Still blending...

Just to be clear, the lack of posts isn't because I stopped working with Blender -- if anything I've become more focused since the last update, spending a  lot of time going back and improving work, tackling stuff that I've previously hated -- specifically UV mapping and texture mapping. 

Suffering for Suffren

I completed my build of the 2300AD star ship IFV Bassompiere - a Suffren-class cruiser and was happy enough with the results that I decided that it was going to get the full texture mapping treatment. That took ages! I restarted the process about three times, but the underlying workflow is steady and pretty easy - thanks to the regular forms that make up the model.

Boxing out the basic form - getting the proportions right. This was about the fourth attempt.

The Suffren has a really simple form. Getting a lot of detail onto those flat surfaces helps break up the form and give the viewer a better sense of scale.

Time to paint it up. Each section had its UV exported then applied as a mesh which gives an interesting 'look' in its own right. I did this stage three times, each time trying to optimize how the meshes unwrapped.

Texture mapping underway. With a good UV setup texture mapping gets a lot easier. I've spent years getting nowhere with mapping because of building out of lots of unconnected meshes. Finally getting somewhere!

Model -almost finished, here. Some glowing lights need to be added. The three Landers attached at the back.

For a brief animation I put together this wrap-around-a-globe background image, based on the Earth scene I downloaded from Blender Swap. This is a sample of a 10,000 by 8,000 render - the biggest I've ever done by a long long shot. Suddenly I realise why all my environmental backgrounds have failed in the past -- my background images were about one tenth of the size required to avoid horrible artefacts from appearing.