3D-Daz 3D-Blender USS Tempest – Early Game Art

[Deleted member 1645360]

Some of you have seen my renders in the Daz3d Art thread, but since I’m only using Daz to make/pose the characters and I’m doing the renders in Blender with Cycles, I thought maybe a dedicated thread was a good idea.

The basic premise of the game will be thus: You are a 1/4th Vulcan 3/4ths human engineer stationed aboard the USS Tempest during series of events set just after the events of Insurrection. Also stationed on the ship with you are Seven of Nine, Counselor Troi, and an old friend from the academy named Lt. Cdr. Robinson—all single females. While performing your duties as a Starfleet officer, you’ll be given ample opportunity to form and develop relationships with each of them. There’s also opportunities for a fair amount of Holodeck time where you can get into lots of trouble.

The game will be free, which should position it in a fair use / fan content way. I wouldn’t mind if those interested in helping me get things out faster donated to the BTC address in my signature, but that’ll go to support all the renders and projects I'm doing, and it’s not a way of paying for this game, which will always be completely free.

I’m using Daz3d to make, pose, and clothe the characters. Then I'm bringing them into Blender as high-resolution obj files, applying materials to them, and rendering them out as EXR files. Next, I'm taking those EXRs and bringing them into BlackMagic DaVinci Resolve, converting them from linear, and adding things like a color grade, lens flaring, glow, subtle film grain, letterbox bars, and more.

Here are some previews. Some will be used in the game and some are just test renders.

 

[Barnacles69]

Looks good

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

Thanks. I’m trying for a more cinematic and photorealistic style than other games. Not all the shots will be this dark, though. This is just the shuttle I'm using in the intro.

 

[Deleted member 609064]

Thanks. I’m trying for a more cinematic and photorealistic style than other games. Not all the shots will be this dark, though. This is just the shuttle I'm using in the intro.

Dark is ok. It's obviously well-crafted.

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

Dark is ok. It's obviously well-crafted.

Thank you! I was just looking over all of them together and I realized how dark they are. Here are some brighter shots, for whatever it may be worth.

 

[Deleted member 609064]

I like the dark. Others may feel differently.

 

[ABaaaadIdea]

Looks really good! I too love realism/cinematic, so good on you for taking the time to get that lighting etc!
If I may, one constructive critique: the skins look to be too ?freckl-y? Unless that's what you're going for, their skins have a lot of brown stippling imo, which makes them unrealistic

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

Looks really good! I too love realism/cinematic, so good on you for taking the time to get that lighting etc!
If I may, one constructive critique: the skins look to be too ?freckl-y? Unless that's what you're going for, their skins have a lot of brown stippling imo, which makes them unrealistic

Thanks. I think this is because I have too few samples in my render. The production shots should be better, but I should probably verify that.

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

Looks really good! I too love realism/cinematic, so good on you for taking the time to get that lighting etc!
If I may, one constructive critique: the skins look to be too ?freckl-y? Unless that's what you're going for, their skins have a lot of brown stippling imo, which makes them unrealistic

Here’s an update of one of the above shots with double the samples and a tweaked color grade. What do you think?

EDIT: She still clearly has some freckles and details, but I think they’re not as exaggerated.

 

[ABaaaadIdea]

Here’s an update of one of the above shots with double the samples and a tweaked color grade. What do you think? View attachment 590859

EDIT: She still clearly has some freckles and details, but I think they’re not as exaggerated.

It still seems to me that the skin is showing a great variation in its pigmentation (lighter, pinker + darker, "orang-ier"). To be fair, as a pale person with high % of light freckling all over, there are definitely some of us who have something like this. But at the very least I'd be careful about having all characters have this same pigmentation. (I up-scaled and cropped to focus on what I'm seeing).

Here's the brunette, for comparison (who also seems to have this mottled look):

It looks ?splotchy? Or even a bit dirty? To be fair, most of the textures being used by game devs on this site are of the flat, uniform, "doll" variety. Skin definitely varies, and I *love* that you're going for realism!
And just to re-iterate, we may have different aesthetics, goals etc If you like it, keep it! For me, it makes everyone seem super-tanned, sprayed with a light splattering of mud, or Irish

 

[Saki_Sliz]

Damn! definitely looks interesting.

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

Damn! definitely looks interesting.

Thank you! I thought there might be more interest in this and now I’m wondering if it's just that not that many people are into Star Trek now. :O

View attachment 590968

It still seems to me that the skin is showing a great variation in its pigmentation (lighter, pinker + darker, "orang-ier"). To be fair, as a pale person with high % of light freckling all over, there are definitely some of us who have something like this. But at the very least I'd be careful about having all characters have this same pigmentation. (I up-scaled and cropped to focus on what I'm seeing).

Here's the brunette, for comparison (who also seems to have this mottled look):
View attachment 590974
It looks ?splotchy? Or even a bit dirty? To be fair, most of the textures being used by game devs on this site are of the flat, uniform, "doll" variety. Skin definitely varies, and I *love* that you're going for realism!
And just to re-iterate, we may have different aesthetics, goals etc If you like it, keep it! For me, it makes everyone seem super-tanned, sprayed with a light splattering of mud, or Irish

You definitely bring up good points. I think it's a combination of things now. 1) The skins I'm using – they're from Bluejaunte and they may have exaggerated detail I'll need to tone down. And 2) Cycles rendering artifacts from not enough samples. It's definitely adding to it because Eevee doesn't have that much junk on the skin.

