Modelling and Rendering the TMP Enterprise

[wjaspers]

S.O. , see your points about not making an exact copy of the original, but I allready knew this from earlier comments, and as said before I like what I see

Wil - I know what you mean about the reflections. I too was somewhat baffled by the lack of them on the saucer in the films. The shooting model was slightly reflective, but I think the secondary hull was more reflective than the saucer.

Yes, but you will need to split this in reflectivity en specularity. Its like a lamp on a table, because of the specularity you can see the bright reflection, but you actually see not the lamp. Something like that.

Gep Malakai - On the reflectivity - to blur anymore would cripple render times. For a reflection pass, it currently takes about 1 hour to render an image at 1280x1024 pixels and that was before adding the new lighting rig.

1 hour, that sucks, does it quicker in 3dsmax
Maybe you could try to blur it more in post?

Sometimes the studio illumination clips the edges of some other part of the model.

LOL, that's for sure, didn't notice it untill I looked at the drydock scene.

I'm slowly narrowing in on a good balance of lighting and shaders. I don't think I'm far off getting the overall look right. When I remember back to what I used to produce, I've come on quite a bit!

Indeed, vast improvements.

I deliberately went through the model and removed as many triangular polygons as possible. They too caused some interesting effects in shading and reflections.

The problem I have is that I've got to remodel the top of the saucer. I know it's going to be tricky as it's got to work with a lighting rig in the same way as the bottom of the saucer. And then I've noticed specularity issues on the neck which means that needs remodelling too!

Ah, yes, that is why I asked if you don't have a multi-layer shader. In 3dsmax the phong shader causes this (known)problem with little smoothness problems. So, maybe you could switch shaders. Beautiful part of a multi-layer shader are the 2 different specularity slots, one for the real aztec color, and one for the finish on the model, like you can see on the bottom from the nacelle strut on the picture you referred to.

Anyway, keep on going, you are on the right way to finish this project edit:and ofcourse get a good model.

 

[Science Officer]

Hi Folks,
　
Been a while since I had a chance to look at my project.

The pearlescent finish effect used on the TMP model was mentioned by USS Mariner as something he would like to see. My previous attempts at this were lousy, but I think they were based on a misconception summed up in a previous post:

The problem (if I understand it correctly) is that the colour you see is dependant on both the cameras and light sources angle to the hull.

I couldn't see how such an effect could be done as I was looking at the problem from the viewpoint of the diffuse channel. But last week I realised that the effect could probably work better if looked at from the viewpoint of reflection. To get the effect I applied a fresnel-based colour gradient to the reflection channel. Surface normals pointing at the camera are coloured turquoise and normals at 90 degrees coloured red

On a couple of spheres using a HDRI map you get:

and on a bit of the saucer (top surface is missing):

USS Mariner, is this the kind of effect you are thinking about?

I'm not certain I've got the gradient the right way round. Looking at some reference images from here (http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=16470), it looks correct, but hard to establish where the light sources are in the images.

I really wish I had a lot more time to work on my project. But back to work tomorrrow!

Cheers,

S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

Guess almost S.O., but now you have the surroundings in different colors, what you would need is the light reflection in different colors, and that goes in the specularity channel. And don't make it a full gradient, but a gradient with the azteking "coming through" so you will have different level of reflection. Does this make sense to you?

 

[Science Officer]

Guess almost S.O., but now you have the surroundings in different colors, what you would need is the light reflection in different colors, and that goes in the specularity channel. And don't make it a full gradient, but a gradient with the azteking "coming through" so you will have different level of reflection. Does this make sense to you?

Hi Wil,

The samples shown were looking at the pearlescent finish only. As you say, in any finished product some variation in the reflectivity (such as an Aztec pattern) would be needed.

I understand what you are saying about specular reflection and lights. However one also has to anticipate that lights may not be used and a sky map (possibly HDRI) might be used instead. In such a case the colour has to be in the reflection channel. This can be seen in the following image where all reflections are colourized:

The gotcha is the colour gradient attempting to mimic different colours at different light/hull/camera angles. It occurs on the TMP model because of the paint and laquers used. Therefore the extremes of green through to red are unlikely for a solid/opaque material. It's more likely to be a neutral colour or over a small range of the spectrum (green through to turquoise).

