Donny's Refit Enterprise Interiors (Version 2.0)
- Thread starter Donny
- Start date
Textured the neck, photorp launcher, deflector, and got a good start on the engineering hull today. Hopefully I can get the rest of the ship textured tomorrow so I can start on decals and windows and such. I've got quite a good workflow down now. Still need to tweak some colors/values to get the Aztec panels to look just right, but it's coming together quite nicely so far:
Textured the rest of the ship, except for the Aztec pattern on the nacelles, which I will have to get to tomorrow night. Tweaked metallic/roughness values a bit more overall to try and find that sweet spot.
Checklist of things left to do:
-Finish Aztec panels on nacelles
-Final Aztec color/roughness/metallic value pass
-Add some slight weathering
-Do a final color pass on all the emissive materials, including texturing the impulse grille and running lights
-Windows
-Decals
-Lighting Pass
-Tie up loose ends, do any remaining color or surface value correction
About another week of work and I think this beauty will be done!
Checklist of things left to do:
-Finish Aztec panels on nacelles
-Final Aztec color/roughness/metallic value pass
-Add some slight weathering
-Do a final color pass on all the emissive materials, including texturing the impulse grille and running lights
-Windows
-Decals
-Lighting Pass
-Tie up loose ends, do any remaining color or surface value correction
About another week of work and I think this beauty will be done!
Beautiful.
Hard to tell if you are doing it, but one thing a lot of people doing the aztec-ing fail to realize is the paint is actually pearlescent whites and a bunch of variations were made with just a few drops of color mixed into each. In this photo you put on Flickr you can see the various colors there: easily at least a half-dozen, especially if you look at it full-res. That's a big part of the "look".
And, of course, the nacelle grilles. As I recall, the glow from inside is blue, similar to the deflector at warp, but the grilles themselves have a purplish cast, which is why the glow color looks more purplish.
Hard to tell if you are doing it, but one thing a lot of people doing the aztec-ing fail to realize is the paint is actually pearlescent whites and a bunch of variations were made with just a few drops of color mixed into each. In this photo you put on Flickr you can see the various colors there: easily at least a half-dozen, especially if you look at it full-res. That's a big part of the "look".
And, of course, the nacelle grilles. As I recall, the glow from inside is blue, similar to the deflector at warp, but the grilles themselves have a purplish cast, which is why the glow color looks more purplish.
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I always figured that this was an "explosure" (in the photographic sense) thing, that the lights were essentially set too powerfully to see the aztecing? Could you reproduce the effect in that way? Perhaps have a "TMP Lighting mode," where they send out a workbee fitted with lights brighter than the sun....
dJE
I’ve found a couple of physical models out there with excellent pearlescent paint jobs. I’ll see if I can dig them up. They really go a long way to achieve the original TMP look.
Yeah, my problem isn't not knowing how the original was painted, but more of how to replicate the look with Unreal's shading model. My problem currently is not being able to have a separate diffuse color and a separate specular color like I'd have with a specular/gloss shader. Ideally, I'd have a duller/grayer diffuse value and a more colorful specular value for when the light hits it just right. With Unreal's metal/rough shading model, one color value drives both. So if I up the saturation of the colors too far, the ship has sort of a clownish look even when the light isn't bouncing off the surface. I have the saturation of the colored panels set very very low right now so as to combat this, but this means that even when the light hits it, the colors don't really pop like they should. This is one of those rare moments where Unreal 4's shading model is failing me. Apparently, the Unity and Crytek engines have options for both shading models, but I don't think migrating my project to Unity at this point would be worth the trouble. So I may just have to live with my Aztec details looking slightly off. Sigh. I'd almost rather make the textures so the ship appears duller like in TWOK and beyond.
Dammit. They had tons trouble with the Aztecing during blue-screen filming, and now it's giving me a pain in the ass 40 years later in a game engine!
Ahh that's insightful. I thought I noticed the nacelle grilles being a shade of dark purple and textured them as such, but wasn't sure if this was due to them just appearing purplish in some of the reference photos of the model.
I've found a lot of good reference for good-quality pearlescent paint jobs as well, but like I said above, my problem is more not being able to replicate that pearlescence in Unreal. Either way, I'd be glad to see them if you can find them.
I wanna keep tweaking until you have nothing else to say about the textures then!!
Yeah, I just re-read that and it sounded inaccurately bitchy.I wanna keep tweaking until you have nothing else to say about the textures then!!
I would curious to see your current textures under different lighting. (And I bet seeing this thing animated is just magic.)
I'm actually using a base white of 230. It appears grayer because of my lighting setup and because I've given my base coat a slight metallic value to blend better with the Aztec.
Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate that. I tend to get down on my work when I can't manipulate things exactly to my liking, but sometimes I need to take a step back and see it as a whole rather than the smaller part that's bothering me.I'm afraid I won't be able to add anything to the shop talk, but that I think your model looks just gorgeous, @Donny! Quite clearly you are equally good with exteriors as you are with interiors.
I keep saying this, but I think also I need to finish up the remaining details (aztec pattern on the nacelles and implementing both the windows and decals) before worrying too much right now about tweaking the look of the Aztec pattern. I think once everything is in place, I'll be better able to judge and tweak the overall colors. I think the absence of both the bold red of the decals and the windows breaking up some of the featureless space on the saucer rim and engineering hull is really throwing me off.
Looks great. Would be cool if you built a saucer separation mode into your game model.
I am! I dunno when I'll work out those details but I've taken preliminary steps to do so.
ALMOST finished the Aztec on the nacelles last night, but hit a snag with the diagonal pattern near the aft end so I'll have to finish it up tonight.
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You know, as I started working on that part last night, I also hit some problems. Not sure if they are the same. I mapped that part in a cylindrical shape so I was getting a lot of distortion. In the end, tri planar mapping saved me there.
Yeah, I've got to work out how I'm going to map that section. I thought I was in the clear last night approaching the finish line for the Aztec pattern, and then realized that those diagonal stripes were not mapping like I thought they would. Alas, I was too tired to stay up another hour to figure it out.
Found a whole thread about it over on HobbyTalk. They really hit it out of the park with that paint job.
