Shuttlestar Operations

“Shuttlestar operations somewhere on the planet D'POL.”

The Shuttlestars are landing and taking off from a Suprastation high a top a mountain overlooking a vast valley.

Another render done with LuxRender with the help of the Reality for DAZ Studio plug-in.

I used Skies of Reality Volume Two to light this scene, I used one of the sunset presets that came with the light set.

This render took two days. Why did it take two days and the help of a notebook computer acting as a slave node? Because of so many objects and light sources in the scene and I rendered it at 1920×1080 so that I could use it on my desktop.

This is the third version of the scene. I kept adding to it. The last object that I wanted was a jet exhaust. I had never done anything like that. After several tries and failing at it I decided to ask. As it turned out I needed to merge the diffuse texture and its alpha map in PhotoShop because Reality 2 does not have an option for an alpha map when a prop/object is converted to a light source as I had to do with the exhaust props. This is an option that will be added in Reality 3 for DAZ Studio in a few months (Reality 3 for Poser is already available).

You can use the exhaust props from any of these two products with your LuxRender scenes and they will look as real as they do in this render:

Typhons Rage Gunship (with Morphing Exhaust Flame)
Dystopian Heavy Lander LVX9-Basilisk (Exhaust Flame without Morphing)

The Typhons Rage Gunship comes with a morphing exhaust flames prop (meaning you can control the length and the spread of the flames), the Dystopian Heavy Lander LVX9-Basilisk comes with an exhaust flames prop but without morphs. The Typhons Rage Gunship only comes with red flames, you can, however, use the blue flames from the Dystopian Heavy Lander LVX9-Basilisk on the morphable flame prop from the Typhons Rage Gunship.

Another thing I had to do was create a normal map of the Suprastation's floor mat. I tried setting it to matte but too much light was still bouncing off it. The normal map took care of controlling that but it also made the asphalt of the runway look more like, well… asphalt. I, also, used the Grime-Inizer for DAZ Studio to add dirt on the runway that looks convincingly like spots of oil on the runway.

Also, for the flight deck crew I found this gem of a product: FLIGHT DECK and MORE for Future Cop from Tiger9166. It is on special for $8.00 until April 21, 2013, or until all the units set aside for the special are bought.

I used Photoshop to apply a Vibrance filter over the scene and for the steam coming off the deck.

Update: I removed the Vibarnce filter from the scene, it was making the scene too dark for the amount of light on the scene.