I have already started modelling the cockroaches using this pic:

http://www.goldcitypestservices.com/german_cockroach.jpg

Should I upload the model to this task?

There are lots of unconnected nodes O.o

Could you make a separated task for the cockroach thingie?

The Leviathan has laid dormant for a while, right? I was thinking more something like in Red Dwarf, where Listers cats descendants has evolved to something humanish. Only, not with the humanish part. And they build this high tech society in the far reaches of the ship.

Okay XD

"A cockroatch-lover touches the monolith and faints."

Why the cockroach touches that and why it faints?

That bacteria thing sounds good. And enough easy to make too.

I got that image visible.

It needs some modelling. ^^ I will do it if I can fit it to my job list, wich is already a bit too full...

That link gives me a white screen.

I meant that the sketch should be 10 seconds long in the film to make it as funny as possible. XD Quick "they were born, they lived and they died" is much more funny than a long love story with almost no connection to the rest of the movie.

Whoops! I have 2.53!

New file. Blender 2.54 (and 2.55) crashes when I try to save the render...

That's the weirdest idea I've ever heard... And I have to admit it might work if you can make that to fit in 10 seconds.

I was, as you say, thinking about details between inner and outer hull.

So they shouldn't affect the internal sets.

I guess the reason the panel has come loose could be of a war between the roaches and the rodents or other vermin that tend to inhabit ships. How about a side love story like that of Romeo and Juliet between a Cock-roach and a rodent, which both dies when the war between their races blow out the panel beneath they are getting it on? This of course would usher in a new era of piece where Rodent-cockroach hybrids are born and form a super-vermin, whom the crew must learn to coexist with.

That requires some UV mapping.

About the interiors, should they be modelled also if you're going to greenscreen some activity inside the ship?

That ship need some non-gravlens details... It's a bit boring now.

Sami:

I am thinking about adding more details that aren't the same grav lens colour. In your initial description you wanted a bit of a run down ship. I have added a panel to each wing, the plan is to have one of the panels float around nearby, and to make visible pipes and stuff that was beneath the now loose panel.

Thoughts on this?

http://www.wreckamovie.com/system/shot_medias/0000/7591/Reflect_test.png

Core and the pipes are reflective (red) and it seems that some of the ship parts are too (green) but the material isn't transparent (green).

If I remember right, there is a nebula material input node in the node setup and those math nodes are just used to mix it to the totally black material. If that's right, it isn't reflective or transparent.

Guh, I could have done it while at HUMlab today. I just forgot with my head hurting from hours of studying...

However, I get the feeling it's specific to the nebula material, otherwise we would see the mesh ball either projected or reflected.

Great! I couldn't do the test today. I had to finish my schoolwork. :(

Updated ship 41.

I didn't know that. I might be able to test that today. I'm not sure.

Gravlens implies that it projects what is on the other side... You should perhaps make a test render with an object opposite of the ship from the camera.

That's a good guestion. If I understood it right, this material is reflective, but I'm not sure. Camera angle changes the texture, so it depends...

Do that. I am continuing to fiddle with details.

KK, but I have started making the torpedo and I could make that also.

Also, I love how the pipes you added came out.

And adding smaller details would take a while, so it would be smart to cooperate on that I think.

Sami needs you because my involvement is very much limited to stuff I do as rest from the studying...

Basically, you are needed because Sami can't count on me to see this through.

I'm beginning to wonder... Where do you need me anymore? I have hundreds of other projects waiting so if you are able to make this, you should do it. It's your ship and It takes days for me to understand what you are planning.

Also, how about we start adding the smaller details, so that it look cool in close-ups as well.

I am thinking of details like the antennae at the front and smaller.

I fiddled with the materials. And did a larger render.

Rendered fine at HUMlab. But their computers are state of the art and then some. See what happens if you put renderfarm.fi on it?

I was thinking about smaller detailing. Like, if you zoom in real good there will be pipes and panels and stuff here and there over the hull.

I was thinking of giving the sphere grid the same material as I gave the big pipe structure you added.

Render crashes at render area 7. Maybe too heavy?

Edit: I changed the camera position and it worked. You have changed the core grid grey, but Sami just suggested to put gravlens to it, but I leae it grey for now.

Whepee! Now I don't have trouble finding winows because there isn't any!

Modified yours a bit. I also removed the airlock hatches (and some of the torpedo hatches, they were misaligned).

