Propose replacement for RLAAN' INSTALLATIONS

[chuck_starchaser]

That's good, Fendorin; I though about Deus Siddis' suggestion and worried it might result in too much geometry.

I tested it in blender before I suggested it-- just start with a low-poly sphere and use fewer spires and spines (the art style guide doesn't say to use too many in the first place, just a fair amount or so). Use only 1 or 2 subsurf levels. Shoot for maybe 10,000 faces, that's not much at all for a station.

Thinner spikes not only look better, but they are also better

And thinner spines are no problem using the method I outlined above, you just have to:

1) scale down the faces before extrusion

2) extrude them two or four times as far out as looks good and then merge the vertices at the end of each extrusion.

And now you have organic, smoothly welded thin spines and spires and none of that pesky overdraw issue.

You're right, Deus; though, a) overdraw is not a concern if the spikes penetrate the body just a little; b) an "organic" look is perhaps not what is desired; c) with the organic method, you'd have to place seams to separate the spikes for unwrapping.
My concern was also that Fendorin is just starting to get used to Blender, and it's probably the best idea to let him learn at his own pace.
In any case, your method as as expounded would probably produce spike bases a bit too organic. It would be better to reinforce the bases with a double edge. What I would do is

• Select the faces to become spikes
• E (for Extrude), and right-click immediately, or hit Escape, without moving them
• W -> Smooth (once or twice)
• E (Extrude again), then hit Escape again
• Alt-S to displace faces along their normals
• Then select one spike end face at a time and scale to zero
• Finally, subsurf

[Phlogios]

Mon dieu!! pourquoi QUE maintenant ?!!!

i hate Wings 3D

<3
Tried to tell you



Ares and Oblivion are both right; The colours don't look very rlaan, more like the aeran colour theme. Try a sticky gooey violet surface

[Deus Siddis]

You're right, Deus; though, a) overdraw is not a concern if the spikes penetrate the body just a little;

What?! I didn't know that, it changes everything (for my only models I mean). Overdraw is very easy to avoid then.

So what about if the two objects are right up against each other precisely but not intersecting each other?

b) an "organic" look is perhaps not what is desired;

I am almost certain the organic look is exactly what is desired, even though most of the exteriors of Rlaan ships are not actually alive.

We really need confirmation from jackS one way or the other on this, or we need a fully filled out Rlaan Art Style guide from him on the wiki.

c) with the organic method, you'd have to place seams to separate the spikes for unwrapping.

True, but like I said you shouldn't have too many spikes to worry about anyway. Here's a quote from the Rlaan Art Style wiki on this subject:

ToO: so.. should greebles for rlaan look more like veins and spines?
aside from things jutting out..
also, should the fins you get with ships, be present to any degree on stationary craft

T: mmm. some spines, not too many veins. More blisters, and opened blisters with internal protrusions, and overlayed regions of different construction.
The fins should still be there
the Rlaan like to have lots of radiator surface

So you can see that spikes are just one type of greeble in your arsenal.

Like blisters and 'opened blisters', though I am unsure how the later one would look, since something can be 'opened' in a number of different ways, which means a number of different possible shapes, one of which is the one that jackS was describing.

My concern was also that Fendorin is just starting to get used to Blender, and it's probably the best idea to let him learn at his own pace.

That is a good point. Fendorin, if you need help with unwrapping your new Rlaan meshes, let me know.

In any case, your method as as expounded would probably produce spike bases a bit too organic. It would be better to reinforce the bases with a double edge. What I would do is

• Select the faces to become spikes
• E (for Extrude), and right-click immediately, or hit Escape, without moving them
• W -> Smooth (once or twice)

Note that instead of using Smooth for simplicity, you can also set Pivot to Individual Centers and then Scale down to whatever width you desire.

[*]E (Extrude again), then hit Escape again
[*]Alt-S to displace faces along their normals
[*]Then select one spike end face at a time and scale to zero
[*]Finally, subsurf[/list]

Alt-S, I did not know about or had forgotten that command. That's a good one.

I see the result you get with this though and while it does double the polys in the spine, it produces an excellent looking effect that might be more fitting.

[Deus Siddis]

Ares and Oblivion are both right; The colours don't look very rlaan, more like the aeran colour theme. Try a sticky gooey violet surface

Yes, I believe the official Rlaan colors/shades are Purple (Primary Color), Red (Secondary Color) and Dark Gray (Hull Color).

[chuck_starchaser]

You're right, Deus; though, a) overdraw is not a concern if the spikes penetrate the body just a little;

What?! I didn't know that, it changes everything (for my only models I mean). Overdraw is very easy to avoid then.

So what about if the two objects are right up against each other precisely but not intersecting each other?

Hmmm... I'm trying to figure out how are you thinking about "overdraw", as this seems rather obvious to me... Just a matter of imagining the rendering process, from some arbitrary perspective. How many times will each pixel be "drawn over" --on average. In the case of thin spines penetrating a surface, we got a thin strip of geometry below the surface that will be overdrawn by the surface, and we have little squares or circles on the surface that will be overdrawn by the spines. But since the spines are thin, the number of pixels overdrawn is like 5% of the total or so. Morover, the visible part of the spines is an inevitable overdraw that dwarves the former in terms of % coverage. Probably 15% or 20%.

R.E.: "Organic"... We're misusing the term, come to think. In nature we find thorns, such as in roses, which grow off the surface as a continuum, the way the single mesh method does; but we also find cacti, which don't have "thorns", but have "spines", instead, which look very differentiated from the surface they grow out of.

[loki1950]

And when i comes to placing those thorns and spine do not forget Fibonacci's series one of the things that suggest organic to our brains no need to be strict about it

Enjoy the Choice

[Phlogios]

Thorns on roses don't look much like the bush itself, as far as I recall.

