Another Re-imagined Enterprise

[Dr-Timelord]

On the group shot on the enterprise from various angles, i like the top picture. its a good mix and feel of Original TOS and new detail in the mesh

[MadKoiFish]

You lost me there it is all the same mesh and basicly the same materials on it. 3rd image has a bit of a metal flake going on cause of something I tried out and didnt like.

The final finish on this will be close to the TMP ship but not the stark white. Say a blend of ENT TOS and TMP I suppose. TOS definetly has that semigloss thing going on on it. So I want to add a bit of that to the materials. but will probably to avoid using outside renderers, resort to using this specular fall off pearl thing or something. ;p Doubt Ill use these colours. Was just messing around out of sheer bordom.

[tonyforever]

This is the most faithful and Honestly the best re-imagined Enterprise I've seen. Granted the new film is over a year away, but I can't see it topping what you've done!

Great Work!

[tobian]

Great work on the redesign, and I actually rather like the purply sheen there

the only bits I am not keen on are the panelling on the top of the secondary hull, where it joins the neck, and the fatness of the forward edge of the nacelles, as seen from the side (from the front they look cool).

With regards to rendering. you're in a sticky wicket. Scanline is somewhat deprecated these days, and reflection blur, metropolitan light transport and caustics - err file not found What you are after here is reflection blur, plain and simple, the caustics effect is more a function of radiosity and 'metropolitan light transport' where rays go back and forth creating caustic hotspots, and concentrated points. The bad news is: Scanline is fast BECAUSE it is doing none of these things! Start activating these sorts of features and.. well 1/2 hour render times sound good actually! I've seen renders of some of my interior shots take 8 HOURS because of all the blurred reflections (which increase the sample rays exponentially) - some of the modern engines like Vray handle it using clever tricks, and exceptionally fast, but not scanline diff/spec fast I am affraid! Mental ray is capable of many of these things, really well, and 'fast' but again we are still talking 'fast' in relative terms, you know like Ion engines are 'fast' but would still take 200 years to reach a nearby star

[PixelMagic]

So, MadKoiFish, I got around to trying to replicate the hull material of the ILM Enterprise from the trailer, all done with Scanline. I think I got at least the specular attributes close. I don't know if this was kind of what you were talking about, but I figured I'd show you anyway. The specular does fall of according to viewing angle as does its Anisotropy. Anyway, is this kind of what you were talking about?

[Capt. Eric Gardner]

The phaser emitters are out of place. One emitter is in front of the Bridge, and the other two are located at the side with the bridge in the middle.

[MadKoiFish]

Originally Posted by Capt. Eric Gardner

The phaser emitters are out of place. One emitter is in front of the Bridge, and the other two are located at the side with the bridge in the middle.

What the hell are you talking about? There are no phaser emitters on my mesh. Least not yet. Oh you might be refering to the saucer Pixel posted??

Pix
Im more refering to a reflection blur as Tobian pointed out. Something scanline should have been updated with over the years but well ;p
I will more than likely switch to mental ray or maybe find another renderer to use. I had Brazil but that was like for max6 or 7 Not sure how itll handle xp64 or max9 Your sample there does look pretty good. Most likely for WIP Ill use some plain spec with a fall off. Currently using aniscopic and do not like how it makes the rest look like grey plasti.






Most of these are showing lights effect through transparency but what Im intrested in is the cast shadows. I managed something similar in mental ray just need to learn how to get the overall look I want.

[PixelMagic]

Oh, you mean like this?



I whipped that image up. The top reflection if of course perfect, but you want something like the bottom image, right? It can be done with mental ray, which is what I used in the picture above. However, I really doubt it's worth the extra render times. It takes a good 5 minutes to render one frame. It's also difficult to set up once you have different materials and such. However, if you want to do it, it's possible with mental ray.

[MadKoiFish]

Yeah that is the issue. Scanline cannot manage it. Im setting up mental ray for my Wings of War entry over at foundation3D I have set things up and managing more realistic enviromental images. Just suffer that tight detail loss because of the AA avalible in MR.

Max scanline can only do the above image with a fall off on reflectivity. Nor does it support tinted pass through. For the reimagined connie I will most likely stick to scanline for now and fake things. I would though love to have a semi reflective surface on the ship to give it that burnished paint effect. Nother thing Im going to look at is if MR can support light emitting polygons. Since this would solve a HUGE issue I have been fighting with in max EXP with lights in interiors and complex shapes where a omni or whatnot doesnt fool the eye. Still digging around to see if MR has a render plane, Brazil had one where I didnt have to deal with a plane object in the scene. It is taking me ages to remember things since MR has changed a lot since I last used it stuff is all over the place now. -_-
Anyhow as you can see I got some issues with jaggies, many others like mitchel add what look like JPG artifacts. Go fig. but the shadow and light bounch effects are much nicer. And yeah, I know all the grid lines on the balmung are not there, guess 1/4 over 16 isnt enough. But even with scanline materials Im getting nice bounce off the saucer onto the impulse as well as some bluegreen bloom on the nacel.

Oh wow my attachment space is dwindling so um guys/gals, start saving those early samples if you want them ill clear them out soon!

BTW what material and settings did you use for that second pic?

[PixelMagic]

On the second pic, I used an Arch&Design material with the "Glossy Material" preset. I then used the following settings.

Reflectivity: Pure White (or 100%)
Glossiness: 0.25
Glossiness Samples: 192

I hope you get the look you are after. If you need help or have any questions with mental ray, I know it a little, so don't be afraid to ask.