Ptichkapalooza!

[M Fnord]

For the longest time, I didn't have any really good pictures for Ptichka. One of the big problems with using obscure Soviet-era hardware as a base ship is there's not a lot of good pictures of said hardware. When I started this thing, the best stuff I could find were grainy, low-resolution snapshots off of Wikipedia or Astronautix. What I *really* wanted was a good 3D model, but there wasn't one available.

This weekend, I found out that the beautiful, wonderful people at http://buran.ru/ had released their professional-quality 3D model of the Buran for free download. A little bit of tinkering later and, well, I'd like you to take a new look at an old friend:


Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Black Aeronaut]

Hot Damn! Fnord, that's some nice shit you got there.

What software are you using? How easy is it for the untalented to use it? And what sort of system requirements are there?

[M Fnord]

What software are you using? How easy is it for the untalented to use it? And what sort of system requirements are there?

This one was put together in multiple stages.

Step 0) I used 3D Studio Max to edit the base model and export it to Bryce 6.0 format. Normally I'd just import the model straight into Bryce, but the model I downloaded had so much detail that Bryce threw up on itself, so I had to grab 3DSMax and do some editing there.

Step 1) Get the renders. The five-view shots are all just basic angles done natively in Bryce with the model against a neutral background. I also made a set of matte renders - sort of a cutout shape where the model should be against black - for the next step.

Step 2) Matte processing. I used Photoshop for this, since I know my way around it, kinda. All the renders I dumped into one PSD file, then used the mattes to get a perfect transparency.

Step 3) Composition! I use Illustrator CS3 for this sort of work, because the vector graphics give me much cleaner antialiasing than Photoshop and sizing or resizing elements is a hell of a lot easier. There's four different layers in this picture: the background, the five-view elements, the emblems in the lower-right corner, and the text elements. At this point it's pretty much just shuffling shit around until I think it looks good.

From start to finish, this took me about five hours, and I'm a self-taught amateur. All the software is available through the usual black market sources if you want to give it a whirl (and have a decent computer with ~5GB drive space for the components).
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Black Aeronaut]

Hrm. Drive space isn't really an issue for me. I picked up a 1 TB external dual-drive and it's been holding up like a champ (probably helps that it's a native-Japanese product 'imported' by the Navy Exchange). I would have gone for the 2 TB drive, except it was a little rich for my blood (US$480).
Processing power is going to be a bit more of a to do, though. I'm using a Toshiba Sattelite A105 series laptop. Unfortunately, it's not one of the Dual-Core processor models, though I have maxed out the memory. I could add more, but it wouldn't matter without a 64-bit processor. *Sighs* I really ought to look into a new laptop, but all the "Vista Only" models out there kinda turns me away.
Does anyone know how well Ubuntu supports Toshiba's hardware? I know that most of the AMD and Intel archetecture is no problem, but that doesn't mean that it has all the nifty optimization drivers that really makes the new beasties roar. Or does it? I've been using Ubuntu on-and-off, and it could be something that Intel and AMD has been slipping to the Ubuntu people to include in their repository system.
I'm also seriously considering dual-booting with Mac OS-X (drive partitioning is so much fun), given how the operating system lends itself so beautifully to audio/visual applications.
And then there is the inexperience on my part. I'll go google for some tutorials, but if you have any insights as to sources for good tutorials, then I'd appreciate the input.
Thanks much!

[M Fnord]

Processing power's not as big a thing as memory, especially when it comes to resource-hog programs like Adobe products & 3d modelers. All of these
programs *say* that you can run them on 512MB of RAM, but that *really* means "512MB will open the program and maybe run some functions, but only when
everything else on the computer is shut down." For decent performance you're going to want at least 1GB, preferably more.

Re: tutorials, I learned most of my Bryce tricks through http://www.brycetech.com/ . For everything else, you honestly
can't go wrong with looking through the help files; most programs these days have some p. good tutorials in their help files or linked through the official
websites.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Black Aeronaut]

Again, thanks a bunch. ^_^ I think I'll consider the open-source route. The Gimp, from what I understand, is every bit as good as Photoshop, and I'm
pretty sure there are other very good 3D modelers available from Ubuntu's repositories.

[Foxboy]

blackaeronaut: Open source 3d: Blender
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Black Aeronaut]

Foxboy: Domo arigato. ^_^

[M Fnord]

A little more Ptichkapalooza, this one's a 3d doodle of sorts. I like how it turned out.


Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Black Aeronaut]

Okay... Now that... is 100% Pure Grade 'A' Awesome.