Con Am 27 Shuttle from Outland
Hey guys, I've been keeping updates here for the project; but Haiasi rightly pointed out that I should keep it up in P&P.
I've been tackling the shuttle from the 80s classic Outland.
The shuttle model was originally built by two crazy talented guys using random kitbashed parts (including a few from the original Millennium Falcon model). They'd go on to build the Nostromo from Alien to boot.
Here's my progress thus far
I've been tackling the shuttle from the 80s classic Outland.
The shuttle model was originally built by two crazy talented guys using random kitbashed parts (including a few from the original Millennium Falcon model). They'd go on to build the Nostromo from Alien to boot.
Here's my progress thus far
Replies
Anyway, to the crux of my issue. I strayed from concept a little by adding a bit of a shoulder effect where the engine arms meet the fuselage. I fixed this to concept last night, but now it seems like the engine arms are way too elongated. I can post front pictures tonight if that makes it clearer. To be frank, I like that shoulder look as it gives the silhouette more of a "crouched feel" and kind of a mechanical musculature. Is it taboo to stray from concept in this aspect?
In regards to your last question, while I don't think it is necessarily "taboo" to stray from a concept to make things more real-world functional, I do think that the "shoulder" overlap is a bit much. There's something about the way you have them now that makes it feel fragile and perhaps a bit toy-like.
The way the engines would thrust and achieve lift would torque the arms backward, thereby grinding the shoulder panels on the top of the fuselage and possibly causing quite a bit of structural damage.
So, the way I see it you have two options in correcting the concept. A) You pull the shoulder blades back down and design some sort of hinge that will achieve the same effect in the silhouette, or
I think I would go for option A here myself. There are some really cool possibilities for shapes that would pop out the silhouette.
Forgive the crudeness of this, I attempted to do it with my mouse for some reason. But here is what I am talking about. I think this would make it look badass, and allow your shoulders to keep their functionality whilst maintaining a strong silhouette.
Those thrusters' pushback has been on my mind a lot. The shuttle itself is huge. From what I gather, I'd gauge it around 24 stories high; but I don't have any exact numbers. So, thrusters would exude a shitton of pressure of the existing support beams. That said, I just noticed there's some more underlying structures in the engine arm to counteract that. Thoughts?
@OMGiFARTED Thanks dude! I'm not sure how texturing is gonna work yet, as I'm not turning it into a game model. It's more of an exercise in patience, scope, and detailed modeling. Hahaha. I do have some presentation ideas though.
But honestly, I think you may have been right in your original post to say that you're reading into it a bit much. I think no one would have noticed unless you pointed it out! Never point out mistakes in a presentation
I think it's looking sweet man!
I'll make sure not to point out the errors next time ;D
Thanks again dude. Much appreciated
from this thread, I think he talks about the setup in one of the posts: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70070
I hurt my back badly tonight, so I didn't model. Though, I did finalize my render scene for showing off the model itself.
Here's an update. I added detail across the side, near the bottom. Need to finish detailing the two big nooks in the side, and I'll be set. From there, I gotta keep cracking on the top.
@Shoy333 Glad you dig it man! It's been a crazy amount of work, but I'm getting a lot faster. I'll to a render breakdown in the next couple of days for ya.
@Polygoblin Glad the new BG looks good. I set it to 50% grey, though that changed a bit in post. And yeah, I'm definitely running out of details. Haha. Though there's still a lot to do on the top and a bit on the sides/front.
@dtschultz Thanks man! I think you're totally right about the spec. I'll play with the shader a bit more tonight and see if I can get it all to pop.
My coworkers are encouraging me to texture it. I'm going back and forth on that. I know I need to get some lo poly models together if I want to break into games...but I also hate to leave this project unfinished in that regard. Either way, I hope this crazy detail study helps my portfolio a wee bit.
For a final render, I reckon it would look awesome composited into a space/landing scene
I was thinking of either a landing scene or putting it in a jungle environment. Make it all rusted and abandoned. Maybe covered in vines? I'm still not sure how far to take it.
- D. Carmine
I think your idea of the abandoned craft being left in the jungle with vines growing over it is superb!
(I love that sort of thing, so I may be biased :P)
I've been going back and forth on texturing. I'm finally at the point when I'm saying no. Originally, this was meant to be an exercise in modeling and stretching my skills a bit. I was also hoping to take on a huge project, so I'd get into the habit of modeling every day after work. Now that I've almost accomplished those goals, I'm ready to move on to something else. I really need to bust out some game assets.
I plan on modeling and texturing a few assets from Ron Cobb's Nostromo bridge concept http://johneaves.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/alien1.jpg?w=655&h=642 and I really want to do this hotel afterwards http://cghub.com/images/view/243223/ and...I really need to finish my damn airship. Hahaha
One other thing to keep in mind is that having an alpha for the model helps a ton, since this effect increases the contrast of ambient noise as well. These renders aren't using high quality rendering, so there's a crapton more noise that's being bumped out.
It's Martin is the dude who originally helped make this shuttle, and he's done a ton of other scifi ships/vehicles.