I’m opening a WIP for my starship/space movie to hopefully get some feedback as the project progresses.
This is the Focused Critique thread: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=203026
The Emerald Monarch in all her glory.
The opening shot of the project.
I love it.
Nice intro with the flare from the star. Music is great, and i love the sound of the spaceship…even though you wouldnt hear it in space…
Ends too quickly though. 
Also, a bit boring atm, but then maybe not…looking at this again, it would make a great opening for a movie.
With narration tied in.
It leave you wondering: What is the next scene of the movie?
Shown here is just the first of four shots for this scene, the other three I’m working on now.
btw, that’s not sound you are hearing, that’s the effect of high energy particles hitting the you/camera. 
I had a little time this weekend and finished rendering the next 2 shots, they have been added to the video above. I have now started the modeling for the next shot in the movie which takes place in the ships bridge. The images below show the bridge as it is now, with the captain added for scale. There is plenty more to do before I can start rendering the scene. The red version is essentially how I would like it for the final movie (tweaked a bit), the full light is just for reference.
This is my first blender animation so rigging and animating the characters will be the next challenge. Not sure how I will tackle the lip syncing, but I should be able to learn that by the time I get to it.
The modeling on the inside is not done yet right? (cuz everything is block-y)
And obviously not textured…
As for the red lighting, plz dont make it hard on the eyes though.
Your introduction movie really looks good. I especially like how the lighting is working with the planet. Background looks great. Music and sound effects also sound great.
The inside is far from done. What you see in the images is only what I put together quickly so there is some detail to be seen through the windows from outside. The finished product will have computer terminals, electronic gauges/readouts, animated holograms, etc. I expect it to take some time, as I’m also modeling and setting up the other scenes, plus learning how to do everything at the same time.
I welcome any and all feedback/critiques.
I suggest you slow your camera moves down, particularly in the opening reveal of the planet, in order to boost the sense of scale. Also vary the path of the ship across the screen from shot to shot, so you’re not repeating the action too much, it’s less interesting when all the shots are L to R, subject similar in scale, and against a basically empty BG.
For example, the opening shot shows the ship moving from a fair distance to a medium shot. Rather than follow that with another medium shot that basically repeats the motion path at the end of the first, think about getting closer up, showing some tight detail, tracking with the ship somewhat, with the planet & sun in the far BG to tie into the opening and give the viewer a better sense of the volume of space around the ship, maybe have the ship appear to drift across the screen from upper L to lower R, maintaining general motion continuity but without repetition. The receding motion of the BG elements can help sustain the sense of the ship’s velocity.
Oh, and there’s apparently no green on the ship exterior – why the “Emerald Monarch”?
Love the opening
Love the ship (but why emerals, but no green?)
Brilliant start, can’t wait to see more.
I was not 100% convinced of the transition from the first shot to the last shot, it seems to interrupt the flow a bit, but it has to be there as going directly from the opening shot to the establishing shot without a transition is too abrupt. I will experiment some more.
I’ll slow down the camera in the reveal of the planet, but my only concern is that it might be even easier to notice the sunrise is faked/CG. If anyone know how to achieve that flood of light, over exposed effect you would get from a sunrise, then I am listening (reading 
).
The ship’s name is related to the Monarch butterfly, but also has that majestic association. The interior of the ship will have a green theme, but I found with a little experimentation that green exterior doesn’t really look right in space.
Thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated and helps motivate.
As a little bit of a break from modeling the bridge and characters, I put together the title screen. It even has some green in it. 
I have finished most of the crew uniforms. Yay! Besides the colour they are all the same with the exception of the security personnel uniform which has gloves and a sidearm. There are a few scenes that have a number of crewmen (basically extras) going about their duties in the background. The plan is to use the appropriate uniform and just place varying heads on them. All the uniforms are rigged and thus easily animated, the heads of the extras will be static and only the heads of the main characters will be rigged and animated. I’m not looking forward to this step. If you have some head models that you would like to feature, then I will gladly use them. I will accept heads of any human ethnicity, male or female, ages 18+.
Anyway, it’s back to blending.
Looking good
I see from where you got inspiration, regarding the crew uniforms StarTrek FTW
Keep it up dude!
Really great work so far… Just one question- Why is the EMERALD monarch NOT green?! 
Just finished another of the assets to be used in the short. I have rigged a battleship turret so that it can be easily tracked to and fire at a target. To test the rig and lighting associated with it, I rendered a scene from two camera angles and edited them into the animation below.
I’m pretty happy with it, but it helps to get feedback from those with more experience than I.
Also, I had a little difficulty, key framing the laser and lighting associated with the laser. To make the laser and lights disappear from the shot, I key frame the object to another layer which is not rendered. This seems a little inefficient and I was wondering if there is a better or easier way to key frame objects in and out of a scene?
Thanks
Instead of keyframing it to another layer, you could just animate the lamp energy levels via the F-Curve Editor. If done nicely, you’ll get your desirede effect without many pain. Just get your mouse over the Energy and press I.
I think that some recoil (or some effect to show it’s been fired) on the gun would make it look more powerful. I know it is a laser, but it still looks better if if has some reaction. Maybe even just the tip of the gun starts to glow red, and then ‘cools’ down after inactivity.
I will do some tests with glow and possibly recoil, however I was hoping to get away with just using camera shake.
I have started work on another of the projects assets. This is a battlecruiser of approx 700m in length, and is just one of two “good guys” ships which feature in the movie. I have included an insert of a man standing in the hanger bay of the ship to give you a sense of the scale.
It all looks great to me
