"Renderdog" <slo### [at] hiwaaynet> wrote in message
news:web.3e6d551453557273c459a4b40@news.povray.org...
> Great looking spaceship, and very original. Very nice renders/lighting as
> well.

Thank you :) It's particularly good 'cause these pictures take only about 30
seconds to render on a 2GHz machine!

> The thruster glows are very pretty and hint at an unusual thruster
> technology. I relate color to temperature (and cleaness of burn) so the
> hottest part seems to be on the edge, the blue flame. Perhaps for an
> animation the flames would change as thrusters fired, first a single
color,
> and then the outside rings/glows increase in visibility or pulsing as time
> passes. The thruster flames look ultraviolet and highly radioactive;
> nuclear thrusters?

I confess I've put no thought into what colour they should be, apart from
very loosely taking inspiration from after burners on fighter jets. I like
your suggestions :) Nuclear thrusters are a good explanation. I'd already
considered the idea of having the flames change colour, I think I might also
make them change shape, e.g. so the concentric rings scroll outwards from
the center as it warms up.

> The non-symetrical pattern used to texture the craft looks like one of
those
> random patterns used to fool the eye, to keep the enemy from locking on
the
> target.

The previous colour scheme was blue and yellow, which looked a little too
improbable, so I went for slightly more military colours. I hadn't really
thought about it trying to fool the eye (after all I figure people shooting
at spaceships probably have good lock-on systems!) but I like the asymetry
from an aesthetic point of view. Now you point it out it is very reminiscent
of a camouflage pattern, I like that!

> I've read men identify cars using the same part of their brain used to
> identify faces. This craft seems to be missing it's eyes (cockpit or
> weapons), but I don't see any clear size cues. I'm guessing it's between a
> fighter and bomber sized vehicle.

ah, yes... I'll explain that in a moment...

> The thrusters might benefit from having a deeper tunnel from which the
flame
> exits.

I tried putting the flame deeper inside the booster, but it looked wrong.
All you saw protruding was a bunch of parallel lines, 'cause you couldn't
see that the flame's cylindrical without being able to see the circles at
the hot end of it. Having that sticking out the booster looked wrong, and
very flat.

> I see what look like some reflections of the flames, but I always look for
a
> glow washing back across a vehicle's dark side when thrusters fire. Might
> be too slow to use a point light source for each thruster in an animation
> so you could create a section of the vehicle around each thruster
> pattern-mapped as if lit, and swap it in/out for each thruster, but that's
> a lot of work for a subtle effect.

Good idea. It may be possible to use light sources, my animation's rendering
very fast at the moment.

> The black and white circles on the craft remind me of the Space Vision
> System patterns used on the space station as a docking/berthing aid.

Right, this is where I'll explain the whole "cockpit" thing from above...
You see, those spots are meant to be windows! That's where the sense of
scale is, I reckon the ship's about the size of an average passenger jet. I
guess I'll have to improve the window effect, and maybe go for a different
style of window entirely. Any suggestions you have would be appreciated :)

> I hope all this gibberish helps,
> Mark

Yes it does. Thank you!

--
Tek
http://www.evilsuperbrain.com

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