Coming Home: A Star Trek Fan Film

asalaw

Sr Member
Months in the making, my little one-minute wonder is up on YouTube at last. It’s been a journey—teaching myself Blender and DaVinci Resolve, modeling, texturing, animating, compositing, all to realize a vision I first had 30 years ago. I hope you enjoy my humble little effort. Please feel free to like and share.

 
am slowly learning Blender so as to do exactly these sort of scenes. But I can’t get the models I download to look anywhere as good as yours. Don’t know if it’s the lighting, or the materials. but just look flat, boring and unreal. As I’m learning off YouTube it’s not going so well.
 
am slowly learning Blender so as to do exactly these sort of scenes. But I can’t get the models I download to look anywhere as good as yours. Don’t know if it’s the lighting, or the materials. but just look flat, boring and unreal. As I’m learning off YouTube it’s not going so well.
That’s not a downloaded model—I made it and textured it myself—same with the Galileo. Thank you for saying it looks good!

Yeah, Blender can be a steep learning curve, especially if you’re new to 3D. I highly recommend Blender Guru’s Donut Tutorial on YouTube as the way in. It’s excellent. Also, subscribe to Blender Bros. They’re fantastic.

The downloadable models I’ve seen are pretty bad all around, at least in the Trek sphere. You’ve really got to invest the time and build your own to make it look good. Also, as you say, materials and lighting are extremely important.

Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful comments. It really means a lot! :)
 
That’s not a downloaded model—I made it and textured it myself—same with the Galileo. Thank you for saying it looks good!

Yeah, Blender can be a steep learning curve, especially if you’re new to 3D. I highly recommend Blender Guru’s Donut Tutorial on YouTube as the way in. It’s excellent. Also, subscribe to Blender Bros. They’re fantastic.

The downloadable models I’ve seen are pretty bad all around, at least in the Trek sphere. You’ve really got to invest the time and build your own to make it look good. Also, as you say, materials and lighting are extremely important.

Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful comments. It really means a lot! :)
Love the Blender Guru ! His videos are entertaining, even while being Instructive. I found the Blender for Artists version, and it seems a little more understandable. I'm spoiled by Lightwave 3d. The interface is like Chutes and Ladders, while Blender is like blindfolded Chess, lol. Might be a right brain, left brain thing too, ; )
 
Love the Blender Guru ! His videos are entertaining, even while being Instructive. I found the Blender for Artists version, and it seems a little more understandable. I'm spoiled by Lightwave 3d. The interface is like Chutes and Ladders, while Blender is like blindfolded Chess, lol. Might be a right brain, left brain thing too, ; )
How funny! I tried Lightwave 9 years ago, but had real trouble wrapping my head around it, even though Lightwave 1 was my first intro to 3D on the Video Toaster all those decades ago. But I’m very comfortable in Blender, and I’m even upping my shader nodes game despite finding them intimidating at first.
 
How funny! I tried Lightwave 9 years ago, but had real trouble wrapping my head around it, even though Lightwave 1 was my first intro to 3D on the Video Toaster all those decades ago. But I’m very comfortable in Blender, and I’m even upping my shader nodes game despite finding them intimidating at first.
Yea I hear ya. Everyone comes at these things in a different mind space. I still have my Amigas and Video Toaster, lol. Don't know if they would come on, but still have them. I'm still learning Lightwave after 30 plus years. And Nodes, haven't even started learning that stuff. I see how powerful they can be, from the animation I see out there, but haven't cracked that egg yet. I mostly build objects for printing now. Don't do a lot of animation stuff. Lightwave works for this, but I'm looking to switch to Fusion 360 soon. More of a cad/cam friendly choice.
 
Yea I hear ya. Everyone comes at these things in a different mind space. I still have my Amigas and Video Toaster, lol. Don't know if they would come on, but still have them. I'm still learning Lightwave after 30 plus years. And Nodes, haven't even started learning that stuff. I see how powerful they can be, from the animation I see out there, but haven't cracked that egg yet. I mostly build objects for printing now. Don't do a lot of animation stuff. Lightwave works for this, but I'm looking to switch to Fusion 360 soon. More of a cad/cam friendly choice.
Wow. Each, I used geometry nodes to make the spinning and blinking Bussard effect. Very challenging to learn, but as you say very powerful.

Point of trivia: The Amiga Toaster I learned on belonged to Michael Winslow of Police Academy fame. He loaned it to the producer I was working for and I’d come in at all hours to spend time on it.
 
Wow. Each, I used geometry nodes to make the spinning and blinking Bussard effect. Very challenging to learn, but as you say very powerful.

Point of trivia: The Amiga Toaster I learned on belonged to Michael Winslow of Police Academy fame. He loaned it to the producer I was working for and I’d come in at all hours to spend time on it.
Ah man, did you ever ask him to do sound effects. Bet he got tired of people asking him that, but how can you not. A Lot of famous people were into the toaster. Dana Carveys brother, Brad was a co founder of Newtek. I read somewhere that Dick van Dyke had one. And there's this gem. First animation I ever saw, done with lightwave.

 
Ah man, did you ever ask him to do sound effects. Bet he got tired of people asking him that, but how can you not. A Lot of famous people were into the toaster. Dana Carveys brother, Brad was a co founder of Newtek. I read somewhere that Dick van Dyke had one. And there's this gem. First animation I ever saw, done with lightwave.

I remember that! Rundgren was all over the Toaster. He was featured in the NewTek sales videos too.

Winslow: I didn’t have to ask, though I wouldn’t have. We shot his comedy show on a cruise ship, so I got to see his show twice for free. Plus a free (working) cruise.
 
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If I remember right, didn't Wil Wheaton host one of the first videos for the Video Toaster, if not the first? And I recall Penn Jillette being part of it along with the Babylon 5 team.
 
You can do almost anything with Blender, 3D model a paper clip, or create a black hole:

Fly through nebulae:

Use addons to create space scenes with physically based lighting:

Create procedural planets...

Or liquid simulations:

No matter if you use 3D software like Blender or a game engine like "Unreal Engine", you can get some amazing results(with a crap load of time and effort):
 
If I remember right, didn't Wil Wheaton host one of the first videos for the Video Toaster, if not the first? And I recall Penn Jillette being part of it along with the Babylon 5 team.
Yea I remember that now. Of course Babylon Five and some of Star Trek Voyager and many more !


And the video you mentioned,

 
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You can do almost anything with Blender, 3D model a paper clip, or create a black hole:

Fly through nebulae:

Use addons to create space scenes with physically based lighting:

Create procedural planets...

Or liquid simulations:

No matter if you use 3D software like Blender or a game engine like "Unreal Engine", you can get some amazing results(with a crap load of time and effort):
Yup! In fact, I’m making assets now for my next film in Blender for use in Unreal Engine. It’s going to be a 15-minute film with Metahuman characters. Amazing stuff.
 
Thank you!
Bill Murray Drink GIF
 

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