I recently finished reading the English translation of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past novel trilogy (also referred to by the title of the first book, The Three-Body Problem). I thought they were really good, a bit of a throwback to the Clark and Asimov school of hard science fiction. I think going into the books cold really helped me appreciate them, so I’ll just say that this depicts a scene from one of the novels involving a device nicknamed the Droplet.
Author Archives: David Gian-Cursio
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 73
I should really model the power pods that were on space-based stargates in “Atlantis.” It would greatly open up my options for Stargate renders, especially ones involving the Puddle Jumper. In this case, I got away with it by using tight framing.
Incidentally, “Tight Framing” is the name of my cinematography-themed spoken-word jazz concept-album.
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 72
I took this picture in Fairchild Gardens years ago, thinking it’d be a good place to put a Stargate. Then when I looked at it after I got home, I realized that it actually wasn’t, since you’d have to sort of sidle along it to get to the front. But, hey, maybe on this planet they just thought it was a decorative ring someone buried for some reason and only found out when someone dialed in.
(I imagine that, by acclimation, falling four feet into a pond was deemed to be the stupidest way the SGC lost a MALP)
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 71
Much like the defiant squadron-leader Sinclair, I’m also shouting “Not like this!”
Metaphorically.
At the prospect of missing a day.
Photo finish!
This is actually a test of some of the ideas I had when building my Battle of the Line analysis. This lays out the scene based on being consistent with the live action footage (Delenn looking up at Sinclair’s fighter in the hologram chamber, and Sinclair passing into the cruiser’s shadow just before impact).
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 70
I have no idea who made this Psi-Corps Mothership, and Google was unhelpful.
Oddly, the Hyperspace effect I made a little while ago doesn’t emit significant light when in linear color mode. It’s odd because LCS usually makes radiosity and such much brighter. Though it just occurred to me that since Hyperspace is an alternate dimension, I could render it using old-style settings and just say that that’s just the way physics works in that realm. Yes, I like that idea.
Edited 2016-10-18: A.Kurin at F3D has reminded me that the Psi-Corps Mothership is by Marc-Laurent Magnier. Thanks!
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 69
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 68
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 67
As the U.S.S. Sisyphus loses power in the face of the… cube? Higher dimensional structure? Viewscreen test pattern?… Captain Baxter realizes that it’s going to be one of those days.
I thought a picture inspired by the Improvised Star Trek would be fun, and give me a chance to do something slightly off-beat. I had a brain-fart when I was setting up the image, and misaligned the cube, so it’s not quite a real Belvedere Cube. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to model a Squircle.
I have no idea why the glow textures for the model didn’t apply, prompted the unplanned energy drain on the ship. Everything looked correct in the settings, but, hey, conversions are weird.
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 66
Okay, one more jumppoint. The Drakh shot from the other day was going to be this scene, but I changed my mind before I was sure that something I did to the jumppoint made Lightwave hang when I loaded other scenes into a scene it was already in. And then since I already did my original angle, I made it a square.
100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 65
I could probably easily spend another week working on this jumppoint, putting it into real scenes and realizing things I missed (there’s a reason none of the points in this shot are in front of the planet), and then doing it all again until I’m satisfied. And there’s got to be some way to do that transparent-from-the-sides effect in-camera…