck! I had a hell of a time trying to get the curvature of that thing right. And I had to make a low-poly AND a high-poly version!

I do a high poly bake for all my models.

Makes sense....normals for your low-poly models.

Well, as much as it pains me to admit it, but I abandoned the work I did last night, re-examined my reference images, laid out some vector reference shapes, analyzed those, and voilà! I finally understand the geometry of this thing and although the suit looks quite asymmetrical, it's got a beautiful symmetry to it that I hadn't noticed before.

This is where I stand right now. From here, it should be easy--famous last words.

 

[Sibyl]

Proof-of-concept of the new technique I'm using. Obviously, I have a lot of details to add and need to model the asymmetry on the right, tighten up the little rectangle on the front box, and, oh, yeah, fill out most of the mesh.

The one thing I'm having a hard time with it the top and getting the topology of the transition of the front "shield" portion to where the helmet sits. It's wrong here, but I'll be adjusting it today.

On the other hand, the bottom box will be completely rebuilt, as well. This was just an experiment.

(I need to organize the images on my site...right now they're pretty much all in one folder and it's getting confusing)

 

[Sibyl]

Built this and rebuilt it and rebuilt some portions of it several times.

I think I'm almost (mostly) happy with the topology around the sticky-outy-bit at the top. I still need to add the little rectangular thing in the center of the chest.

(Playing with Corona Renderer and materials)

BTW, the magic hasn't happened yet. There's a reason it's all blocky like that...more to come.

And, finally, the seam you see there is because I haven't reattached the top bit to the bottom bit yet after editing just that portion.

 

[Cyfa]

As always, I am both amazed and perplexed by all this And I love seeing it all come together!