Mike's CG TARDIS

My first attempt at the windows. Not gonna lie, these are tough.

 

Just a personal project. But nobody's done a truly photorealistic CG TARDIS right, so I thought I'd give it a go.

 

Even his color as it appeared on Eastman Kodak negative stock in 1976 varied somewhat, but that was generally the reference point. It helped that I had been working on a 4K restoration of Star Wars and knew what that target was to a very high degree of accuracy. But I have to adjust him for every output that he's used in, whether that's print or something online or HD television or whatever.

 

The painting process -

 

I accidentally blew out my last update, but here is an updated one, anyway. This is a "penultimate" version - with many edge details and additional wear and tear still necessary.

 

The Block Transfer continues...

 

I sometimes use procedurals, or use scripting to add details - for example the dust settling on the horizontal surfaces is being controlled by a World-Up sampler node - but in general procedurals do not have the range of variation and (more importantly) intelligent, logical distribution of patterns by default. You might luck into something, or be in a context where it doesn't matter, but for hero close-up models like this, I tend to give every part of it its own unique set of details.

 

A step back, unfortunately, as the newest Renderman has changed some things in the architecture which destroy the all-important displacements of the surface. Those will have to be rebuilt/reassigned, but at least she's back on her feet, more or less...

 

Running tests.

Just a reminder, kids:

 

Side walls!

 

Revised the windows a bit - it's subtle but better.

 

Was hunting down a problem and had to pull her apart a bit, but I thought this was sort of a fun render.


Just like when photographing fitness models, to really get the surface details to read, you light from the side with big, soft lights...

 

Milestone - all the doors, sides, sign boxes, and roof painted.

 

A project like this is never finished - there are always tons of tweaks and improvements which can be done.

I think this one deserves to go to the next level, and in the coming months and years, as time and energy permits, I will take it there. As such, I give this "finished for the first time" version a 6 out of 10. Over the next few days I'll be doing the field-test renders which might reveal little things I can still grab and correct quickly.

But, here she is!

 

There'll be a lot of these last-looks-tests...