[Becco_UK]

The passenger pod seems to have taken a long time to finish the modelling stage. Anyway, it's finally completed, with all the Gemini and SaturnV model kit parts made and positioned.

[Becco_UK]

This is how the unpainted passenger pod looks with the rest of the Eagle. Now this component is finished at the modelling stage I can UV map the spine, cage and passenger pod assemblies and apply the base colour with some baked ambient occlusion. At this stage the Eagle has just over 400,000 polygons at render time. I had in mind a maximum of 500,000 render time polygons for this model so I have plenty left for the few remaining walkway kit parts and the command models. The end is in sight (just)!

[Maximus3D]

I think it looks real good already, and you say it's unpainted now. I wonder what it will look like once you painted it properly, thrown some lighting on the model and set it in an enviroment. Bet it's gonna be pretty sexy looking!

/ Max

[Becco_UK]

Maximus3D: Thank you. The model is only partially painted with just the engine assembly and side pods UV mapped and given a base colour + a baked Ambient Occlusion. I usually leave all the UV mapping until all a model is complete but I find it mind numbing! So with this model I'm UV mapping as I go along - still mind numbing but spreads the task out

[Maximus3D]

Aha so that's why it looks the way it looks Becco it's a pretty big amount of models to UV and texture you got there. I can't say i envy the work you got ahead of you hehe.
But what you could do, or rather should do is to build a suitable enviroment for this nice model. Something like a spacestation on a moon or a spacestation in space orbiting planet Earth where this model is docking with it. Or something along those lines. Try to attatch a story to your model with a complete scene surrounding it. It will improve it so much more!

/ Max

[Becco_UK]

Example image deleted by author.

Maximus3D: Some time ago I had a 'play' with an Eagle mesh by James Murphy and this was one of the renders from that mess about. It's only using low res textures but should give you an idea sort of how my Eagle will turn out. I like the concept of the surrounding structure so that will be probably be redone with more detail and used for my model.

[Maximus3D]

Good stuff Becco. Something like that is what i had in mind, only much more dirt, wear and tear on textures and surfaces to give it a impression of the stuff being old and well used and dirty from dust kicking up when the craft lands on the pad and such things. That image you posted feels too clean for me but that's more of a personal taste. Things like steam from vents and pipes and other things would also be nice to see in a scene like this. You could even do some postwork on a final render like this by turning it to greyscale, throw in some oldfilm noise and artifacts and give it a sense of being shot through a old handheld camera. I don't know.. there are many things you could do so i'm just trying to brainstorm out loud here what i think would be cool for your scene.

/ Max

[Becco_UK]

Maximus3D: Thank you for all those suggestions - I will keep them in mind for when the Eagle model is completed. A low sample level Maxwell image would make some noise Time flies - I started researching this model last year and it took a few months to obtain old model kits for sorting out the detail as accurate as possible. Those real parts will get used on a real 44" Eagle model in the future though.

[Becco_UK]

I chose to UV map the cage assembly seperately. A number of polygon selection tags were made for each of the parts that made up this structure were given. All the parts were then connected into one object ready for UV mapping with Bodypaint.

[Becco_UK]

The 'cage' has now been UV mapped. Ambient occlusion was baked and used as a mask layer in my paint software to control some 'dirt'. In this image the dirt may look a little odd but it's being seen in isolation from the rest of the 'Eagle' model which influenced the baking process.

[Becco_UK]

The cages in place. The rear 'cage' is a copy of the front 'cage'. The copying of parts shouldn't be that noticable due to the distance and different rotation between each of the 'cages'.

[Becco_UK]

This Command Module was the equivalent of a 3d doodle. I was trying to determine the minimum number of control points of a base mesh if I decide on making the CM with an hypernurbs (polygon subdivision tool). No plans or anything used for this very quick test. Not bothered about this too much yet though because I still wish to UV map the Spine & Passenger Pod before starting to make other parts.

[Becco_UK]

Back to the 'painting' I've decided to sort out the passenger pod and spine next. These Gemini kit parts will be used on my 3d Shadow Mobile so they have been UV mapped seperately.

[Becco_UK]

The passenger pod and spine is taking me longer to UV map than I thought it would but slowly all the temporary colours I've used are steadily being replaced with a single base colour. All the underside kit parts have been UV mapped seperately.

[Bubbaloo]

You win the award for the most colorful wip backgrounds!

It's shaping up nicely! Keep the updates coming.