Viper moves in for the kill

[Ethrieltd]

To celebrate my getting the BSG models I downloaded working properly as detailed:-

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,22977.msg232494.html#msg232494

I decided to knock up something using them. There was an incident with a v3 cloud layer (there are 5 cloud layers here) that added a long time (I quit at 11hrs) to the render that was shaved to about 1hr 12mins by replacing it with a v2 layer.

I created a cone with a tapered end in C4D to serve as the exhaust jet for both ships, textured it with flames and and an alpha layer, and popped some lights behind them inside the engine port.

I was looking into contrails but after a quick search and seeing the blue node madness (which despite my physics background made very little sense) I decided to leave it out. I've not been able to figure out how to import the lights into AE to use Particular, importing the FBX scene doesn't seem to do what I want, so it might be something I'll get to later.

Ground shaders from René's inverted alpine tgd:-

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,23243.msg235447.html#msg235447

[N-drju]

Nice work on these engines.

[DocCharly65]

Nice work on these engines.

Echo

I know about these problems... I did some experiments for my film project in the past but gave up all of them... 

[Ethrieltd]

Thanks, for the thanks.

Yeah, I originally went with the cone method because I wanted contrails, and because I wanted Terragen created contrails I'd need the lights to affect the contrails so I'd have to do them in house too...

...I wouldn't do it again, probably. But, hey it's all a learning curve...

[Dune]

There are ways to do contrails that are simpler; like with a camera (in engine) pointing back from  the engine, and a small white dot on black as image map. Camera with very narrow angle. Mask for cloud.

[Ethrieltd]

There are ways to do contrails that are simpler; like with a camera (in engine) pointing back from  the engine, and a small white dot on black as image map. Camera with very narrow angle. Mask for cloud.

I tried it with a cloud/painted shader and had hard lines everywhere or no clouds at all. I knew I was missing something...