This may be getting off-topic but I find halos make better stars and if spliting it up with select random, you can get an interesting range of sizes, colors etc.
hrmm, would have to try that once i get to putting a scene together.
but then render time can get extremely long because you’d need ALOT of halo to fill the void all around (especially if you plan to make different view or an anim).
I always found the blender star system to be decent enough to be used (if used properly), or then I’d go for a shadeless star field texture applied on a uvsphere that englobe(is that a word?) the whole scene. it always work good
Ecks: I agree, render time is important, especialy when doing an animation.
Will have to see when its time.
For now, a little test anim with a simple flyby:
wow…very nice ship Auralis 
Hmm, I haven’t had any render slowdowns with ~16k halos so far but I haven’t got a chance to use it yet other then simple tests.
How do you keep the blender stars from flickering when you rotate the camera? Seems to me since there is no cut off distance for blender’s stars the camera’s clip end is always making it look like they are flickering. When it rotates the stars at the edge of the clip end move beyond it and others move inside the clip end.
Sonic: I don’t think you can use the blender stars for a anim, for the reasons you stated.
I think the best way would be either a LARGE star holo field, or a spehere around the scene with a uv map of stars parented to the camera, with no rotation. Or maybe to the ship, would have to test that someday.
I’m sorry to get your thread off-topic like this but here I go again:
I’ve found that a sphere with a star field texture just doesn’t work right. Something about the renderer seems to mess it up, if you use a texture your star size has to be a bit bigger then I care for while halos can do pretty good at smaller sizes before they start to flicker.
I basically did the betterspace method (adapted for blender), I’m still thinking about ways to make it more random though. Such as color, I wish halos would work with more then the first mat/texture :< would make life so much easier.
REALLY COOL!
great detail, i always love looking at these pictures.
(aaarg, link is down after 75%!)
well…
good work. The model and texturing are pretty well put together. I always like seeing spaceships, especially ones that are well done and of a nonstandard design like this one. Keep up the blending.
thanks guys,
but,
there is no texture
Speaking of, what are your plans for textures?
Not sure yet, since i suck at texturing.
Well, little update, a window test from the central front section groove:
Yeah I have that problem too, but I’m working on it.
Little update, redoing the windows.
The yellow ones are the old windows, the blue ones in the grooves are the new ones.
ok i viewed your spaceship sometime now and i think its absolutely supercool!!
this last image was from the ship built in the dock? because it seems unlogical to firt post it viewing from another pose… i actually have no idea what the front is now… but that can be changed easily.
one more thing is the little text at the left bottom:
auralis shipyards(<–thats cool)-terra
well we all know that ‘terra’ means earth so it sounds a little stupid to name it after a place called ‘terra’. maybe you can rename it to make it interesting…
(I KNOW! its the only crit i could find, but i still think its great!)
M-L Thanks,
Well, the front of the ship is where the 4 arms point at.
The little hangars for the APC is on the trailing edge of the wings.
And terra is the location of the shipyard
Auralis Shipyard - Terra
Utopia Planetia - Mars
you know
Okay… I have to say that is the coolest looking ship I have seen in a long time.
Will we be seeing the heavy fighters mentioned on the data sheet any time soon? I think it would be awesome to flesh out the entire fleet of these things.
Way to go Auralis Shipyards. (Up and coming competition for the KDY.)
-aML
Zoh: thanks, and yes we will see them, in time.