I also removed the windows you had trouble finding.

We have two versions now :/ http://www.wreckamovie.com/shots/show/7565

They are thrusters. I'm messing here.

Don't know why I did those pipes XD

How small should the doors be, because this is a big ship?

What kind of particles would you like to have? Color?

The three holes ARE Thrusters. There are a couple of window meshes that poke out like the ears of Mickey mouse... They need to go.

I just changed the ship color white. That material is node material and the source of the material is different than the main material so changing the main color doesn't change anything. I changed it because of that black material problem.

I have a bad habit that I mess the file first and organise it when it's ready. That don't help much.

How are you going to find that whiteboard when you lose it? XD

I mean, consider if you could have a magic whiteboard where you write a keyword, like if you have misplaced your moped keys you just write KEY and a big red arrow would appear pointing at my keys. If there are more Keys in the room, like my house keys, there would be more arrows. So would just use Booleans, like in any search engine. Like +MOPED +KEY.

It would be great! Until you misplace the whiteboard pen at least.

I didn't mean how to edit textures.
In the old files the model was all black in solid shade mode, I couldn't see the wire frame or vertices in edit mode. Very frustrating. How did you change it? The new file doesn't have this problem.

"Maybe you could think about naming the parts next time ;)"

Well, yeah. Uhm, I think it's a case of my inability to organize documents, papers and anything that would make life easier if I just kept it organized spilling over to the modelling process...

I wish I could have search function on my physical room, would be so handy every time a misplace an important bill or document...

I don't know anything about the parts of the ship. Maybe you could think about naming the parts next time ;)

Texture edit mode? That neads some tweaking with UVs though.

I suck with colors but I get what you mean. I will do it.

Honestly though, I think that the textures and colouration of the ship dominates too much. I would try to make it more subtle.

How do you make Blender 2.54 show the model in a colour that it's editable in?

What things? The holes are thrusters. The windows are the meshes that poke up strangely from the fuselage mesh.

I didn't actually know that those things were windows. O.o

New version live. Camera is in bad angle because the ship looks black.

I like that cromed idea. I see what I can do.

I probably won't have time during the week. Just upload the latest file when you change something? I like downloading it and doing some tweaking now and then. I hope that is OK.

I was thinking about having chromed details here and there. Like at the thrusters, have them be greyish and kind of a lattice work of chromed pipes and details running over the flat surfaces that are around the thruster holes.

Kk. Do you do that or do I?

One thing. The air-lock doors and viewports don't fit the ship anymore, they need to be remodeled.

In what way it isn't? I don't know how detailed it has to be, but it will look cool when animated. The wireframe surrounding the core could be smoother, but it's hard to edit it because of the structure.

I made the back more streamlined. What do you think about it?

Sorry. Misunderstood you. XD

I see if I can do something to that...

I haven't uploaded any torpedoes O.o

And then? I don't know what to do next... Texture mapping could be done, but it would be better if the model is totally ready. I will start working more with the torpedo now and see if I can get something done...

All hatches copied. Model 34 updated. There are exactly 200 hatches. I didn't count them. Blender did.

Tube hatches duplicated to the bottom.

First section of tubes filled. They all have the same mesh.

Sorry, Blender doesn't measure size-value in BU's. I said wrong. ^^ Two objects with size of 1BU really are same sized.

Thanks for those concepts! I'm not sure do we need that BU (Blender Unit), because objects can be scaled. Actually, "size" of the object isn't actually the size of the object in Blender. It just measures the size multiply to the original, so two objects can be different sized, even if they both have size 1BU. It's hard to measure anything in blender if it's not exactly 1 or 2 (or so on) BU's.

I uploaded a new file. Sorry. I forgot to change the name of the new one so I overwrote it.

Could I have a concept art featuring single torpedo? There's that one image, but is it correct?

I have started duplicating the hatches. When torpedos have been shot, does the hatches still remain in place (open when shooting and then close again)?

Those were just slight tweaks. I'm still busy with other things, but I have a lot less work than few weeks ago and it's looking better all the time.

Now I got it. The other side isn't finished yet, so I got those images wrong... ^^

So there are two torpedos in one tube? O.o

If torpedos 1-40 are shot, those hatches that are already in place shouldn't be there...