Anyway, I agree with all your points and really appreciate you bringing them out. Photorealism is tough, but I'm excited to be on my way there.

 

[Deleted member 609064]

Thank you! I thought there might be more interest in this and now I’m wondering if it's just that not that many people are into Star Trek now. :O

If you're passionate about it, do it.

Don't wait for the masses to catch up. They rarely know what they like until they see it.

Many of the games where the Devs allow heavy input from the community tend to end up with every fetish but no defining plot or direction.

Tell your story, your way and never compromise on your judgment of what is and is not good art.

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

If you're passionate about it, do it.

Don't wait for the masses to catch up. They rarely know what they like until they see it.

Many of the games where the Devs allow heavy input from the community tend to end up with every fetish but no defining plot or direction.

Tell your story, your way and never compromise on your judgment of what is and is not good art.

Thanks for saying all that. You make good points and you me to move forward with some new renders. Here are a few of them.







I’m getting them integrated into the game and I’m really liking what I’m seeing. I’ve just decided to be okay with the renders taking a while, and that’s definitely helping with the skin.

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

Here’s another render, finally introducing Seven of Nine to the story. I’m about 1/3rd done the first chapter, I think. And I’m getting into a groove so things should move a little faster.

 

[winter0s]

The renders are looking good. I am myself working on a Trek VN, but I am going in a different direction. I am trying to write all the major plot points before getting down to coding and rendering. If I may ask, what asset did you use for backgrounds in the first post? For LCARs display and hud?

All the best with your game!

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

The renders are looking good. I am myself working on a Trek VN, but I am going in a different direction. I am trying to write all the major plot points before getting down to coding and rendering. If I may ask, what asset did you use for backgrounds in the first post? For LCARs display and hud?

All the best with your game!

Thanks! I’ve actually got all the major plot points down as well. It’s definitely much more of a linear Star Trek story that has adult elements than it is a porn game. Star Trek at its best has always been more about the story than anything else.

Anyway, I honestly cannot find the asset online anymore. It’s a shuttle interior that I found online. I think it was ripped from one of the old Star Trek video games because it’s very low-poly. I had to completely rework the shaders and remesh/retexture the chairs because they were so bad. I can potentially send you the .blend file if you wouldn't mind giving my game a shout out in the credits for yours. Best of luck with your game as well.

Work is continuing on the game, for what it’s worth. No new renders to show, but I’m making slow progress.

 

[winter0s]

...I can potentially send you the .blend file...

Nah, not really a blender guy. It would probably derail me than help me progress.
But I can give your game a shout nonetheless. There are so few trekkie themed games out there, its ridiculous!

 

[Saki_Sliz]

Thanks! I’ve actually got all the major plot points down as well. It’s definitely much more of a linear Star Trek story that has adult elements than it is a porn game. Star Trek at its best has always been more about the story than anything else.

Anyway, I honestly cannot find the asset online anymore. It’s a shuttle interior that I found online. I think it was ripped from one of the old Star Trek video games because it’s very low-poly. I had to completely rework the shaders and remesh/retexture the chairs because they were so bad. I can potentially send you the .blend file if you wouldn't mind giving my game a shout out in the credits for yours. Best of luck with your game as well.

Work is continuing on the game, for what it’s worth. No new renders to show, but I’m making slow progress.

I've seen some people make ships for star wars, and in one video all the switches and lights were actually fake. if you actually zoomed in, there were no buttons in light, instead someone took a picture of a sound board, blured it a bit and used it as an emmission image texture to fake the effect. It worked even better if you have the camera focus on people and blur the back ground. if you rendered characters and backgrounds separately, you can use a lower quality background model to save time and no one would be the wiser.

I work a lot with blender myself, but mostly just with models. I have done environment work, but I only really like goofing off with models rather than getting any real work done.

 

[Deleted member 1645360]

Nah, not really a blender guy. It would probably derail me than help me progress.
But I can give your game a shout nonetheless. There are so few trekkie themed games out there, its ridiculous!

Thanks! I'll make sure to mention yours as well.

I've seen some people make ships for star wars, and in one video all the switches and lights were actually fake. if you actually zoomed in, there were no buttons in light, instead someone took a picture of a sound board, blured it a bit and used it as an emmission image texture to fake the effect. It worked even better if you have the camera focus on people and blur the back ground. if you rendered characters and backgrounds separately, you can use a lower quality background model to save time and no one would be the wiser.

I work a lot with blender myself, but mostly just with models. I have done environment work, but I only really like goofing off with models rather than getting any real work done.

Yeah, there are a lot of options. Most of my shots won't be interacting with LCAR's directly, so I can get away with using pretty low quality interfaces and hiding that in DOF. This is actually an important point in 3d. You can hide a lot of sloppy work with DOF—and adding DOF frequently raises your production value (for a lot of shots, anyway). I just wish it didn't raise render times so much…