Ferion :: Phaser Cannon Type I (Mechanical + Enviornment)
 

Hi All, I finished the environment for the cannon!

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/re...n_finished.jpg

So what's this for? There's a web-based game called Ferion (http://www.ferion.net) that's a little like Master of Orion. In this game, there is a technology tree that you can develop weapons from. The model for this cannon was built in order to illustrate "Phaser Cannon Type-I". I finished the cannon itself a while ago for the illustration, but for that I only needed a floor, no rails or anything.

I'm job hunting now so I thought this guy would look cool in my demo reel. Problem is, it really needed a room to reside in. So I spent the last week and a half working like mad to get the environment built and textured. It is such a relief to have this thing ready to go. *whew*

Got any questions? Fire away. :)

Alrighty dudes, I updated the image. If it doesn't say -r2 in the credits, try reloading the image. (I overwrote the old one because I sent a couple of emails out...) You can see the original here: http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/re...inished-r1.jpg

I just wanted to say that I got GREAT feedback from everywhere I posted this. I made a list of all the criticisms and addressed them. (If I missed one, please feel free to remind me. )

- Anti-aliasing refined a bit. Unfortunately, there's still a little bit at the knuckle of one of the claws. I think that's a result of the new lighting. I'll re-investigate that when I go to do the demo-reel animation.

- The lighting is a little more dramatic. I didn't want to go overboard here because I want the camera to be able to fly around the rig without having to do too much tweaking for each scene.

- Added a subtle diffuse glow in order to improve atmosphere of the imagery.

- I've been asked a couple of times to make the cannon look more 'worn'. The reason I havent' done this is that it's a brand-new prototype. (Sorry, I didn't mention that before!) I wanted it to look a lot like some of the machinery I saw while researching particle accelerators etc.

- Hazard stickers have been refined. I also fixed the back, but you can't see that in this render. I had a problem with them on the other end. Well, no more. I've grown a lot in the UV space in the last couple of months.

- Shadow map resolution's been improved for the reddish 'malibu lights' at the bottom. (Sadly, I think I introduced a small problem here. Will reinvestigate soon.)

- It was mentioned to me that there were too many warning signs at the bottom. In the original design, those signs were meant to be there so that if somebody was standing at the guard rail, they'd see the warning that they should stand back. However, it cluttered things a bit so I removed 4 of them.

- The warning signs haven't changed. The reason for this is that they're supposed to look like a light up LED based sign. I think that'll look more apparent when you see an animation of it. (There will probably be some refinement of them when I get there, however..)

- I brightened the flares on the end of each particle emitter a bit. I wasn't quite happy with the way they originally came out.

- Fixed a mesh error at the tip of each 'claw'. I think it's a little hard to tell from this angle, but there was definitely some nastiness there. I'm kicking myself for not fixing it sooner.

- Slightly altered the camera angle.

*whew* Big update heh.

Thanks dudes, I *really* appreciate the feedback, it's been very helpful. More ideas? Throw them at me!

Spectacular! Great model and composition.

Somebody made a comment earlier that I thought about a little bit more, and I realize what he was saying now. He said that the guard rails + the observatory windows indicated different scales. I decided to tackle that a little bit more. I made the guard rails smaller + I raised the cieling above the portholes. I think it looks a lil better now. Comments?

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/re...scale_test.jpg

Excellent!!!

I love that you added people - it gives the whole scene a sense of scale and really adds to the realism factor. My only nitpick, now that everything else is damn-near perfect, is that anyplace with sensitive and potentially dangerous equipment like this would probably be better lit. :)

Love the lighted message boards on the guardrails, BTW!

Heh thanks man. I agree about the well lit, but I hit a little resistance with that. The original image was more brightly lit (partly for safety, and partly to show off all the texture work I did...) but it took some of the 'striking' aspect of the image out.

I think Its brilliant :) well done.

that's one big ass gun.