Like that (look at the image)

Individual control isn't going anywhere. Meshes and objects are different things. I suggested, that I could make them to share the same mesh, so they look same and if I have to change the look of the hatches later, I can just edit one of them. All other hatches follow the edits made to one of them. Position, rotation and scale values of the hatches are in the object data, wich is individual and can't be shared directly. If hatches share the same mesh, they can still have individual position, rotation and scale.

Imagine that this ship has a laser cannon instead of torpedos. The bullet is one object. Wich one you would do: Count how many bullets you need, duplicate them and position them all in the cannon or have a single bullet model somewhere hidden. Whenever you need more bullets, you can just duplicate the bullet, position it to the gun and animate it flying through the space. Of course, we already know how many torpedos we are going to need, but in that second one is more flexible and it allows torpedo modelling to be done later.

Wich is torpedo hatch number 1,2 and so on...

Just looking at this pic:
http://www.wreckamovie.com/system/task_references/0000/0940/LEV_-torpedo.jpg

Those hatches don't share a single mesh, so editing one doesn't effect to the rest of them. If they are all same looking, I could make a single mesh for them, so I could duplicate them now and detail them later.

There is a some kind of torpedo inside every tube right? Do you want that I duplicate the torpedo to each bay (wich can cause more slowness and silly objects) or do you want to add those torpedos to each scene separately just when you need them?

If you choose the first one, I should make the torpedo ready before duplicating those hatches so I can duplicate them at the same time. If you choose the second one, I can continue duplicating those hatches.

So... The topedo bay should open, and a 2m wide dish should fly away?

I have few things to do, so I can't make this for few days...

So... The hatches aren't ready yet? They should be ready before duplicating them...

Damn. I haven't followed your discussion about the details so well, and now I'm little bit lost with this ^^'

I managed to put the panel that the antennae is attached to in the wrong place. So that need to be corrected, I was working on different details at the time.

The torpedo hatches need to be duplicated and fill the other holes as well. From front to aft, there is exactly 0.162 blender units between each hatch. The Leviathan were supposed to have 200 torpedo tubes, there will be exactly two hundred hatches if you duplicate the top hatches to the bottom. (Duplicate, spin 180 degrees, and put a minus in front of the Z-value.) Unless you want to repeat the process with all hatches, parent them to the hole object. Also, to speed up the duplication of the hatches, make one a parent of the rest, duplicate all of them, and move the copy that is the parent 0.162*3 blender units.

The tube is a starting model for adding tubing details. I thought that there would be chromed tubes and other details around the manoeuvring thrusters and other places where there are different panels than in the general fuselage. I just didn't get very far with that, thus the floating tube.

kk, so it's fine (is it?). What about the other things?

Kk I will look at that... Whepee! Textures and effects! My favourite! XD (well, not the textures)

I can make it, but I have no idea what I should add to it.

Daniel, I can still help you when I have the time and energy.

Sami, Actually I think you might want to look for someone else to take over my work, someone who isn't starting a full time university program in less than a month...

That's not alpha. It's beta.

Whepee ^^

28C in my room... I CAN'T SLEEP!

I'm sorry for the state of it, with more time it will look a lot better.

Nope. Download SamiSequencer.blend and see the screenshot. Just press a to select all images.

Make sure it starts at frame 1 and then press animate.

I haven't noticed that kind of tool. Thanks!

Uhm. Oops. Preview thing, good if you want to check a detail without rendering the whole image...

Thank you for noticing. (Thumb up.) I will update the file. (You can press shift-b and mark the whole camera view to make it right.)

Edit; file fixed and re-uploaded.

... That renders only little part of the left upper corner. Was that what you wanted?

Since this won't be the final version and rendering time already is an issue I would suggest using as low a resolution that you can get away with.

I'll be uploading a new animation file shortly.

Edit: File updated.

Just change the output location to an existing folder and press animate. Blender will spit out a series of pngs, 0004 to 0200.

You can move the camera by selecting it with RMB (right mouse button) and pressing G or using the arrows that apperar to it. Rotate with R key or change to rotating mode from the 3D view toolbar and use the rings that appear to the camera. Key frames with I key.

"I'm still trying to figure out what an earth that ball is :)"

Well, it probably isn't an Earth. Ask the crew, they might know?

"What does that strange ball thing do?"
"I don't know. Wait, what?"
Shows image from external camera
"That wasn't there when we left!"

It's enough good for that.

