One of the benefits of getting the hang of Bryce is that I can work with models that are too much for DAZ to handle. Now, it's perfectly true that 3D Studio Max handles them like a dream ... but I never got the hang of 3DS. It's about 1000% more complex than DAZ and Bryce. Actually, triple that, come to think of it. The manual is 1,250 Letter-size pages of close-packed type. It's like a phone book. And I just never had the time to learn it, which is why DAZ and Bryce came as such a welcome surprise: they don't take all that much learning before you're confident in what you can do.
A while ago I splurged and got a star destroyer model ... thirty bucks in a sale. On of the most expensive models I've ever invested in. I promptly discovered that DAZ can't even open it! Too many "polygons." Now, all models are made of polygons, and by the time you get up to modeling things like human faces or the behemoth starship in the shots above -- well, your average computer (and software) will barf before it even opens the model.
The good news is: Bryce is a wireframe environment, and will handle this model eeeeezily. The better news is, I'm living Bryce 7 Pro a lot. So it was an obvious move to render the starship in Bryce. Then, when I saw the final render I thought to myself .... hang on, I can import this into DAZ as a backdrop!
Add the Vanguard spaceship prop and set some lights.
Add Kevin Jarrat at the pilot's controls and set some interior lights.
Render up a storm; finish one of the shots in GIMP, to put the flares on the engine exhausts...
And you have a picture sequence as Captain Kevin Jarrat, Raven 9.4 himself, is on approach to a big ship. Remember the Starfleet carrier, from Scorpio? This could be it.
Woohoo! Expect more -- lots more -- just like it.
Jade, 29 September
***Posted by MK because the internet is AWOL. Intermittent crap. Be warned, guys: our connection is going to be in and out for a week or two, as of this point: Telstra (or whatever) is doing a lot of work on the landlines in this area. And as you know, if you've been looking at the "poster notes" on these journal entries in my looooong adventure through the world of CG, 3D and digital, even at the best of times we can find ourselves with dialup speeds in this area. This is why MK has been making many posts for me, since Day One -- Keegan has the fast connection, not me! (This should change in the near future, when the cables or whatever are updated, and they stop working on them. At least, s'wot Telstra promises.) Credit where it's due: this blog would not have been possible without the support of a pal with decent internet. Because ours sucks. We moved into this area about six months before I got into Studio and blogging about it, and I almost quit right there: DAYS to download something from the DAZ store, at one point. Argh. Thank gods for friends when you need 'em!
