Week 9. Unwrapping & Texturing Imperial Shuttle

Applying the same methods i discussed in the last blog entry, i moved on to texturing the Imperial Shuttle. While the process is very time consuming it is vital you spend this time if you want your models to look as realistic an accurate as possible. 

The slight difference with the shuttle as apposed to the X-Wing is that the shuttle is mainly comprised of grouped objects instead of one large main mesh. This certainly beneficial and saves you some time when it comes when in comes to unwrapping the parts of the ship.  

Detaching wing panels for texturing  

There was still times when i decided to detach individual panels of the ship, on the wings for example. This just makes working in Gimp much easier, as when i was creating a weathered and scratched surface i wanted these details to be all facing the right way, ie, from the front to the back of the ship. This just ensures all the textures are uniform. This also allows for a cleaner more precise texture when there is a variation on the colour on certain panels of the wing.   

Unwrapping the main wing 

Wings fully textured 

I added a reflection map to the glass to clearly differentiate the the metal and glass textures. I also lowered the opacity setting slightly, not too much though as the original source images clearly show a tinted translucent effect. The reflection makes the material look a lot more realistic and might have some nice effects when i start to add a skybox and lights to my scene. 

Editing and applying screen material 

For the smaller less significant parts of the ship a basic texture could be applied without the need to unwrap and export a UVW map. I have seen previously that the time spent doing this on the the small complex and insignificant objects on the ship does not justify the final outcome and my time is better spent elsewhere. So for the small detail at the rear of the fuselage and the gun barrels a basic texture was applied. 

Shuttle fully textured

Rendered views of finished shuttle 

When the texturing was complete i started to have a little play with the wings on the shuttle. I plan to animate the wings to show them opening during flight. This is when grouping parts of the model together as opposed to attaching them to be one larger mesh becomes significant as i can isolate the wings and manipulate them individually. 

Rendered views of ship with wings folded in 

The only thing i would like to add  is when i move onto adding lights in the scene i will try and create some sort of engine glow for the rear engine. As without it the ship appears to have to propulsion which will look unrealistic when i start to animate the ship.