TRMN

These are the official forums of The Royal Manticoran Navy: The Official Honor Harrington Fan Association 

  • Learning Blender with a Wolfhound

  • Discuss various aspects of the Honorverse universe here. Please be mindful of what you post, as not everybody has read the same amount of books. DO NOT post Honorverse fan fiction here under ANY circumstances!
Discuss various aspects of the Honorverse universe here. Please be mindful of what you post, as not everybody has read the same amount of books. DO NOT post Honorverse fan fiction here under ANY circumstances!
 #10324  by Kevin Smith
 Fri Oct 06, 2017 2:50 am
So over the past month or two I've been playing with Blender and my learning project has been a guess at what a Wolfhound class destroyer might look like.
wolfhound.png
There are a few cheats like not modelling the weapon bays, they are done using microdisplacement instead which makes it rather slower and more memory intensive.

Obviously this is fanart, not something sanctioned by BuComm. I don't really have time to join in the great ship modelling project.
 #10344  by John Fairbairn, KDE, GACM
 Fri Oct 06, 2017 2:19 pm
Nice beginning, PO Smith. Some fairly quick additions might be terraform of the world below, stars, etc. Oh, and you might query BuComm to see if they would like to accept your effort as a basis for finishing out for the Wolfhound class.

With respect -
Kris Miller liked this
 #10547  by Kevin Smith
 Tue Oct 10, 2017 2:58 pm
John Fairbairn wrote:Nice beginning, PO Smith. Some fairly quick additions might be terraform of the world below, stars, etc.
Thanks, The lack of stars is intentional though. Given the exposure necessary to see any detail in the ship in direct sunlight the stars would be way too dim to see. If you look at real images in space of objects in direct sunlight, you won't see stars in the background.


A good looking planet at this distance is fairly tricky as the atmosphere starts to get fairly complicated. I have played with it but it drastically increases render time and memory usage (so no GPU render), hence the simple blue for now.
 #10713  by John Fairbairn, KDE, GACM
 Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:19 pm
Kevin Smith wrote:
Tue Oct 10, 2017 2:58 pm

Thanks, The lack of stars is intentional though. Given the exposure necessary to see any detail in the ship in direct sunlight the stars would be way too dim to see. If you look at real images in space of objects in direct sunlight, you won't see stars in the background.

A good looking planet at this distance is fairly tricky as the atmosphere starts to get fairly complicated. I have played with it but it drastically increases render time and memory usage (so no GPU render), hence the simple blue for now.
Regarding your first point - If you look at 'real images', sometimes this is true. However, there is where the similarity between imaging equipment and the Human eye ends. While any form of imager has to be stopped down to capture the image in order to avoid having the intense reflected light wash out the recorded image, the Human eye is much more discerning. True, the pupil does close like the multi-leaved diaphragm of the imaging device. However, the response of the optical sensors in the Human retina also can be (and are) made more or less sensitive and responsive. Even though the pupil is nearly closed, those portions of the rods and cones not concentrated on the bright object still will respond to faint light. An eye thus will have at least a faint response to the brightest stars. As a reference, consider the fact that the Moon can be seen, albeit faintly, even when the Sun is above the horizon.

Finally, as shown in the following photo from NASA, stars do appear in photos of ships taken in space.

Image

That said, it depends on whether you want the image to look like what an image recorder sees, or what the eye sees. Since the perspective of the observer is tacitly presumed to be a view-port on an adjacent ship, IMHO I would think the latter would be more appropriate.

Regarding the second point, unless a person in space concentrates on a planet for a significant period of time, one that has a reasonably Earth-like atmosphere does not significantly bend or ripple the light passing through it. See the above image. It takes really careful concentration to see the underlying land/water ripple due to atmospheric conditions, and of course a person would not see that at all when viewing a still image - unless seeing side by side two such images that were taken some appreciable time (at least several seconds) apart. That includes wave movement for the water part.

So to me, that means that what I am looking at and clearly seeing is a 100% water world that has no appreciable weather, in an area of space that is a void except for the system primary and its (solitary?) planet. Both issues seem rather unlikely.

However, as the artist it certainly is your choice. I do really appreciate the work you have put into the ship render.

Regards -
 #10716  by Zachary White
 Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:50 pm
John Fairbairn wrote:
Kevin Smith wrote:
Tue Oct 10, 2017 2:58 pm

Thanks, The lack of stars is intentional though. Given the exposure necessary to see any detail in the ship in direct sunlight the stars would be way too dim to see. If you look at real images in space of objects in direct sunlight, you won't see stars in the background.

A good looking planet at this distance is fairly tricky as the atmosphere starts to get fairly complicated. I have played with it but it drastically increases render time and memory usage (so no GPU render), hence the simple blue for now.
Regarding your first point - If you look at 'real images', sometimes this is true. However, there is where the similarity between imaging equipment and the Human eye ends. While any form of imager has to be stopped down to capture the image in order to avoid having the intense reflected light wash out the recorded image, the Human eye is much more discerning. True, the pupil does close like the multi-leaved diaphragm of the imaging device. However, the response of the optical sensors in the Human retina also can be (and are) made more or less sensitive and responsive. Even though the pupil is nearly closed, those portions of the rods and cones not concentrated on the bright object still will respond to faint light. An eye thus will have at least a faint response to the brightest stars. As a reference, consider the fact that the Moon can be seen, albeit faintly, even when the Sun is above the horizon.

