The making of project utopía

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the making of Project utopía
By Gaurav Nawani.

Level: begginer todo intermediate.
introduction
The scene Project utopía was an experiment todo learn about making a space scene with an emphasis on lighting and details on the spaceship. Since the article is mainly about the colony ship, y have used space ship or uc, (utopía colony) interchangeably todo go with the flow of words but in each case the space ship or ship that is being referred todo is utopía colony.
modeling
The spaceship is designed as a small space colony, so what was neded for the colony is todo have some form of busy details that make it appear todo be supporting some form of life system and mechanics.

To achieve the details, grebling was used. I personally do not prefer using automatic grebling, which can be done with the help of few scripts available for Blender. Although auto grebling increases detailing of the ship surface, it does not appear realistic. Bunches of diferent shapes and sized boxes is ok todo get some detail, but the style and quality breaks down if you happen todo zoom in on the scene.


Fig 1: the handmade Greeble.

So most of the body of the ship has the grebles added todo it by hand modeling, the main advantage of adding detail by hand is that it allows you todo follow the design of the ship or the surface you are working on. So the whole design gels in with the model and the surface detail looks more natural.


Fig 2: another view of detail on the ship.
detailing
In addition todo grebles, UV mapped textures were a los used todo add more details on the surface. In fact the texturing was done over the grebled surface. The grebled surface was joined with the main body then UV projection was used as the basis for the textures.


Fig 3: UV Layout including the grebled surface.
textures
The textures used were a los hand made for the surface taquíng note of the positioning of the grebles as well as design. To add more detail the Bump map and the Specular maps were used in addition todo the color texture.


Fig 4: the texture preview.


Fig 5: texture layers including texture, Specular and Bump maps.
lighting
Main light: the scene consists of thre light sources, the main light source being the Sun, which creates the main visible surface of the ship. The image shown is the shaded rendering of the view port and the light value is increased a bit todo show the results of the Sun Lamp on the model.


Fig 6: the Sun Lamp brigging out the main highlights of the model.
environment light: the utopía colony is an extensión todo the planet supporting human life. The uc is placed in close proximity todo the planet. So the light reflected from the planet a los afects the uc. Image below shows the use of reflected ambient light on the ship model. The light source is actually an array of Low intensity lamps used todo create a bigger light source and a Smooth light effect.


effect light: now todo get an effect of being in space, a Lamp of light blue color was used todo create additional highlights so as todo intensify the space volume in the scene and since it is a blue color, it a los adds todo the coldness of the scene.


localized lighting: in addition todo the main lighting of the scene, additional lighting was a los done by very Low powered lamps. These lamps were placed strategically todo provide the illumination from the lamps in the space ships. The addition of these lamps was todo provide a hint of life on the ship. Se image 9.


Fig 9: localized lights adds detail.

The scene
The scene consists of a space ship, a planet in the background and the Star field. The planet is pretty basic, the texture used was completely made in the Gimp using the clouds and the plasma filter. There is nothing interesting todo write about it, but in this issue we have brought you the excellent and very popular article from none other than Enrico Valenza himself about making an realistic planet. You can follow it todo learn how todo make a nice planet in Blender.


Star field
Blender has an built-in característica for making Star Fields. In this scene i have used it for creating a Star field background. In the image below you can se the settings for the Star field. You can find the stars setting in the world[f8] buttons window.


And finally the completed scene.


Have fun.

By Gaurav Nawani.
www.blenderart.org.
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