KJCs Work

[kjc733]

Plz tell me it does pulse phasers?!

Oh it has more than just pulse phasers
10x arrays, 4x pulse phasers, 2x heavy phaser cannons, 12x torpedo tubes
Plus an assortment of fighters, shuttles and runabouts.

 

[kjc733]

With Jetfreaks help it's getting close. I think a rework of the alpha is in order though...

EDIT
And she's available for download.

 

[Majestic]

Beautiful work mate. Top effort!

 

[Archonon]

Beautiful carrier KJC, I've always loved the idea of ST carrier groups and fighter squadrons, this ship makes a terrific addition to any fleet!.

 

[kjc733]

The snow meant that I had no excuse for not trying to recover the meshes I did in Maya 2012.
Good news -the Swiftsure and the Wyvern are fine with minimal effort.
Not so good news - the four nacelled heavy cruiser needed some work on it. I'm having to replace some of the exterior detailing as for some reason some of the mesh objects refuse to except textures. But I'm confident that I will be able to finish this beast.

But I got bored (or perhaps I should say depressed) looking at that so I started playing with the Swiftsure instead. Now, does anyone know how to make a decent underwater spotlight beam effect in photoshop?

 

[FlowRellik]

that's a pretty cool underwater scene! Tbh I too wish I could learn better realistic lighting, even sunlight would be beneficial.

 

[kjc733]

I lightened up the image slightly for posting on DA.
And here's another shot.

 

[SciFiFan]

I lightened up the image slightly for posting on DA.
And here's another shot.

Is your model over the background then with another filter over both? If so, you can add the spotlight from the ship before adding the top layer filter.

 

[kjc733]

Oh I confused myself making it.

• Firstly at the very back is a blue gradient, light at the top dark at the bottom.
• In front of that is the terrain image. I masked out the sky, made it 50% transparent and used "Overlay" filter.
• In front of that are three copies of the blue background. I'm using a gradient mask with a different direction on each. One is used to mask the terrain on the left, the other the terrain on the right, the third the terrain underneath. Each layer is partially transparent. This makes for a sort of vanishing point effect with the terrain disappearing into the gloom in the distance.
• Then there is another copy of the background, 50% transparency and "Multiply" filter to darken the whole set of terrain.
• Above this is a blue silhouette of the submarine. This is roughly the same colour as the background blue.
• Above this is the textured version of the submarine. I use a gradient mask along the length of the hull to make it look like it's disappearing into the gloom. This is why I need the silhouette underneath - because if I don't the terrain will show through the front end of the boat.
• WSKRs are separate layers, nothing really special.
• Above all this is the noise layer. This is just to add a bit of particle effect and is 10% transparent and the filter is set to "Screen".
• At the top is a solid black layer which I use to control the whole darkness of the scene. It is the "Soft Light" filter and I vary the transparency to suit. In the final image it's set to 65%.

Image of layers
View attachment 14685
As for the spotlight, my problem is that I haven't figured out how to make a decent beam effect. Whatever I tried just looked like a white triangle.

 

[SciFiFan]

Oh I confused myself making it.

• Firstly at the very back is a blue gradient, light at the top dark at the bottom.
• In front of that is the terrain image. I masked out the sky, made it 50% transparent and used "Overlay" filter.
• In front of that are three copies of the blue background. I'm using a gradient mask with a different direction on each. One is used to mask the terrain on the left, the other the terrain on the right, the third the terrain underneath. Each layer is partially transparent. This makes for a sort of vanishing point effect with the terrain disappearing into the gloom in the distance.
• Then there is another copy of the background, 50% transparency and "Multiply" filter to darken the whole set of terrain.
• Above this is a blue silhouette of the submarine. This is roughly the same colour as the background blue.
• Above this is the textured version of the submarine. I use a gradient mask along the length of the hull to make it look like it's disappearing into the gloom. This is why I need the silhouette underneath - because if I don't the terrain will show through the front end of the boat.
• WSKRs are separate layers, nothing really special.
• Above all this is the noise layer. This is just to add a bit of particle effect and is 10% transparent and the filter is set to "Screen".
• At the top is a solid black layer which I use to control the whole darkness of the scene. It is the "Soft Light" filter and I vary the transparency to suit. In the final image it's set to 65%.

Image of layers
View attachment 14685
As for the spotlight, my problem is that I haven't figured out how to make a decent beam effect. Whatever I tried just looked like a white triangle.

Might try this: On the layers over the terrain (Blue background) apply an almost white circle or oval. This will represent the light beam striking the layer. Of course this depends on the distance the terrain is from the sub. Then on the multiply filter, add a triangle gradient of the same color as the light impact on the previous layer. The gradient will be bright at the point (sub side) fading toward the terrain. Then apply the rest to the layers as you have them. See how that looks.

Disclaimer: I am by no means a photoshop expert and this is just a suggestion based on my limited knowledge. Basically I am grasping at straws.

