For the first time in a very long time I've had the chance to just play with some 3D stuff. Here's what I've come up with. It's a little modular shuttle craft for two people and some minor cargo.

It's not properly textured yet (all procedural except for the control panels), and these renders are just with two lights -- a distant light and a bulb for some fill. Of course, there are the practical lights -- the headlights, the interior cockpit lights and lights in the engines, but they're part of the model....

It's all created in Carrara 2 and rendered in the hybrid renderer.

Anyway, thought I'd share a WIP; it's been too long since I've been able to. As always, I welcome and appreciate comments and suggestions for improvement.

Thanks!

Dex

Looks sweet to me! I love the pipes in the back! Good to see you around! -Kix

Fun Stuff!

Love the interior lights! Good modeling. Sure looks like you could toast some marshmallows with those engines :-)

Nice little ship. I don't know if you've played Escape Velocity or any of those single-ship trading games (or Traveller, for that matter), but this is almost exactly the "shuttlecraft" or "type S scout" the beginning character gets stuck with. They got no weapons, no range, the cargo space is so small you figure the pilot is stowing it behind her chair -- but after you've slipped past a few pirates and sucessfully made the Kessel run in it you really grow to love the little lump of steel. Even after you've upgraded to something decent you look back in nostalgia. Those engines seem overkill, though. Where are you keeping the reaction mass for them?

Hey, everyone -- Thanks for the comments. Nomuse, you're right, it does have a bit of a Traveller feel (I used to play Traveller way back in the '80's). Yeah, the engines are a bit big, I suppose, but I actually based this on a little plastic model I built kit-bashing, probably in the late seventies or early 80's. The engines on that little model were even larger, compared to the size of the ship. (Wish I still had the plastic thing; it was about two inches long....) I'll probably reduce the size of the engines, or at least the length of them. Reaction mass.... Hmmm.... Let's see.... I think this little ship is actually powered by a non-reaction mass driver that employs Brownian physics; there are little spindizzies in the forward section of the engine tubes, and housed in the diamter of the tubes is a trans-magnetic force conduit that directionalizes the output of the drive. Yeah, that's it.... :o)

Heh. Problem with the engines is not the size, but the size of the hole. If that was a grill or something that didn't look like matter came out of it, then the engines would look just fine. Spindizzies, eh? :) You'd be surprised by how many people on this board know where those came from....and know what city has "Two names twice."

I probably wouldn't be surprised by folks' knowledge of old James Blish novels.... I read "Cities in Flight" when I was but a wee lad in the late sixties, I think.... I have to admit I'm a little lost about the two names twice comment. Actually, the engines do have a tiny hole inside them with a big flange at the end; I should render a shot looking down them. But maybe a grille or something would be just as good. The biggest problem I have with the size of the engines is that it looks like the whole thing would rock back on its landing pads if the engines are heavy. Could make for an amusing animation of a landing sequence, though.

That comment comes from one of the later books (I read them last about a year ago, maybe two). Mayor Amalfi attends a meeting at the Hobo King's as part of a complicated plot to draw out the Vegan Orbital Fort. He declines to identify himself or his city except for the above comment, whispered, to a mayor friendly towards him. Meaning, of course, "New York, New York." I like the look of those oversize engine pods. Gives it character. Actually, the silhoette reminds me oddly of the maintenance droids from "Silent Running."