Category Archives: 100 Days, 100 Renders

100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 30

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CDCR-030-Shadows_Attack_B4_credits

As I was working on my Star Trek 50th Anniversary picture last night, I wanted a quicker set-up for today’s render. Luckily, The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 dropped their episode on War Without End last night, giving me a fine bit of inspiration.

I’ve been avoiding images of Babylon 4 (and 5) since those models are older, and it’s easier to make more flattering images with more up-to-date models. Only one of the models in this image even has a self-lighting rig. Still, it gives me a foundation I might revisit later in the future.

I also tried my hand at the Shadow’s “phasing” effect, similar to the classic Star Trek cloaking device. I’m fairly sure the original show did the effect in 3D, but I haven’t had a lot of success with it when I’ve tried. More experimentation will be required.

100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 33

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cdcd-033-borgs_gonna_borg_credits

There’s a certain ebb and flow to these pictures, I’ve noticed. This one was another “getting acquainted with the model” image. I’m hoping to do a couple pictures representing scenes from the Star Trek novel trilogy “Destiny,” which involves, in part, a massive Borg attack on the Federation. The nebula is a Hubble photo I considered as a possible background for yesterday’s picture.

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100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 35

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cdcr-035_blockaded_credits

Having run the numbers earlier, I decided to go with a portrait-oriented Star Wars image to mix things up a bit. I also spent too much time screwing around with the Borg Cube model to do anything very elaborate.

Just before I ran the render, I remembered that this is a scene that takes place at Tatooine, so I added a second key light to represent the second sun, with a 60/40 split between them as far as lighting goes. They’re also different sizes, so one set of shadows is sharper than the other set.

100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 37

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cdcr-037-counterattack_at_vulcan_credits

Here’s the image that was going to be yesterday’s render. I ended up having to re-render in the morning when it proved to be too expensive for my usual settings to finish overnight.

It depicts a moment from the “Destiny” novel trilogy, which include a massive Borg attack on the Federation. At this point, a fleet of Cubes has attacked Vulcan, but has briefly been disabled with the same “sleep” command that Picard once used against them. The surviving Starfleet ships quickly move to scuttle the Borg cubes before they wake back up.

One important thing I learned from this image is that Lightwave’s built-in lens flares don’t play nicely with the newer photoreal motion blur (not that surprising, considering how old LW’s flares are). I’d been thinking about making a geometry-based Star Trek torpedo effect anyway, but I’ll have to keep this in mind for shots where flares aren’t easily avoidable.