This is a derigable I designed for a class. My concept was to create an airship in which the main hull was the main engine. The 4 outer engines track in pairs around the ring, and the ring in turn tracks on the rails. The geometric structure hanging in the intake duct is the bridge.
My goals were to get as hyper detailed as possible since it was transparent. I had trouble getting any sort of texture on the glass itself to look good so it escaped untextured.
Modelling process was a combination of 'lattice' work and extruded spines. Alpha maps took care of the rest.
The primary hull was modelled in 3D Studio Max R5. The engines were modelled in XSI 4.0.
All textures were painted by hand in Photoshop.
I generated the background in Photoshop using stock photography, and composited it in Combustion for animation purposes.
Lighting was what I call a 1.2.2.2.5.5lighting rig. 1 sky light for fill (no shadows), 3 20% lights for rim lighting (no shadows). Finally two 50% directionals for key and shadow. Two because I needed one blue shadow map for the glass and a second for the opaque shadows.
This is as far as I could get with this project before getting 'stuck'. I don't know what more I can do to it. Feedback is more than welcome in any arena however, my goal is to produce photorealistic imagery and any feedback in that direction is most appreciated.