Finally, as shown in the following photo from NASA, stars do appear in photos of ships taken in space.

Image

That said, it depends on whether you want the image to look like what an image recorder sees, or what the eye sees. Since the perspective of the observer is tacitly presumed to be a view-port on an adjacent ship, IMHO I would think the latter would be more appropriate.

Regarding the second point, unless a person in space concentrates on a planet for a significant period of time, one that has a reasonably Earth-like atmosphere does not significantly bend or ripple the light passing through it. See the above image. It takes really careful concentration to see the underlying land/water ripple due to atmospheric conditions, and of course a person would not see that at all when viewing a still image - unless seeing side by side two such images that were taken some appreciable time (at least several seconds) apart. That includes wave movement for the water part.

So to me, that means that what I am looking at and clearly seeing is a 100% water world that has no appreciable weather, in an area of space that is a void except for the system primary and its (solitary?) planet. Both issues seem rather unlikely.

However, as the artist it certainly is your choice. I do really appreciate the work you have put into the ship render.

Regards -
That is not a real picture though - that is an artist rendering.

This is a picture looking at the shuttle docked at the ISS - and there are no stars visible.

Image. Kevin is correct unless it's a very high quality camera specifically looking to photograph stars.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Timber Lupindo liked this
 #10742  by John Fairbairn, KDE, GACM
 Mon Oct 16, 2017 1:34 am
Um.

Trying to think of a polite way to respond here ...

The photo I included above was from :

https://www.space.com/34633-x-37b-milit ... facts.html ,

and it included the credit by-line:

Photo Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

NASA is not known for enhancing their photos unless they state that it is an "Artist Rendering". And they definitely would not state that it was a "photo credit" unless it was an actual photo. That said, this site is not NASA. Space.com may have miss-quoted an "image" attribution ...

Regards -
 #10744  by Zachary White
 Mon Oct 16, 2017 2:39 am
John Fairbairn wrote:Um.

Trying to think of a polite way to respond here ...

The photo I included above was from :

https://www.space.com/34633-x-37b-milit ... facts.html ,

and it included the credit by-line:

Photo Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

NASA is not known for enhancing their photos unless they state that it is an "Artist Rendering". And they definitely would not state that it was a "photo credit" unless it was an actual photo. That said, this site is not NASA. Space.com may have miss-quoted an "image" attribution ...

Regards -
That is DEF an artist rendering - sorry mate - and yes there would be credits on artwork.

There is no need to think of a polite response - it's a photoshop job - you cannot see stars when looking at a space photograph - I can find example ranging from pictures looking back to earth from the moon, to additional shots from the shuttle missions to pictures taken from the ISS viewports. The exposure isn't long enough to pick them up.

Kevin was correct - I'm sorry.

Here is the exact same image from another site which lists the *image* credit as coming from the Boeing Corporation - who built the craft.

Image

You can tell it's a rendering from the color of the panels, the sharpness of the colors, and the just the general look that has a certain - well it's hard to describe - but it's an artists depiction of a "typical" mission set.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 #10747  by John Fairbairn, KDE, GACM
 Mon Oct 16, 2017 11:39 am
I see. Thanks for finding that second version and its attribution. So, Space.com miss-attributed it.

Sorry for raising an issue, then. Kevin, you have my apology.

Regards -
 #10776  by Kevin Smith
 Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:58 am
Well, that was certainly not what I expected from this thread.

The planet is a placeholder that's there mostly to cast some planetshine on the ship. I've experimented with scattering for the atmosphere with a displacement mapped cloud layer but I can't get it quite right and as i said, It slows down the render immensely and so I've stuck with the simple sphere while working on the ship. I do plan to work on this some more when I have time, but right now I'm working on my uniform for VCon. I suppose I should have said it was a work in progress in the initial post.
 #10783  by Rob Marshall
 Tue Oct 17, 2017 1:07 pm
Your skills will take time to develop with Blender (or any modelling tool). I use blender quite heavily for some projects; Nice first round, you have the major components. I like the multiple curves on the bridge area.

Donate

Make a donation for Big Cat Rescue



Make a donation for the Most Regal Order of Queen Elizabeth

About us

Welcome to The Royal Manticoran Navy: The Official Honor Harrington Fan Association's Forums. We are here to celebrate the work of David Weber and the universe he has created in his Honor Harrington books. Our hierarchy structure is set up based on what is in the books. We have gone to great lengths to make sure we are as true to the books as possible, using the books, and input from David Weber and Ad Astra as our guide. We want you to have a positive fandom experience, so please explore all our site has to offer and if you like what you see, feel free to join us. All we ask is that you remember one thing; no matter what you do, Do It With Honor!

Our Conventions

Check out our conventions!