Babylon 5 Shuttle

I've spent a little time over the last several years (wow, has it been close to a decade already) playing around with a piece of software, Lightwave 3D. I've done a few minor projects with it, such as a Dancing Antibody, and recently decided that maybe I should spend some more time learning. So, in an effort to learn more about 3D animation and Lightwave in specific I started to build up a model by following a tutorial I found online. It's taken me most of the last month of off and on work, but I was able to go through all 3 parts of the tutorial. While my poor laptop was able to handle the model itself, the graphics card, a Radeon Mobile 9000 IGP, the drivers apparently don't allow for me to see textures on the model in Layout except after rendering. I can live with that as I can see the effects of lights on the base model which is the critical thing to be able to see once texturing is finished.

The final result of the modeling (click image for larger image) Overall the model came out very nicely and actually looks pretty good rendered out. The next step was to fill in the background. Back to the same site that provided the B5 tutorial for another one that was about building a better starfield. I wanted to create a good color gradation to the stars in the field, so a quick search of google brought me to "What color are the stars?". I took 12 of the lower shades (more blue than yellow) and surfaced the 13 random selections that I had made in the starfield tutorial. Model in the stars (click image for larger image) There is still a bit of work to do, such as getting the glow effect from the windows to show better and also a little more work on the engines. One thing I have learned from this is that while the gross model can be completed quickly, it is all the small details that sell it that take up the vast majority of the effort. I was cleaning off my old laptop recently and came across a couple of old videos that I had rendered of this model flying across a star field. I don't know how well the star field shows up at such a small resolution.