Reply To: Polybook – Jake
Here’s a progress-so-far render.
Today I managed to get most of the solid-color, i.e. non-texture-using, materials done. Of course I might still adjust them a bit between now and then end. Right now I’m working on that textured paneling you can see on the side of the lower hull here (you may need to embiggen the image); it’s tedious work. Right now I’ve got most of the dish done, all of the neck and about half the lower body. The engines and struts will get some too. I may need to play with the color ramp a little more, because the paneling on the side there is three colors of gray, but in this Cycles render it only looks like two – it’s really difficult to see the mid-tone I guess I’ll have to darken it, but I don’t want to overdo it – color-wise, this needs to be very subtle. The bigger effect is specular – I’m using the texture not just for albedo, but as a specular map as well, so the panels give some nice eye-catching reflections depending on the light angle.
Here is the same effect highlighted on top of the saucer. I added a half a whisker of bump to this particular location to help sell it, you’ll probably need to embiggen to see it:
Not sure yet whether I want to keep the bump or go with just specularity by itself.
Oh, also – you notice there on the rim, that one of the Booleaned windows isn’t showing up in the render? Yeah I don’t know what that’s all about. It’s not the only one either. And the same thing happens with Eevee; the Booleans all show up perfectly in the viewport but when I make an actual render, some of them are missing. I’m afraid I may need to bite the bullet and apply some of those Booleans. But I’ll mess around with that business after I’m done with all the shading and texturing.