Another Re-imagined Enterprise

[traq]

those last few pics made me wonder about the dimensions... is there clearance above the shuttlebay (or forward of, I can't tell how deep the bay is) for the power transfer conduits to get into the nacelle pylons?

looks awesome

[MadKoiFish]

Yes they run right over the shuttle bay. It isnt a real good dipiction of things but in reality it hits a junction then creats a arched array then up the struts. It would create some fun multi lever decking for the poor engine crew to crawl around in and get knocked off of during battles

[traq]

ha, cool

[MadKoiFish]

A bit of screwing around. Consider these as clay renders with pearl sprayed on ;p
What I really want is to get a specular reflection IE a reflected material but not sharp reflections as in chrome etc which is what raytrace creates. But what I want is a diffuse reflection such as light hitting the bridge and casting reflection onto the hull etc. So you can tell the ship has a reflective index but not a classs smooth surface. So far I am at a loss and only been able to fake it with grainy results or by using bump maping with a really noisy high rez bitmap resulting in hours long renders. And well a not 100% likeable result. My insistance on using scanline is probably a large block here but I do not feel like spending hundreds on a renderer or using some crap demo soft. And I hate mental ray, just blows details out unless your willing to wait overnight to find your render set up is borked some how.
I do not think i did anything to change geometery today, just plain getting boored with this ship

[sovereigngw]

I'm just catchin up since I haven't been on here in awhile and I have to say I love what you have done so far Madkol. Everything is looking great and I like how everything is combined to make the Constituiton class more advanced than it is. Just the way you have like the old style connie and the refit combined mostly. Can't wait to see more good stuff.

[DamienNZ]

so nicely done

[Aresius]

I have never been a fan of the TOS. Mostly because of the lack of details...
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Man, you make me love it!

[PixelMagic]

If you want to fake a metal like surface, alot can be helped if you break the render up into a couple of different passes.

To do what you want, it might be easiest to go ahead and plunge into mental ray. It's gotten alot easier to use over the last couple of Max releases. The best way to get your metal look is to use the Mental Ray A&D Materials.

EDIT: Ok, I came up with this using scanline. My attempt at a metallic surface. What do you think?

[MadKoiFish]

that is just specular based on angle of view from the light, nothing diffrent from what I have. HWat Im looking for is light interaction between objects. Say when you put a can of soda on a formica table in abient light the sliver in the can reflects in the tables surface but it isnt sharp but diffuse. What I basicly am looking for is like raytraced reflections but the ability to ajust the reflective properties of the surface. I guess the proper term is caustics.
This is the closest to what I refer to that I can find ATM without spending a lot of time looking for a image.
http://www.3d-palace.com/xenomorphic...caustics04.jpg
But what I am after is more than just reflected light. And from the sounds of it It is either use mental ray, which I hate cause it blows out detail such as hull grids etc unless I let it bloat my renders to 30min+ or some expensive 3rd party renderer. Some freeware ones were mentioned I might give a look into but so far demoing some I havent found anything that balances livable times to what I am looking for. nothing worse than to run a 1hour+ render to find you borked up some set up or to slow the learning curve. :O

[Monkey Boy]

Originally Posted by PixelMagic

EDIT: Ok, I came up with this using scanline. My attempt at a metallic surface. What do you think?

That looks great, but it's in danger of looking too like the movie enterprise, rather than the TOS enterprise.

TOS enterprise never really did look metal. But I guess it is a 're-imaging' so anything is possible.