I don't think the model will get finished. How about I try to make it presentable although unfinished for the trailer? Not all details, but no obvious loose ends either?

Do you have any ideas/requests about the number and purpose of the ships finer details?

Most of the things you don't like are just because of it not being finished, some I have already changed.

Mid July, hmm. Can't give any promises, but it's three weeks, right? I guess you mean in time for Finncon, and I have this small hope of getting Stick wreck done by then, so I am afraid Leviathan won't get prioritized..

However, Leviathan has been my main thing to work on when I have needed to take my focus from Stick Wreck to let ideas stew in the back of the mind, so you never know.

Yeah, but my problem is, that I'm not at my better computer. I'm on a working trip, so I'm rendering with my crappy laptop! It doesn't make this any easier, that my animation contains massive particle setups XD

My computer has gotten a lot better at multitasking since I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 and installed the latest Nvidia graphics drivers. Doing other things doesn't seem to affect render times at all, and rendering still goes faster.

Modelling and animating also is a lot smoother. But I account that to the new graphics driver. The GPU runs just a bit hotter, but it's still not even close to dangerous levels.

That name is funny. T.H.E._Leviathan_ship18TwistedMaybe XD
I can't look at that now, but it has to be cool. I'm rendering an animation now, so my computer is a bit stuck.

Those images look really cool! :)

It switches between perspective and orthographic view.

Orthographic view has no perspective, which is handy when editing.

Compare your screen capture to the one I am about to upload to my shot.

Press five and the capture will have depth as well.
Edit: Keypad five that is.

I have been trying to remake the wing part of the hull following Samulis suggestion. I haven't quite figured it all out yet though.

Samuli, you don't happen to have a blend file you want to share that shows how you did it?

I know what Samuli is talking about, and that is why the bad edge looping is such a design flaw, it makes it ver hard to achieve what he is talking about; I'm going to think about how to go about fixing it.

The SR71 has those kind of edges i speak of. The top and bottom are seperated by such edge, the engine intakes are very sharp. Also the shuttle you posted has the sort of edges i speak of. Look at the attachment where wings meet the body. The main point is to avoid the "blob" kind of design, that seems to be going on with the Leviathan so far.

Unfortunetly, i am extremely busy and dont have time to explain things in too much detail. :S

Talking about those "hard" lines, there isn't many hard lines in SR-71 blackbird and still it doesn't look cheap. SR-71 ofcourse is not an X-plane, but it is, as far as I know, the fastest plane that tooks off from the ground itself. :)

http://aparejodefortuna.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/lockheed_sr-71_blackbird.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Heat_from_a_NASA_SR-71_Blackbird.jpg

Samuli; Do you think adding meshes to the seams, that translates the meeting of the shapes would be a good idea? Could you give feedback on other specific details?

Samuli has some nice points. Did you look at the model in this task: http://www.wreckamovie.com/shots/show/5884 ?

If you have an idea for how to improve the edge looping, please tell me. I have cursed over it a number of times... For some things it feels you should avoid multires... I just thought it was so handy at the time.

I see but check this out..

http://www.ludd.luth.se/~texas/flyg/concorde/big/concorde_3.jpg
Look under the craft, there are some "hard" lines.

Also here is shot of Nuclear submarine, showing similar hard lines:
http://www.la-basse-cour.co.uk/Pictures/La%20Redoubtable.jpg

Areas where there are bends and seams, are good place to house such hard egdes.

Hi, i just had a moment of free time from my own production, and decided to check out the model of Leviathan. As some of you know i have been dabling into 3D from time to time ->

http://www.aeon-visuals.com/blender/acd7-special2.jpg

well quite often actually. And unfortunetly, i dont have time to model for you, but i think i could perhaps give some technical tips for your design, as there are some major flaws there, and stuff that will cause problems.

First of all i like the overall shape of the ship, but the largest mesh of the object (the one with wings and stuff) should modelled with more logical edgelooping, so you can maintain absolute control over it. Now it seems to be made out from streched ball or something? This mesh also has subdiv modifier set to 3 for view, which allready should ring the alarmbells, that the polygons of it are somehow wrong, or badly used. For example look at that ship of mine, its having level 2 or maybe 3 on rendering, but i use level 1 for modelling, and when its smooth ride on level 1, it will be nice and easy to manage.