 

[kjc733]

I decided it was finally time to try the squid itself. It is a stupidly complicated shape. At the moment the aft hull is a duplicate of the forward hull, but it shouldn't be. The aft hull should actually be narrower and is tiled slightly upwards. But it's a far better start than any of my previous attempts.

 

[kjc733]

Now I have the basic shape set out. My God that squid tail was painful to do - there are actually two separate parts to the tail end. There is the long squid arms and there is the interior cone which contains the outlets. The interior cone also includes the outer triangular panels which overlap the squid arms. In hind sight I may have been better off making those yet another separate piece. All in all there are four components (not including the hanger doors). There are the two tail sections, the hydrosphere and the main hull.
I still need to do a lot of work on the base mesh, it is very rough at the moment and I need to define the bulges more. Also the aft end of the main hull needs to turn into a perfect circle so it mates properly with the aft section. Whoever designed this thing either deserves a medal or a flogging!
Now to do some revision, exam tomorrow

 

[FlowRellik]

and I thought making the smooth hull for the ares was hard, this takes the cake :v

 

[kjc733]

Thank you. If you look back through my thread you'll see that I've been doing organic designs for a loooong time. Don't sell yourself short, if I recall the Ares secondary hull posed a few interesting complications and I am very impressed with the texture job you did. It took me years to get to that level.

 

[kjc733]

More emphasis added to the detailing, resulting in the attached hi-poly mesh. Still having difficulties figuring out how to reduce the complex hull shape into a circle at the back end. And of course I need to add detailing to the arrowhead...

 

[Majestic]

Awesome modelling there mate. Better than I could do I am hopeless at organic modelling.

 

[kjc733]

Thank you, it is I believe my third attempt at this boat though
A bit more physical detail added and the first pass with the bioskin.

 

[kjc733]

Well I was hoping to finish the squid today, but when I tried to boolian in the various hatches it made the whole mesh vanish. So I'll need to try and figure out what's going wrong there.

 

[kjc733]

HA! Cracked it!
Just need to add a little detailing and fix a few texture distortions and the hi poly mesh will be complete.

 

[Majestic]

Beautiful KJC, stunning.

 

[SciFiFan]

Well done!

 

[kjc733]

Physical detail added and texture corrections made. The good thing about my bioskin is that it is hard to spot seams (worrying about texture seams used to drive me mad, until I realised that if I zoomed out a bit they became virtually invisible). The bad thing about the bioskin is that any stretching becomes really obvious, so the fixes took a little longer than expected (and I doubt that I got them all).

Next up is to add textures to the placeholder areas (mainly the doors) and then think about illumination.

 

[kjc733]

Nowhere near as much progress on this as I've been spending a lot of time tidying up the Midway for upload to shapeways - it still doesn't work!
Added some placeholder lighting, the mesh doesn't want to behave though so I may need to go back to alpha maps.

 

[kjc733]

I think I have finally managed to make something I can use as the NSC bioskin texture. Which means I no longer have an excuse for not texturing the rest of my submarines...

 

[kjc733]

And the seaQuest is finally done. That's another one on the bucket list.

 

[kjc733]

Forgot to post my patrol picture here, it's already on DA.

 

[kjc733]

And here we have the mapped out UEO and NSC fleets (low poly). Left to right we have:
UEO seaQuest DSV
UEO Reverence class Battle Carrier (mesh by James Ward for Atlantis DSV)
NSC Polaris class DSV (design by me for Atlantis DSV - check page 1 of this thread)
NSC Renown class Battlecruiser (design by me for Atlantis DSV, check page 1 of this thread)
NSC Attaque class cruiser (design by me for Atlantis DSV, not finished)
UEO Sceptre class SSN (design by me because I was bored)
UEO Trident class SSN (design by DG Williams for Atlantis DSV)
NSC Jutland class SSN (design by me for Atlantis DSV, not finished)
and in the foreground a UEO Spectre subfighter

Still to come - my version of the Stormhawk bomber, NSC Tornado and Typhoon subfighters, a generic Hauler. Tat would use up all of my pre-existing meshes (except Swiftsure which I no longer have a low poly version of ). Then I'll see about doing a few other units...

 

[kjc733]

And a quick look at my low poly Stormhawk bomber.

 

[kjc733]

The low poly Typhoon subfighter, belonging to the North Sea Confederation. This is the baby sister to the Seafire, which I won't be rebuilding as a low poly model because I did it many years ago and I hadn't yet learned the knack for such things.
I might rename it Tempest though (I didn't name the thing, I just built it).

EDIT - and I've reduced the amount of green in the NCS colour scheme.

 

[kjc733]

It's typical, I take a week off for flying and there hasn't been a single good day so far.
Anyway, one for the evil Aussies intent on taking over the world, the Macronesian Alliance SA-29 Lysander.