Steampunk Raygun

[Technohippy]

Otherwise Known as "the aetheric volume disruptor"

modelled in sketchup
rendered in kerkythea
a little post pro in gimp

The main props for this work goes to the software, none of which cost me anything.

Sketchup - easiest 3d modeller ever
kerkythea - this is free and is unbelievably capable piece of software. the kt forums are a brilliant source of info and the resources provided by the users are excellent. search it out cos if you aren't using it now you will be!!
Gimp - who needs photoshop, i mean seriously... who need that over priced #$@% (feel the hate!)

I was intending to submit this to a 3d world magazine speed rendering competition. however i soon realised i would not get it done in time for the deadline so slowed up and took my time.

still haven't got the feel of the fabric box lining right... that will come with time... or not, working on something else now...

[Bryan K]

Cool!

[SketchUpNoobie]

That's awesome! Nice work! I agree with you about the foam though, it just looks kind of static. The rest of the scene is very cool.

Edit: You could try searching around to find a good foam texture. Here's one I found on a quick search in Google Images. Then, you could make it seamless and make a bump map in Gimp or Photoshop.

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[SketchUpNoobie]

Or, for the bump map, you could try CrazyBump.

[Technohippy]

thanks for the suggestions and comments, i was looking for a crushed velvet kind of look with a softer mesh. tried all the bumps textures and fur plugins etc etc etc in the world and got nowhere. hey ho! moved on to other things now

[Dave R]

This is a pretty nice image.

May I suggest that you rotate the wood grain 90°? This would be a more appropriate grain orientation and then it wouldn't look strange to have face grain where there should be end grain.

[bupaje]

Looks great.

[Evan]

I love steam punk and that is excellent. As for the parts you aren't happy with I have a couple of observations.

When making an insert to be covered with velvet or felt it is cut from a soft wood such as basswood with a scroll saw. The curves that surround the bilinear intensifier rings on the barrel would be much too difficult to cover with the fabric so the well would be cut straight. The velvet needs a little more texture and the colour is a bit too saturated. Velvet reflects quite a bit of specular light and that washes out the colour.

I took the liberty of making those changes in Paint Shop Pro v7 to show how it would look. I left the lid unchanged for comparison.

[Technohippy]

thanks for the comments and your tweaking of the image, I have achieved similar effects since producing this. this was my best effort so far

as you can see i got the organic shape nailed, the velvet still isn't satisfactory with some unsightly stretching, I think this is a kerkythea issue.

Thanks again

[Crankston Shnord]

Pretty good.....you should look up the raygun by aNgRyWaFfLeS, it's also a steampunk style. Keep up the great work,

[Technohippy]

hey thats pretty cool ... thanks for that