Second the bits and pieces of the ship, dont seem to have too much geometrical "seams", they just poke thru one another. This will cause problems most likely in the rendering, so you should try to make the whole thing as single mesh and / or fit the bits with geometrical "seams" to make it look better.

Thirdly, there are very few hard edges on the design, now this might be design choise, but i personally feel, that the lack of them makes stuff look cheap. :S

Anyway, hope this helps.
Looking good so far.

I don't know what you made, but I can't see any bad in it. It's wonderful!

Hmm. I am not sure the detail I added on the normal space engine ring really is an improvment... Not without further details at least..

What do you guys think?

How about making a task for details for the ship? Like random hatches, antennae, pipes and stuff. To give it that classical hollywood space ship model feel? A task for people to make details in Blender that I can import and put on the ship.

And now there are normal space engines.

Added a dish.

I was thinking that It could have various antennae that gets retracted into the ship when it prepares for LEV-drive. Imagine that dish flipping into the ship, one of the smaller dishes hitting the edge and falling off.

Really nice!

David: I know, but even if something isn't ready, I can imagine the result and sometimes it just isn't good (and don't become better with fixing). Anything can be fixed, but it's silly to fix a thing that takes days, but doesn't give much better results. When I get to this kind of situations, I just try to focus on the things that are more important. I have always many projects running, and If one of them fails, I just keep going with the others, if I don't have any reason why not to do so :)

The latest Blend file has better looking maneuvering thrusters. Tell me what you think.

Daniel, if you keep working and fixing you will realize that it gets easier and easier. Faster and faster.

David: Even half year of fixing isn't enough when you don't have a good sense of colours, shapes and a lot of nerves. I can get good results if I try but It just takes lot of work.

Sami: I didn't say anything about storyboards, but my opinion is that if you can get the idea of the story from them, they are good enough. That's why they are made and I can't see any reason to make art with them. Sometimes more simple is better and storyboards are good excample, but they don't help anything if they are so light that nobody can see them! Little fixing with the scanner settings and slight editing with Gimp/Photoshop will do the trick.

"Is it a Urulóki?"

I don't know what an Urulóki is, maybe it is?

"I'm not going to waste my precious time to draw 16 high detail pictures of one camera pass."

I never meant anything about your storyboards, and nor did Daniel I think. What they need is probably just some fiddling with scanner/camera settings. And possibly some filling in of the lines, it might be as easy as fiddling with the contrast in Gimp/Photoshop.

It's not a matter of being good, it's a matter of being a sucker for details and analysing. As you know I draw. I suck at drawing, but I still get fair results, if I may say so myself. How? Sheer stubbornness. I modify and modify and modify until proportions are right and details are in the right place. http://alvekatt.deviantart.com/art/World-of-warm-winds-2-115999627
(A drawing I never finished.)

Edit: A drawing I did finish (And put in a frame for a while that really didn't fit it...) http://alvekatt.deviantart.com/art/Dragon-drawing-105947259

That's great. I can't do better so I'm just wondering how good you are :)

I was thinking about making one of the incomplete orbs writhe a bit. But, honestly, it's a bit too much work.

Anyway, all my tries to make better manoeuvring thrusters has failed due to running out of memory, or been too frustratingly laggy. The good news is that I will have my new computer tomorrow or on friday that solves these problems, the bad news (for you) is that this means that Stick Wreck will get prioritized again. I won't abandon this, it just means that the work probably will go even slower.

And yet, it isn't done yet. If you haven't noticed, the engine ring has no engines and the ring itself isn't attached to the hull yet.

Guh. Did some detailing. Used a make wireframe solid trick. Worked well, with good results, until I tried it on a mesh that was too complex. It made Blender run out of memory and crash. Let's see what happens when I have my new computer...

I will redo the manoeuvring thrusters. They didn't turn out well...

I have uploaded a new file. I suggest you download Blender and use it to look at it. Fiddling with screen shots for every update gets a bit tiresome.

http://www.blender.org

Make sure you download Blender 2.49b.
Press F12 to render.

I have no idea how you want it to look. But there are several options.

Realistic thruster type engines just release straight jets of white gas that dissipate almost immediately. I have no idea how the ion engine of the future looks, if it glows or not. From what I understand it would have a very narrow nozzle, but intense pressure.

How big do you want the pod in relation to the ship?

And should there be Airlock doors on both sides?

This looks great.