[Fendorin]

we have a lot of installation to should make for Rlaan
also i think all idea can use in each installation............

[Fendorin]

R.E.: "Organic"... We're misusing the term, come to think. In nature we find thorns, such as in roses, which grow off the surface as a continuum, the way the single mesh method does; but we also find cacti, which don't have "thorns", but have "spines", instead, which look very differentiated from the surface they grow out of.

some nice aphid on the roses:

maybe a rlaan medical base or relay

[/quote]

[Phlogios]

Stunning -- definitely looks rlaan!

!!!!

[chuck_starchaser]

Hahaha, so simple and so gorgeous.
Did you bake radiosity in the holes?, or did it by hand?

[Phlogios]

Wait, not only does it look stunning - it also definitely looks its size.

Hundreds of meters tall, as opposed to some stations that don't look bigger than a few centimeters.

[Fendorin]

Hahaha, so simple and so gorgeous.
Did you bake radiosity in the holes?, or did it by hand?

no radiosity ( on new thing per day with Blender because after i get drunk)
is made with the Glow map

[jackS]

Absolutely beautiful.

Making my first pass through the forums in a long while (many, many, many posts to catch up on) so I haven't had time to stare yet, but first impressions:

As for color, the military installations could go with more purples.
The above outpost is a pretty good example of good Rlaan civilian coloration (much more washed out).

Wonderful, wonderful work.

I was expecting more of the models to have donut-like topologies (in that there is a hole in the center that goes all the way through), but at this level of craftmanship, I'm not going to complain much

[Fendorin]

Hello

we need your judgement/sentences/cleaver about the artstyle we make this two last week hope you will have time

As for color, the military installations could go with more purples.
The above outpost is a pretty good example of good Rlaan civilian coloration (much more washed out).

is a first test texture is "untextured" if you want for the moment (i dislike propose just white shape)

but i wouldn't give a so dark color to the station
even the space game is totally black and you can't see nothing

(Alien moovie is bdark also for hide the bad special effect)

but i m more close too the 5th element style moovie
http://film.virtual-history.com/film.php?filmid=187
this moovie is a realy good look of the French style Sci-fi

thank

[Ares]

I was expecting more of the models to have donut-like topologies (in that there is a hole in the center that goes all the way through), but at this level of craftmanship, I'm not going to complain much

Wouldn't have thought of that as a Rlaan ship trait, i'll keep that in mind as that would definitly look quite interesting if i can actually complete a concept someone dosen't 10-up me on. LOL.
Perhaps there bases should have the radiators too?

[Deus Siddis]

As for color, the military installations could go with more purples.

What about red?

[Deus Siddis]

As for color, the military installations could go with more purples.
The above outpost is a pretty good example of good Rlaan civilian coloration (much more washed out).

but i wouldn't give a so dark color to the station
even the space game is totally black and you can't see nothing

I think what jackS is saying is that the outpost could be darker because it is for the Rlaan military but for the civilian stations you can give them a less dark and less colorful look.

(Alien moovie is bdark also for hide the bad special effect)

but i m more close too the 5th element style moovie
http://film.virtual-history.com/film.php?filmid=187
this moovie is a realy good look of the French style Sci-fi

The 5th Element did use alot of bright colors, but it also used darkness to good effect. Like the aliens in the beginning of the movie that protect the artifacts, they wear dark environment suits and crew a dark spaceship, perhaps to symbolize their cryptic nature and secret duty.

The Rlaan warriors are very similar to this species in the 5th Element in that they too are dark, cryptic, protectors (and they must also wear environment suits to survive in our atmosphere).

[Fendorin]

Deus Siddis wrote:

I think what jackS is saying is that the outpost could be darker because it is for the Rlaan military but for the civilian stations you can give them a less dark and less colorful look.

you mean something like that:







And for the moment ALL the model you could see in this thread is UNIFINISHED and very quick texturing (and not Rlaan pattern the round one the one you can see in Rlaan ship)
ii will try to make a model for the pattern maybe like module and copy/past on each texture for each model because texturing is a long moment of lonely....[/quote]

[Phlogios]

!!!

[Phlogios]

Mon dieu!


nice WIP

[Fendorin]

Have you some idea for the rlaan shipyard?

How and when Rlaan produces ship?

like Shark?
like Octopus-field-of-eggs?
they dig an asteroid?
like buterfly cocoon?
like ent with a queen?
the shipyard is huge or tiny?
or it look transparent like that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophorae

submit me your idea please

[Deus Siddis]

you mean something like that:

You are a God!

My only suggest for this would be to add just a few more polygons to the ends of the 'arms' or 'tentacles' so that they look smooth.

This is quality content.

Have you some idea for the rlaan shipyard?

How and when Rlaan produces ship?

How about making it have a big hole going completely through the center of the station, and in that hole is where the ships are built, kind of like what jackS was talking about for Rlaan stations in general.

[jackS]

Deus has it pretty much as I was thinking re: central construction shaft. As big as the bigger shipyards are going to be, the actual Shipyard structure will be pretty thin in relation to the volume of the central construction shaft (station with lots of surface area, not so much internal volume).

Size: It'd be great if you could actually make Rlaan Shipyards in different sizes, but with fundamentally similar designs. At the top end, they'll be very, very big -- but these big ones will be much more rarely seen. The size of the hole in the middle of the station would be a determining factor in the biggest type of craft that sort of station could produce.

One more thing I noticed in looking over the images again today - if you can find some places suitable for adding some radiator fins to these models, that'd be great.

[Neskiairti]

-whistles- damn.. now that is quite nicely made.. for radiator fins.. maybe think of it similar to a heatsink in a computer and put it in a track along the edge? (even, almost teeth like spines in sets)..
just an idea ^-^