Anvils, Landscapes, and Modular Construction

3D Study

    My biggest project over the past month has been daily study of 3D rendering skills. I'm continuing to make quite a lot of progress, though I still have a ways to go before I'll be ready to start building the graphics for Orion Skies. Ultimately, my goal is to build all of the graphics for Orion Skies, but I'll start by building the planetary graphics.

    Currently, my goal is to continue working my way through Blender tutorials, as well as doing some practice on my own, until I am ready to make high-quality landscape images. I've been following a curriculum outlined by "Blender Guru", a 3D artist who has created a number of high-quality tutorials. Here's where I'm at along this path:

    🟢 Donut Tutorial / Intro to Blender
    🟢 Chair Tutorial / Modeling
    🟢 Lighting
    🟢 Principled Shader / Materials
    🟡 Anvil Tutorial / Texturing
    ⚪ Composition
    ⚪ Independent Project w/ Photorealism
    ⚪ Environment Creation
    ⚪ Importing Characters
    ⚪ Aesthetics
    ⚪ Independent Landscape Project

Anvil, under construction, for one of the tutorials.

Planetary Graphics Plan

    Once I feel I'm ready, my first goal for Orion Skies's graphics is to create the "spob" graphics. Those will include the in-space sprites, as well as the landing scenes, for a variety of celestial objects: stars, asteroids, planets, moons, planetary rings, and comets. I want to do the "spob" graphics first because they will be used not only by Orion Skies itself, but also by the Galaxy Generator, which I hope will be useful for other peoples' projects.

    In the long run, I have high aims for the planetary graphics, inspired by real-life phenomena such as Mars's massive afternoon dust devils, or the classic "Wanderers" video that showcases real locations in the Solar System, or even Earthly phenomena such as auroras, sunsets, and epic rainstorms.

    However, such detailed landscape scenes will be difficult and time-consuming to create – and I want to get a graphics set completed as soon as possible, so that other plug-in authors can start to use it if desired.

    To balance these goals, I'll create the "spob" graphics in stages:

• First, I'll create a complete graphics set that's good, but also a bit straightforward, using Blender's randomization features to automate the process as much as possible. This should enable relatively quick production to get to a usable state.
  
• Over time, I'll add hand-crafted graphics to the set, little by little. This will be a long-term endeavor, with a focus on quality over speed.

My first attempt at clouds; the clouds in this image are 100% randomly generated by Blender, based on (simplistic) settings I specified. I'm hoping to leverage these types of automation features in a more sophisticated way to facilitate the process of creating an initial "spob" graphics set.

Modular Construction

    The classic pitfall that total conversion plug-ins often fall into comes from their scale – a TC is a huge undertaking that requires a good deal of time to complete, and more often than not, their authors end up moving on to something else before the TC is finished. There are numerous examples of ambitious total conversion projects that someone started, the community got incredibly excited about, and then disappeared when the author moved on, without anything ever coming of it.

    I want to ensure that doesn't happen with Orion Skies, and there are a few things I'm doing with that in mind:

1. I'm making this into a long-term hobby, a true passion project. I genuinely enjoy working on this stuff, just as much as I enjoy actually playing these games. It relaxes me. It gives me excuses to learn cool new skills like 3D rendering, to read up on fascinating topics like real-life spacecraft design, and to create exciting new worlds. There is a whole subreddit of people who create worlds just for fun, and I get it. J.R.R. Tolkien worked on Middle Earth for 38 years before Lord of the Rings was published! Point being, this sort of thing is a legit long-term hobby.
   
2. I'm looking for smaller components of this project that can be released as stand-alone items. For example, the Galaxy Generator is currently functional at version 1.0 and is available for use by anyone who is interested. If something should change in my life that makes it impossible for me to continue work on Orion Skies, at least we'll have the Galaxy Generator – and other Orion-Skies-related projects that are forthcoming.
   
3. When I create Orion Skies itself, I'll build it in modules. The first release will essentially be a "mini-TC". From there, I'll focus on creating & releasing small expansions over time, until it grows to its full intended scale. This'll get the first release out much more quickly, and if something happens where I can no longer work on Orion Skies, there will at least be something of it for the community to enjoy. (Relatedly, I plan to tie the additions of upgraded landscape graphics to each new expansion.)

The International Space Station is a huge project, but it was built one module at a time, which enabled it to come online much sooner than if it had needed to be 100% done prior to use. It's actually still under construction, 20 years after coming online!

Practice Image Gallery

    Part of my 3D study activities has been independent practice, creating my own scenes without guidance from tutorials. I've focused that work on creating the FJ-2 Fury (one of the earliest fighter jets, and the naval version of the famed F-86 Sabre) flying over the ocean, while experimenting with different weather and lighting conditions. Here are some recent renders: