3D illustrations...

[luxxeon]

Sorry for the late reply to your message earlier on. I got sidetracked with a particular project and didn't check back with the forums. Yes, GPU rendering has really changed the way I work, specifically for rendering large scenes and more specifically for HD animation rendering, which was almost impossible for me to do years ago. I just didn't want to have to sacrifice image quality for the sake of rendering speed, so I held out on creating animations until a few years ago when the hardware and software finally got to a stage where it was reasonable to do for a freelance, independent artist. Honestly, you don't need a very expensive graphics card, but you do need some very specific requirements from the card depending on the software you choose. For example, most GPU render engines require you to have a graphics card with CUDA cores. This is a creation of NVIDIA products, and CUDA has proven to be the easiest format to program around, so many many GPU enhanced software applications take advantage of this for rendering acceleration. The more CUDA cores your GPU card has, the faster it will perform in software which supports CUDA rendering ( Adobe comes to mind as one major brand which has CUDA gpu rendering, but Blender also supports it). There's plenty of third party gpu renderers which require CUDA too, like Otoy's Octane engine. At any rate, moving to a $400 gaming Nvidia card has proven to be one of the best investments I've made for productivity. The other thing being replacing all my hard drives with SSD's.

[andrewpintado]

The interface is a complete mess....

[andrewpintado]

Have you tried Hexagon and Sculptris?

[Gamerprinter]

No, haven't tried either Hexagon or Sculptris. For modeling I prefer Wings 3D, because it's based on Nichimen (Izware) Nendo, which I used for 10 years, before switching to Nendo, when that app was no longer supported.

Well I'm back doing the corridors and bays map tile set, which I've only got two left to create before I will prep it for release.

This is a bay that could fit multiple purposes. It could be a cooling pool holding fissionable materials, it could be a sewage/water treatment facility, it could be a plankton growing pool for needed proteins for the food replicators. But it's a water filled chamber with a tranparent bridge crossing it, and some kind of mechanical system under the water's surface...

As it is now, the tile set will be 36 each, double-side printed, full color map tiles to 8" x 10" cardstock, sold through DrivethruRPG.com

[Gamerprinter]

I need to create some more oddball starships as illustrations and deck plans for the upcoming Starships, Stations and Salvage Guide II by Edward Moyer, that I'll be publishing. This is a regolith starship - a ship made out of a rock, literally. Once a small asteroid that was mined for precious metals having been hollowed out. Then fitted with graviton emitters, carved into bays and corridors, fitted with airlocked doors and converted into a large starship for a crew of 22 Dwarven mining spacefarers. This is a rock in flight, needless to say, these aren't that fast and poor to maneuver, but is extra defensible against attacks, EMP and nuclear emissions. The bay door on the top holds a tiny ore survey ship able to take core samples, laser cut samples in the hunt for exo-metals and other valuables. This is very much science fantasy, than purely science fiction (I know). The ship features a visage of Drajin, a honored ancestor of the dwarf clan. Enjoy!

[Gamerprinter]

Just created a duo of starships, with the smaller one nesting into the larger one, in such a way that if 3D printed, the smaller one wouldn't fall off the larger ship and fit snugly.

[Gamerprinter]

Next illustration is a luxury escape ship. Where most escape ships have two seats and room for minimal amounts of survival supplies and a bit more distance capability than an escape pod, this "ship" could be dropped at a distance of the moon to the Earth, then enter the atmosphere of a planet and fly around searching for the best place to land. It has sleeping beds for two, food and fuel for up to 2 weeks of travel or sustainability, and could be used as a living shelter for up to 2 weeks until they are rescued or recovered. Since the ship is so small, I thought I'd do a cutaway design cut vertically, length wise - something more impractical at larger scales. Something fun to try... enjoy!

[Gamerprinter]

Finally got the deck plans done for one of the two ships shown to posts above - still working on the larger ship deck plans.

Enjoy!

[codyhay]

I am in love with Wings 3D...

[Gamerprinter]

I am in love with Wings 3D...

Me too, but primarily because I use to use Nichimen Nendo (which became Izware Nendo), which I've used for more than 10 years. Then when I started using Wings 3D, I learned that the developers of Wings 3D, based their development using Nichimen Nendo, since it largely works the same, though some features are different - they are very close, thus I was very familiar with how to use it.