A Stargate-inspired picture, set thousands of years ago, imagines the last of the Ancients, crossing paths with the Goa’uld during the rise of their own empire.
I used the portrait orientation to mix things up a bit. Same with the choice of subject.
Category Archives: Write-Up
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 37
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.
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 36
I realized partway through the main image I was working on yesterday that I probably wouldn’t be able to finish that night, so I switched gears. I had a few false stars before I ended up doing a Firefly beauty shot. One little touch was moving the starboard shuttle out to launch position, so it could pick up the glint of the sunlight.
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 35
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 34
Last minute picture. The Defiant’s shuttlecraft returns from a visit to an Intrepid-class ship.
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 33
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.
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 32
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 31
Hey, I made it a whole month! How about that.
After the Babylon 4 picture yesterday, I felt like continuing the theme. This one is actually based on a specific shot from Babylon 5’s season 3 finale, “Z’ha’dum.”
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 30
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 29
With this last test, I’m set for Thursday’s picture. This model is a bit hefty for my poor old laptop, so I didn’t get to do a lot of experimentation with angles and lighting for this shot. I just went for the first idea I had. I tried for too much quality on the render so it wasn’t close to finished this morning, which is why it’s smaller than usual.