I was kind of hoping USS Mariner would better define what he meant by a pearlescent finish. Is it like the above image or that combined with a colour gradient as in my test? If it is the former then it's simply adding a bit of colour into the reflection and specularity channels.

As it's just exploring the idea, I'm not sure I'll incorporate test gradient into my scene, but I might add a hint of turquoise. If I get the time, I'll try it out.

Cheers,

S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

See what you mean S.O.
Don't know if you have TWOK, if so, study the drydock departure, there are two scenes which are not in TMP. (well that is, one is used in TMP at the end) Both scenes are when the Ent goes over the camera. You will see the following happening: hullplating that is lighted up by model lights and sunlight have a diffuse color ranging from yellowish to bleuish, with the strange effect that when they progress further away from the camera the "bright yellowish" gets dark and the "dark bleuish" gets brighter. BUT it does it also in the specular color, you can see that in one scene, think it was in TMP, the saucer goes over the camera and the camera follows, when it comes up to the camera, some plates have a reddish specularity, which changes into bleuish specularity once the plate past the camera. That is what the original painter meant when he said that the aztec and hull pattern have different colors depending from which place looked upon.
Now as said before, I like your version with the reflection, but I think it would be very tricky if you would use a sky map, lets imagine stars, then the stars could be seen reflected in gradient colors?

Anyhow, if you would go the "real" painted way, or wish to know more about it go here: http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=188494
Found it very usefull when doing my Ent, and beside that it is a nice read about how it was done, and how modelers try to give their models the original finish as good as possible.

Keep it up, it will be nice to see how you come up solving this "problem"

 

[Science Officer]

See what you mean S.O.
Don't know if you have TWOK, if so, study the drydock departure, there are two scenes which are not in TMP. (well that is, one is used in TMP at the end) Both scenes are when the Ent goes over the camera. You will see the following happening: hullplating that is lighted up by model lights and sunlight have a diffuse color ranging from yellowish to bleuish, with the strange effect that when they progress further away from the camera the "bright yellowish" gets dark and the "dark bleuish" gets brighter. BUT it does it also in the specular color, you can see that in one scene, think it was in TMP, the saucer goes over the camera and the camera follows, when it comes up to the camera, some plates have a reddish specularity, which changes into bleuish specularity once the plate past the camera. That is what the original painter meant when he said that the aztec and hull pattern have different colors depending from which place looked upon.
Now as said before, I like your version with the reflection, but I think it would be very tricky if you would use a sky map, lets imagine stars, then the stars could be seen reflected in gradient colors?

Anyhow, if you would go the "real" painted way, or wish to know more about it go here: http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=188494
Found it very usefull when doing my Ent, and beside that it is a nice read about how it was done, and how modelers try to give their models the original finish as good as possible.

Keep it up, it will be nice to see how you come up solving this "problem"

Hi Wil,

Thanks for the above information and the link, I had a quick look at pages 1 and 15 to get an idea of information available. Looks very interesting, so I'll certainly be reading more when I get the chance.

At the moment, the latest Enterprise shaders use quite a bit of blur on the reflection channel. Therefore stars (or any small scale detail for that matter) will be blurred away. For instance, although the Earth is reflected off the hull, you can't see any cloud details. Another test image I have demonstrates this:

I was considering using the idea (or some variation of it) for the aztec pattern, although the difference in the diffusion/reflectivity would be significantly less.

But I digress. I wouldn't have a problem with a colour tint on the reflection channel as long as it doesn't look out of place. I think it's got to be a fairly subtle effect and I'm considering experimenting with a yellowish hull, with a turquoise reflection - a bit like in my test or somewhere in between that and the current scene.

Again thanks for the information Wil, and with any luck I'll have a look into it at the weekend.

Cheers,

S.O.

