Escape Island

 

World creator terrain sculpt -> True-Terrain 5/True-Sky -> GeoScatter

I'm getting a bit better with scattering. This isn't finished. I more readily spot where natural terrain scatter sits on the wrong side of random or unnatural.

I also recognise that you need to scatter in layers because no single scatter pattern will look quite natural.

Finally, I now see how you need to be economical. More objects in a single scatter pass might be called for, but as you need multiple layers of scatters, it's best to work with as few objects as possible to get the desired result. Ideally, you can bolster your scatters when you have all the layers in place and know how much resource headroom you have left. 

The little stone building is from PBG2 (Procedural Building Generator 2).  I've forgotten how to use the add-on, getting wonky results. I had better go and check if it's fully compatible with Blender 4.2. Most likely, I'm just not using it correctly...

Once I'm happy with the rocks and pebbles, I'll add a small boat to the beach.

Shift Carrier

I got positive feedback from the ship's design and book author, Charles E. Gannon. Some elements don't match up with his thinking, so I'll be doing some reworking soon. I'm happy to! He especially wants to see the Hab module arms unfold, as this function hasn't been visualised before. I guess I will be completing my studies in Blender's Rigging-Fu.

Shift Carrier Commonwealth. Unfolding in a video soon.

Shift Carrier update - TEST TWO!

 I made a test video this morning while waiting for the boys to get up. It's rough around the edges and a bit rough in the spaces between the edges. The lighting is too flat. Some areas look bad in close-up. There are missing bits, one audio and one transition glitch.  I'll declare this as a "proof of concept," so I'll go back and refine, polish, restage, re-title, re-time—all that stuff.

Shift-Carrier first pass completed

 

I tripped myself up badly when I used instances for the passenger pods (hidden under those bullet-shaped bonnets) on the right-hand side. Moving the ship model causes the instances to move independently. They float off in a random direction. I'll learn how to use instances properly before using them again.

Test Video!

Shift-Carrier Commonwealth - Cargo containers

 

I got part of the way into the cargo section. Spy those little crates attached ahead of the big water balloon thing. I'd have to a lot further except I had house work and shopping to focus on today.

Kraken of space...

Nearly done.

Once this initial build is complete, there will likely be a lot of optimisation and instancing. The render takes a long time to start, almost certainly because of the massive polygon count.

Shift-Carrier Commonwealth

 The Commonwealth is progressing...

The Water Rings pack a serious polygon count, I can tell you...

Apparently, I got the length wrong. It's going to be another 400m in total length...

New project, new True-Terrain 5 release

 We got another TT5 release. This looks like it's getting close to a final version heading into general availability. There are now a lot of really lovely presets that make getting great results as easy as a couple of clicks. Previously, you needed a maths degree and several days of experience experimenting with noise filters.

Quick Luna terrain test

True-Terrain 5, with its powerful new water system

New Project

So, the Boulton-class ship is waiting for a final cleanup. Instead of working on it's sub-craft, the Gordon-class Sloop, I decided to go big, very big.

I will tackle the giant interstellar ships from the Terran Republic novel: the Shift Carriers.

Illustrated below is official art by Ian Stead that featured in the second edition of the first novel, Fire with Fire

Ian did a great job of producing tight, easily understood schematic drawings and illustrations. I'll approach it differently, with a bit more artistic freedom and make the ship way -- way -- way more detailed. Also cinematic.  I don't recall doing a ship that's 2000m long. 

The design follows some of the hard SF theories used in the Avatar films.  Power comes from matter, annihilation for power and Fusion. The ships are equipped with big radiators or heat sinks and use suspended animation to keep passengers frozen during relatively long transits.

Art by Ian Stead (https://www.artstation.com/biomassart)

Main truss segment

This truss/cage forms the spine of the ship. Two transit tubes, each 3 m in diameter, are included.

The central truss runs the whole length of the 2000m-long ship. Here's one side of the main drive block. This section is about 500m, so about a quarter of the overall length.

Drive block

Engines and pipework

I need to place the power plant at the forward end. It stores anti-matter, which requires zero-failure magnetic confinement, or the ship instantly turns into hot particles.