Challenge 13: Submitted

 It's done. Time to move on.

Competition entry

Video slideshow of the development:

Next up - the first in a series of classic Traveller ship rebuilds. This time, for sale!! Hopefully.

Monday progress >

 First day of the week, first target: Winter competition entry. 

Almost complete. 

Starting notes

Just a couple more elements...

I unified the landing platforms, so the Mantas now sit on a single plane. I want a fuel van and pipes to clutter some of that empty foreground tarmac. I'm playing with the idea of a patrolling soldier in the foreground. I have just the asset, but I tested it for the first time, and it needs some adjustment.

BigMediumSmall's spec ops. On sale!

I lashed up an APU/Fuel unit. It needs another hour of detailing/Fixing. Note the wheels -- I stole them!

I will complete the final render tonight because I expect a multiple-hour render time. For final renders, I tend to ramp up the samples and render size to get the best from the new volume and possibly avoid the need for noise filtering.

Winter Competition...too...many..elements..to fix

 Yesterday, I reached a point in the creation of my competition entry where I was making change after change, but instead of each change taking me closer to a happy place, they spawned another set of change requirements. Add more light into this area, and it fixed one problem, but I then realised the texture isn't good any more because I can see it too well. The lamps don't look like they are consistently lighting the right areas, but when that's fixed, they ruin the look I was going for.

Cha..cha..changes. Too many.

What to do, where to go?

Option 1: Carry on. Go on, pull all your hair out.

Option 2: Restart from the basics and rebuild the scene elements. This has the benefit of opening up design and composition decisions that have been fixed in my head. The downside is that this will open up designed and composition decisions that may not be problems.

Option 3: Go away for a few days. Get a fresh eye. I have time! The deadline is the end of the month. This is the best option, but I worry that I won't return to it. I'll be too wrapped up in the next thing -- Traveller Ships ..for a publication. Honest, I'll finish it this time.

Winter Competition review point

 

The composition is mostly locked. I'm not building any more assets. So what's left to do?

Reflect and inflection

1. The dome wall texture is a bit mucky. I'll make it look more realistic in terms of casting patterns and stains. Maybe more lights and some garage-style shutter doors?

2. I'll put some unique decals on the two landers. Maybe I'll put some numbering on them. I might change their colour.

3. I should soften the silhouetting of the control tower and fuel tanks. They're almost black, but the tower is lighter. The tone should shift from lighter to darker, with the tower near black. I'll test that.

4. One of the lamps on the control tower is not lit, but it looks odd. I might need to make them consistent. There is not as much volumetric light being cast. I may tweak the volume fog a bit more to see if I can improve it.

5. I might darken the foreground snow bank. It has a blue cast on it to match the TT5 procedural snow.

Critique 1

Winter competition work-in-progress

I've just removed two attempts at populating the middle distance with a snow-covered forest. It just added clutter that didn't add anything, only distracted. I might try again near the end.
 

Two hours of control tower building...and ugh, its scale is off in key areas: Door, roof railings. What to do? I could scale those elements down, but .... <idea>

That works! Replicated the main building block. I now have a more slender, modular-looking building. I'll add lamps to that new middle tier. Progress!

Lander loiter or leave?

Manta Tactical Lift

 I'm in a good place, and the pressure to move on to other projects is too strong to ignore. Even if I felt I needed to stick with its development, I'd need a break at this point to cultivate a fresh eye. 

I'm getting on with either the informal Science Fiction scene competition with Berglmir or the True-VFX Community competition (actually set by Berglmir). The latter competition has a deadline, so I'll do that first. 

Sometimes, it just falls together

I started creating terrain heightmaps in World Creator. I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere, so I started to play with some of the results in Blender.

Starting point

A first brush at all elements

Of course, the lander was going to land on the scene.

I'm happy with this as a starting point. I need to add some additional points of interest. An antenna on the right-hand hill. So, snow clumps around the landing pads. Lighting and refuelling equipment. The concrete cylinder will need to be dressed up and lit. Maybe even a figure in the foreground. More atmospherics!

Hello 2025!

 Well, here we are. It's happened! The calendars ran out, and we were all forced to adopt a new increment. Will this one be better than the last one? Probably not, but we can always hope. 

I started this new solar revolution with some science fiction modelling, along with the environmental/True-Terrain 5 riffing.

Messing about with terrain stamps

Snow test1

Snow test 2

On the True-VFX Discord, Berglmir has set another community competition. It's a snow scene. I don't think I've done more than a few snow scenes, so this will be a good learning experience -- hence the snow tests, which use Quixel materials, which are no longer available from Quixel Bridge, starting yesterday. I did spend some time downloading a few more models and textures, but far from all of them.

Science Fiction Modelling

I thought it was time to do a model vehicle. If it comes out okay, I'll sell it or give it away via a modelling library site or Blender Market.

First concept - created last week

I did some sketching while visiting my father-in-law. 

Once home, I fired-up Blender and started to recreate the idea...

Looks okay but not chunky enough

Too chunky, it turns out. So, I stretched the model (front one) with a quick Y-axis rescale. Naughty!

Hold up! I am still blocking out, but here are the smaller details. I can't help myself!

Reflection point: Hmm, it scrapes through. I like the overall effect. Lots of things to sort out, though.