 

[Science Officer]

Hi Wil,

I found a bit of time this evening to have a quick scan through the information on the site. It appears that there was quite a bit of debate on how to reproduce the original finish on the TMP model.

However my starting point is with this piece of information:

Blue(+proper angle to light source)=Gold
Green(+proper angle to light source)=Red
Red(+proper angle to light source)=Green
Gold(+proper angle to light source)=Blue

So what I've done is taken my test sphere and applied two "pearlescent colours" - Gold and Green. According to the above information these will produce reflections that are Blue and Red. My first attempt is as follows:

I think it kind of works. Next step will be to implement the other two paints.

Then its back to the website to dig up more facts. Obviousy the effect here is too basic and over the top for use on a starship.

Cheers,

S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

Exactly S.O.

Ofcourse as you mention over the top, but that is just finetuning untill it looks OK for you ..... and us

However, when absorbing all the info on that site, and some more interviews on the net with the original painter, I found two more "colors".
As you know, lots of modelers use the black and white aztec for their Ents. This is not so strange because the ship looks that way in later movies when they got rid of the beautiful colors by "repainting" (destroying) it.
But in TMP there is also a bright/dark pattern without reflecting COLORS and the majority of the saucer pattern are made of these.
These colors are:
Green(+proper angle to light source)=nothing (no specularity just dark)
Blue(+proper angle to light source)=white (very bright white specularity)

Keep it up, this is going to look awesome.

 

[Science Officer]

Exactly S.O.

Ofcourse as you mention over the top, but that is just finetuning untill it looks OK for you ..... and us

However, when absorbing all the info on that site, and some more interviews on the net with the original painter, I found two more "colors".
As you know, lots of modelers use the black and white aztec for their Ents. This is not so strange because the ship looks that way in later movies when they got rid of the beautiful colors by "repainting" (destroying) it.
But in TMP there is also a bright/dark pattern without reflecting COLORS and the majority of the saucer pattern are made of these.
These colors are:
Green(+proper angle to light source)=nothing (no specularity just dark)
Blue(+proper angle to light source)=white (very bright white specularity)

Keep it up, this is going to look awesome.

Thanks Wil,

FYI the test sphere used two materials.

1. Green pearl.
2. Gold pearl with a checkerboard mask in the Alpha channel.

It earlier occurred to me that the Alpha channel makes this a powerful approach. If I modify the mask to include a mid-grey, I'd end up with an average of the two materials - a greenish-gold colour and a magenta reflection. So the more grey shades, the more intermediate colours.

It should therefore be possible to combine 4 pearl colours in various amounts via 3 masks.

Concerning ...

Green(+proper angle to light source)=nothing (no specularity just dark)
Blue(+proper angle to light source)=white (very bright white specularity)

That's interesting and there maybe two parts to this.

1 - It comes out in the wash. I noticed in the test how red reflections are brighter than the blue reflections on lower-left of the sphere. On the lower right, they're darker.
2 - Just pop a mask into the specular and reflection channels.

It feels like all the ingredients are here to get a decent effect. It just a matter of working out how to combine them to get a good result.

Cheers,

S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

Yes S.O. you're on the right track.
Since I modeled all the plates it was easier for me to get the intermediate colors, as soon as I changed them they showed up on the model. Doing it with bitmaps will be ofcourse a lot more work, but it makes it easier on the modeling side. I think once you get it, it will become the standard in the Ent texturing, and a lot of guys asking you, how to do it.

 

[Science Officer]

I'm getting all enthusiastic now! I took those materials and applied them to a saucer where I'd applied other materials on a per panel basis. I've lowered the specularity colour saturation a bit.

I'm now reasonably convinced the idea will work. I'll try to do some more over the weekend.

Cheers,

S.O.

 

[BK613]

Wow i really like the approach here. Was always a big fan of the TMP Ent's look and really was annoyed when later films moved to ILM white.

 

[wjaspers]

Nice S.O. , you can allready see from your last picture, starting from the center going to the right, the specular aztec coloring, going over to a almost not seen aztec, going over into the dark/light azteking. When you study the TMP shots you will see exactly the same happening.

