The Art and Graphics of Nick Stevens. Available for hire.I specialise in unbuilt space projects, and the spacecraft of the Soviet Union.
On Friday 9th June 2017, I went down for the opening night of “Visions of Space 2“, This is the first time I have been to see my own work on display in a a gallery!
This is a joint effort between the International Association of Astronomical Artists, the British Interplanetary Society, and the Wells and Mendip astronomers.
Not that long ago I got an excellent book by Alexander Schliadinski, who provided the core information for “N-1 for the Moon and Mars“.
Continue reading “Nuclear Soyuz – ЖРД / ЯРД, an unflown design”
Back to Amberlight 2, to try some more renders Not much more to say about these beyond “Here they Are!”
Like many, I have been stunned by the images coming back from the Juno mission to Jupiter. Take a look here if you’d like to see some of the best.
I particularly liked the polar views, not least because these are the first views. And I decided they would make a great basis for exoplanet textures for a gas giant orbiting another star.
And because ring systems always look cool, I added a complex ring system too, and a couple of knobbly little moons. Everything done in Lightwave 3d this time around.
Here are the results of this brief project.
Continue reading “Exoplanet with rings and Juno based textures.”
An unusual one for me, as I take a crack at an original science-fiction design.
My objective was to get something seriously large, primarily for use in Vue. My thinking is that I notice many great concept art pages have fairly abstract ships that are so big the more distant parts are afffected by haze, giving a great sense of scale. And as volumetric effects are a strength of Vue, I figure model in LW with Vue in mind. In practice this meant:
Continue reading “The Slabship / Fury – Development and finished renders”
I’m continuing to spend most of my graphics time in Vue recently, and I think I am starting to feel comfortable with it. I’m still getting occasional frustrations, but I’m feeling a lot more in control.
One lightbulb moment was when I realised I did NOT have to use the included billboard planet options for planets! But could use full 3d objects which then pick up the light from the Sun, and are properly affected by the haze and fog. A good example is the ringed planet in the banner image for this post, at the top. (Note the tiny astronaut at the top of the cliffs!)
And here’s another:
Continue reading “More explorations in Vue – Using Haze and Fog, 3d planets”
As long term followers of this blog will be aware, about a year and a half ago, my work was selected for exibition at the “Visions of Space” show in Wells, here in the UK. An event organised by Chris Starr of the BIS, and the Wells and Mendips astronomers.
You can see my previous post on it here, and the BIS page can be found here.
Well, I’m delighted to say that “Visions of Space 2” is happening soon, and I am once again exhibiting! Highlights include a lecture by David A Hardy, a linkup with Spacefest 8, and a demonstration by Matt Irvine.
And here are some of the images I have submitted. I don’t know which ones will be selected yet!
I rather liked the unusual view of this rendering of a glider in flight over Mars. (Serious design)
One of the frustrations of working with CGI is that you sometimes find a brilliant free model, but it’s not for your software. And a specific example that has frustrated me is that there are some great models available in Blender format on the NASA 3d object library site:
Now, whilst I have heard of Blender, I’ve never tried to use it, and 3d packages can be very difficult to learn. But I decided to give it a go. Maybe I’d be lucky! Continue reading “Tutorial: Importing Blender 3d content into Lightwave or Vue”
I don’t use Daz Studio much these days, but thought people might be interested in one specific image I was very happy with, from a few years ago.
I don’t like the Daz renderer at all, as I find it ridiculously difficult to control the arrangement of things, and position them accurately. So I generally export them as OBJ, and then rework the textures. This last bit is not too painful, once you get used to what stuff typically needs fixing. However, there’s a ton of very reasonably priced content available for Daz Studio, and this draws me in.
I’m particularly impressed with the products of “Stonemason” (Stefan Morell), who consistently produces superb settings, often of a science fiction nature. Urban future streets, and SF interiors in particular. Continue reading ““It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.””
I’m still experiementing with Vue, and I’m begining to feel like I am getting somewhere. And somewhere a bit more interesting than just a bunch of CGI sunsets!
Mind you, this one started as a sunset with an interesting terrain. It was when I figured the scene was rather Mars-like, that I got the idea for what else to include beyond the terrain and the sky.
So I dug out my old “Mars Habitat” and “Mars Explorer” from Daz, and loaded them in.Now the habitat had some odd rendering issues in Lightwave, but seems OK in Vue, at least once I had turned off glare.
It’s also become clear that Vue does a MUCH better job of preserving halfway decent surface settings when importing from OBJ format than from an LWO format. (For some reason Lightwave 3d surfaces only seem to respond to ambient light, the diffuse does nothing?!)
