Lunar Factory

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Simon
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Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 8:13 am
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Lunar Factory

Post by Simon »

This is my take on a factory on an alien outworld colony - a concept sketch for a game model.

It took 3 hours in total for all modelling, texturing and post.

An overlay was added in post production to enhance the clouds. Everything else is taken directly from Curvy's real time 3D edit window... no waiting for renders, you can instantly view the full quality finish from any angle.

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Here is a break down of the different techniques I used to make my Lunar Factory image.

1) Drawing basic shapes

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Each object uses between 1 and 4 curves. Usually I would make copies of elements in the scene after doing the initial texture and lighting pass. But you can always use Paste Material and Paste Object Properties (Ctrl-D and Ctrl-F) to reapply new materials after copying and editing the copies.

Tip for making pipes (Curvy Exhaust Pipes)- use a Lathe object (not a Line). Draw one side of the pipe. Then use the windows menu "Clone Curve" and use Widgit move to adjust the ends of the cloned curve. This makes sure your 2nd curve closely matches the shape of the first. You can then set the Object Option "Double Sided" on to see the inside of the pipe.

Note all the major forms are finished already. This is the main "design" stage to make sure you have all the proportions and overall design right. It is really quick in Curvy :)

2) Paint forms onto the Curvy map

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Curvy maps let you add the complex model forms easily.

Remember you can subtract using the Curvy map too, I "cutout" a large chunk of the top right of the building to give space for the pipes to emerge.

Keep the basic Lathes as simple as possible and add all the detail in the map. Look at the central tower - I could have added some of the forms directly into the Lathe - but leaving it to the map keeps my options open for longer.

3) Paint detail into the base and highlight colour maps

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You can see I hand painted shadows onto this model.

4) Lightmaps and Bumpmaps

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I used a basic noisy bumpmap for the body of the factory, along with default and metal lights set as base and highlight.

The little control pods sticking out used quite a low mesh resolution with the detail coming from a bumpmap (copied from the hand painted base colour)

The detailed texture on the ground is in fact a lightmap! This is a useful trick to add detail. Set the highlight to be a noisy texture map, and the base light to be a normal lightmap.
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