Minor Super WIP

Asked if I had anymore Superman art, I didn’t think I had anything worth posting.  But then, I realized I had been working on some art-deco elements inspired by Superman Returns around the time of the movie’s release.  They are close up details on the roof of the Daily Planet from that film.  I never finished them though.  All I have are these work-in-progress images.
I might start working on them again in the near future after I’ve moved into the new house.  I’m especially interested in those elements now since returning from my vacation.  I have since discovered that a beautiful, old, Art-Deco era building I fell in love with in Vancouver is actually used as a stand-in for the Daily Planet on the CW’s Smallville. 

Krypton architecture on the other hand is especially difficult to feign, but I know I’ll take another shot at it someday.  I was working on these in a terrain generator program a few years back (Terragen I think).  I thought they’d might make nice backgrounds to some actual detailed mesh work.  I did like some of the atmospheric elements, but the structures as I continued to tinker with them eventually left me uninspired.  I will definitely aim my sights on this again though.

Death Stars Suck

A few more of my older works to pass the time.

One of my favorite paintings ever is a spectacular work by Richard McQuarrie.   It was concept art for the home world of our favorite long-ago Princess from a faraway galaxy.  The princess was Leia Organa, and her world was Alderaan.

A Little Something During The Busy…

With my new house and all, I haven’t had a lot of time lately for my 3D work.  So, I thought I might post some older images I’ve done over the years to pass the time during this 3D drought of mine.

Shrouded Lady

A gallery of images of the Golden Gate Bridge as we passed under her, walked across her, viewed her from afar, and passed under her one final time.  Boy that place is foggy.

Early morning arrival. With nothing but foghorns all around, it appeared out of nothing just as I stepped up to the top deck

It was difficult to see much of anything at a distance as we began crossing the bridge.

These images surprised me, as they revealed more of the towers than I was able to see with my own eyes.

Approaching the other side, the sun is shining through like crazy in Marin County.

The sun trying to peek though on our walk back across.

Beautiful little picnic area after we returned and the fog had lifted but not yet burnt off.

I thought this little area wasn’t too far from where Kirk’s airtram arrived in The Motion Picture

The clearest images we got were as we departed San Francisco

Crossing under the bridge as we left.

Captions forthcoming…  got some new house work to do.

Back From The Frontier…

Now a new adventure…

Just returned from my Alaska/West Coast cruise Monday night.   18 days from Vancouver up into Alaskan waters with a final call on San Diego.  The cruise was only 14 days but book ended with stays in the departure and arrival ports.  One of the best stops was in San Fransisco over night!  Got to meet up with some friends that live in the area, and visit none other than the Golden Gate Bridge near the future home of Starfleet Headquarters.   Walked across it and back in the depths of a fog shroud, but it was a blast!   Had a great time and couldn’t believe the weather while we were there.  Amazing and beautiful, and now returning home to a new home, as my wonderful sister was able to close on the house while I was away.

Resting now for a bit before returning to work tomorrow (as a friend in San Diego told me, “Vacationing is hard work.”) and a return to the routine just in time to prepare an all new routine as a new home owner.  I’ll be able to get back to modeling when I figure out which way is up.

Until later,

Basill

Heading Out

Been very busy lately, so I haven’t had much free time on the com-pute, but since I was heading out for Canada and Alaska for the next 3 weeks, I thought I would throw up this little experiment I did incorporating the corridor with the transporter room.  Enjoy, and see you in October!

Booth View

Just a few items I was able to try out.  An angle from the control booth with the control station and also a view of the non-purple backing I’ve been using in recent renders but only seen in reflection.  The transporter pads look considerably less bright behind the glass window in the booth now.  The effect might be a little harsh so I’ll need to look into the glass surface settings to tweek that.  When I copied this console from my Miranda Cargo Transporter mesh I totally forgot to bring over the green box elements that glow behind the two large “windows” in the center panel (they were in a different layer so they could be manipulated independently).

In order to include them I had to refurnish that piece since it was not to the same scale.  Since I had to dig around in the original source material, I also decided to redo the “lite-brite” buttons there on the left.  I recently found some nice close up images of just such a TMP design element online and was itching to update them.  Now they look more like glowing “skittles.”

I’ve started a new mesh file that simply has all of the consoles from all of the interiors I’ve done in it so I can essentially pull them from library whenever I need them.  I’ve also started trying to refine the hard/sharp edges with the rounder tool but the complex shape of some of these beasties is proving more challenging than I’d hoped thus far.

I didn’t have time to brighten this one up, but here’s a view from the right side of the control booth.  Notice how much brighter the pads look though even without gamma lighting correction.

I’ve also started working on the rarely seen console to the right of the main control console.  I’ve only really managed to build the hub cap looking greebles on the wall.  I’ll try and render that area soon.

8-14-09 Update- Minor

Toned down the gamma on the graphic and lowered the blur on the overlying clear grid.  I like this much better, but the details in the graphic might still need to be reduced in scale a bit.

Hitting road bumps in my house  hunting so that has eaten up most of my free time this week.

Update:

Shrank the detailing down in scale by essentially enlarging the image’s boundaries and adding more detail around the original graphic.  I think this looks even better still.

Another Angle

I tinkered with the grid by returning the graphic to its former crisp clean self and increasing the blur and refraction on the transparent grid.  6 one way half a dozen the other?

A 23rd Century Screen Saver?

I really don’t know what this is.  It is however, a wonderfully complex pattern that breaks up the monotony of what would otherwise be a bare wall behind our transporter personnel as they diligently try to save two incoming, but ultimately doomed, crew members.

I used this screen cap to form a basic pattern, essentially, simple rectangular geometry in various purple shades on a black background that I was then able to blur and tweak contrast settings on.