Broadsword-Class Mercenary Cruiser in the desert

[Shonner]

Some test shots I did for my Mercenary Cruiser model http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqsFwZN2kew Still a work in progress.

 

[mike wightman]

Very nice.

I really like the last one. If this is a work in progress the finished result should be amazing

 

[Shonner]

Thanks. I'm running into a problem though with my camera lens being 238mm and the model needing to be 1mm in height. I was surprised that the model stayed as still as it did during the fly-by. But there is no perspective whatsoever on the model because of the telephoto used.

 

[aramis]

Looks AWESOME already, at least on the small screen.

 

[saundby]

Very nice!

There's a slight shifting of the Broadsword WRT the ground, but it's slight and hardly noticeable with the camera movements. So if you're inclined to put your time elsewhere, I think it's well within the zone where you can just "cheat" on it.

Is the ground an image texture on a shape, or is there something fancier going on?

Thanks for putting this out there, great work.

 

[Shonner]

Looks AWESOME already, at least on the small screen.

Very nice!

There's a slight shifting of the Broadsword WRT the ground, but it's slight and hardly noticeable with the camera movements. So if you're inclined to put your time elsewhere, I think it's well within the zone where you can just "cheat" on it.

Is the ground an image texture on a shape, or is there something fancier going on?

Thanks for putting this out there, great work.

Thanks!

I did another tracking sample from a shorter clip of the footage. This brought my camera lens down from 238mm to 134mm. Probably less slipping also. I'm rendering it now and I can see some slight perspective where there was none before on the crusier. The cruiser is squashed flat in the above clip because of the telephoto which I have no control of (other than using some other footage to get my tracking from).

The ground is a backdrop for the camera frame (the original AVI footage). I have two ground planes in the scene though. One I made the same color as the desert terrain so that the sun light could bounce off it and hit the cruiser. I also made that plane invisible to the rendering camera. The other ground plane is invisible also, except for the shadow from the cruiser appearing on it. If this next render isn't much better, I'll look for other footage to use for the backdrop. It's still a science experiment.

ADDED:
Because my AVI footage makes the camera track so much territory, the camera telescopes the view to get all the tracking points in frame and onto a single ground plane so it can do its movement calculations from. I was hoping my brother could send me some footage of his yard out in back so I could park the cruiser there and I could then render a scene walking under it and looking up at it and stuff.

This project came from me just being lazy and not wanting to model CG terrain and paint it for the shot. CG terrain takes longer to render, while the AVI backdrop I'm using takes almost no time to render.

Now that I think about it, I think I'll add a planet in the sky somewhere. It's too empty.

 

[DangerousThing]

Hello fellow Modonaut!

That looks fantastic!

Maybe you could use the slight slippage in a take off sequence. I am far from animating anything yet so I look up to you.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Updated the video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8LgnEmf0Lc

 

[samuelvss]

Thanks for updating. Great stuff!