 

[Science Officer]

Hi Wil,

I'm afraid I didn't get much time to progress this over the weekend.

However I have hit a problem trying to reconcile images of the Enterprise from different sources (Cloudster, Screen Caps etc). That problem is lighting conditions.

Most of the modeller snapshots taken of the Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) are under tungsten lights. These generate specular reflections which are orange to salmon pink in colour. TMP would appear to be different. Snapshots from the movie show two distinct colour ranges - orange and blue.

You can see orange reflections off internal light sources (i.e. when Enterprise leaves spacedock, there is a light source mounted in the rear of the torpedo bay shining up the neck between primary and seconday hulls).

However when the Enterprise switches on its running lights you see both orange and blue illumination on the bottom of the saucer. The orange comes from the tungsten lights mounted in the sensor array. The blue light comes from the external light source (via mirrors) mimicing the light from the tungsten source.

I've included three bitmaps of the saucer,where the only difference is the colour of the light source - blue, neutral, tungsten orange. Sorry for all the bitmaps.

I'm still only using two colours, but the results kind of mimic photos I've seen. The first image below looks like it has had its saturation increased. You'll get the same effect of my tungsten saucer if you do the same.

I need to get some other things done, so I'll try to keep this brief. I don't think there is much pearl to this in terms of diffuse colours with opposing specular colours. The effect comes from the combination of diffuse colour and specular colour, but generally the specular colour will be roughly the same hue irrespective of diffuse colour.

The trick with using reference images is to find ones that show a light source as that will give you the lighting colour. That should make life a little easier trying to deduce the diffuse and specular colours.

I'll try to post some more tomorrow.

Regards,

S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

Here are a few pics,

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/sentimental-journey/

Do not use 1701A pictures for reference, the ship was painted over (different finish) to get rid of the bleu specular.

If you use pictures from trekcore, use the HD ones, much more detail, and brighter so you can judge the diffuse a bit better.

 

[USS Mariner]

Wow, I can't believe you're actually doing a pearlescent finish!

 

[Science Officer]

Wow, I can't believe you're actually doing a pearlescent finish!

Hi USS Mariner,

I'm giving it a go, but whether I can get something that really works is to be seen.

Since the images in my last post, I decided to take a step back. There are a number of parts to this:

1. Get the correct balance betwwen diffuse and specular channels (monochrome only).
2. Break up the Aztec pattern using maybe 2 or 3 intermediate shades.
3. Start assigning subtle colours to each shade.

I think I have acheived part 1 and I'm in the process of doing part 2. Part 3 bothers me - is it a simple colour assignment or is there more to it?

If all goes well, I'll then try another iteration to refine it.

As ever here are some bitmaps with the latest progress:

1. Spotlights - just an experimental colour.
2. A blue background light - this shows the inversion between diffuse and specular channels.
3. Combined - the saucer is starting to look busy. Completion of part 2, will make it busier still.

I should point out there is an image that is inspiring me, which I believe comes from an old magazine called "Enterprise Incidents". It may be a painting, but it's got something about it I like, although whether it would work in a photo-realistic settings is something else.

Cheers,

S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

Nice S.O. you really need the break up on the pattern.
For step 3, I gave my model noise in the specular colors, however you will need to make those colors very faint because this is CG and the colors will become very prominent if you don't.
Maybe you have allready seen that it is a lot of work, but very rewarding, I promise

 

[dru]

Looking good S.O. I like this direction.

The painting is by Probert and there's a larger detail at his site here: http://probertdesigns.com/Folder_STORE/Folder_PRINTS/Past_ReflectionsPAGE.html

 

[Science Officer]

Looking good S.O. I like this direction.

The painting is by Probert and there's a larger detail at his site here: http://probertdesigns.com/Folder_STORE/Folder_PRINTS/Past_ReflectionsPAGE.html

Thanks for that Dru. One more site for future reference!

Progress has been slow this weekend due to other commitments. However the breaking up of the Aztec pattern is progressing nicely, so I'm hoping to have updated versions of the above bitmaps to show in the week.

Cheers,

S.O.