Friday, March 12, 2010

Heroes ... futuristic scenario ... NARC! ... Part 4




Gay heroes ... 3D environment ... NARC! Par three. And there were supposed to be five renders today, but these are so complex, it takes about 5 minutes to render each ... and the lighting is so complex, it takes half a dozen tries to get a useful image. You do the math!! Whoa, do I need a need video card, plus an extra RAM chip ... and if this is going to happen, I'll also put on Windows 7 at the same time, because Vista is causing me no less grief than it causes most people. Well -- this is what I'd like, anyway. Not that it's going to happen any time soon (unless I win the State Lotto), so --!

Here was part one of this series (Jarrat) ...
...here was part two (Stoney)...
...and part three (Cronin and Ramos)...
...and the source material, if you're totally confused!

Anyway, in this fourth series of renders, Jarrat makes it back aboard the Blue Raven gunship. And he's PO'd. That nasty litter altercation on the street was not supposed to turn out that way. He's been undercover as a gun fighter, and some syndicate slime just tried to double-cross him (which also means double-crossing NARC, though the slime doesn't know it yet).

The pictures speak for themselves ... notice (pleased with self here: sticking feathers in cap) that the blast door is open now, and there's a corridor outside! I just built that on this morning. Lighting it was the assignment from hell, because I have 16 lights on this set now ... and 16 is the absolute maximum the existing hardware will let me have. What I found out recently is, when you get close to your max number of lights, the existing ones don't behave exactly as they oughtta. They start to "argue" with each other, probably as the hardware struggles.

Which tells me clear as a bell, I need to pull up at about 12 lights and not try to push it to the limit. Hmmm.

If and when I get a new video card in this machine, I'll report on how it improves the performance of 3D work. Have to admit, for all other work, this machine is greased lightning (quad core, 4x 2.35 processors, with 6G of RAM and unlimited disk space). In the meantime, though ... I'll pull up at 12 lights!

Full marks and then some go to the guys who designed the SFCS - Science Fiction Construction Set. They have made it sooooo easy to build fantastic sets where you can fly the camera around and wander in and out of corridors and rooms...!! This, for $10? Amazing!!

2014 Edit: It's worth chiming in here for a second with a flash-forward for folks who love NARC as much as I do. The whole series was completed in 2018, with the massive trilogy of Scimitar - Basilisk - Endgame. As of 2019, I was, myself, delighted to return to Jarrat and Stone with new technology. I was up to Windows 10 and Studio 4.14, and these characters came to life as never before ...

Stoney -- in Iray

Jarrat -- in Iray

The NARC armor -- in Iray

Jarrat and Stone - raytrace + Photoshop

Jarrat and Stone - raytrace + Photoshop

Jarrat - Photoshop remaster from a 2012 original

Stoney - Photoshop remaster from a 2012 original



Jade, 14 March