Competition #13 - Z-trooper

[Tom]

I think you are right about the blue/black areas.. they were meant to be windows, sort of areas where people live. I havent really done anything else than mark where it would be, but I think its a lost cause that breaks up the flow.

Great feedback. I think I'll maybe try and do the reactor sphere in a highly reflective solar panel thing. Anyways here is a updated render, with a updated background. (still MUCH more detail to come). I think requiem was right when he said that it would feel good to finish (not that I am close yet but, I'm really beginning to get satisfied with it, especially when I know that every single pixel shown on that final 800x600 render will have been handmade by me at some point.



EDIT: I'm a noob at rendering, can anyone tell me how to make the shadows smoother when using a omni light source? which settings should I use.
Along with the omni I'm using a skylight, and render settings are standard + raytracer and catmull-rom filter. as you can see on the back of the lower ship, the shadows are very pixelated, which very much ruins the quality.

Thanks in advance to anyone who has the answer

[TheoLogic]

Put your omni far away and set it's strenght up can help. I woulnd't use a skylight here. Try 3 omnis, with one that renders shadows...

[Tom]

Alright, thanks I'll try that. I just like the way the skylight smooths out the transitions from face to face. I'll try it non the less. thanks.

[TwiiK]

I'm guessing you're using a shadow map for your omnis because of the pixelated shadows.

You could increase the shadow map size to make the shadows less pixelated and increase the sample range to make softer shadows.

Or you could change your omni to an mr area omni and use raytraced shadows with an increased radius and samples for both smooth and soft shadows.

I prefer the last method mainly because I don't like using shadow maps.

[Tom]

I am aware of the fact that I'm still learning to texture (and model), but I'm still not fully satisfied with the outcome of the very rushed texture job on my fighter:


(it uses normal, specular, self-illumination and diffuse)

However, it will have to do since I'm out of time.
I'll use the last time to try bring more detail to my mothership.

[nistrum]

one thing dude... you see the purple.. go into ur glow map.. and lower the brightness. then use the dodge/burn tool to dodge a ring in the middle make it look brighter so it looks like its glowing hotter cmon z-trooper... you can do it

[Tom]

I submitted all of the required stuff now, so here it is:

UCM Elysium:
3662 triangles
1024x1024: diffuse, specular, normal, glow, opacity maps
Fighter:
3333 triangles
512x512: diffuse, specular, normal, glow maps

Total: 6995 triangles



Cruiser maps:
http://tjens.be/forumupload/cruiser_maps.png
Fighter maps:
http://tjens.be/forumupload/fighter_maps.png

I encourage whoever is judging this contest to look at my wireframe renders as they are much nicer than my beauty render. I am still learning - and my rendering understanding is lacking even more than my texturing skills.
beauty render background also made by me.

Wireframes:
http://tjens.be/forumupload/cruiser_wire.png
http://tjens.be/forumupload/fighter_wire.png



Final comments;

I learned a lot during this competition, tried out a whole bunch of different map types - and pretty much texturing all together!
I regret that I spend a lot of time on so many different concepts, I should just have kept to my "neighbourhood", but I learned a lot personally - so the only way its bad, is because I had so little spare time to do this whole project. This is also noticable in my texture sheets, instead of doing 1-2 maps really well, I decided to experiment with a whole bunch, so many of them I didnt finish properly.

All in all, it was a good experince, and I will definitly be joining up for the next competition (regardless of how little or much time I may have by then!).
I only wish more people finished up or at least posted what they have by now.

Over and out for this time, and thanks for the battle fellow Armada guys and girls

Almost forgot! Apparently I have the most view tread in this section, and I want to thank all the people who commented and helped me along the way and also thanks for watching amazing that so many people could stand watching at so much confusing english and different stuff I posted.

[nistrum]

great that you made it to the finnish Z-T good luck

[Tiros]

Ah, blimey... guess it's a bit late now.. but you should prolly have brightened up that render a bit. I'm pretty sure the judges will complain about it being dark

Nice work though, cheers

[Tom]

yea I know, and I'm sure thats one of the things I'll get killed for
still learning though...