Reply To: Polybook – Jake
All right! It was a slog but I finished off the decals and I think I’m happy with the lighting now too. Here’s some lighting tests:
Yeah, I like that.
It’s pretty straightforward; the smaller “bulb” lights around the edges of the hull are just emission shaders on the mesh; area lamps around the bottom of the bridge and inside/shining through the translucent blue widgets; and then spotlights a plenty. The windows are also emission shaders on mesh, and I plugged a noise texture through a color ramp into the light strength to create the vague illusion of some random “stuff” behind the windows, like corridors or people or whatnot – although it looks like it was set too subtle to really show up in these renders (I swear it was easier to see when the windows were the only thing lit on the model), so I’ll have to tweak that a little. The illusion breaks down too much in the larger windows though, like those at the bottom, and the large windows on the back of the bridge. In the movies, models of interior sets are placed behind those big windows in compositing; I had no time to make such things, so I just have to leave those windows dark – for now.
Okay so tomorrow, I fix that one missing rim window, and then I think I can go ahead and start on my scene. I’m thinking a planet, some colorful nebular jazz….we’ll see.