Destroyed Planet VFX Maquette

DanielB · Jun 8, 2018

I am working on a personal Star Trek project that has lots of VFX in it. Much of it is CGI, but some of it, I wanted to create practically. You may remember my thread months ago on the Guardian of Forever VFX miniature seen here...

https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=284536

Well, also in that same project, I want to show a destroyed planet ravaged by the Doomsday Machine. I don't have the Zbrush skills necessary to sculpt it in the computer, so I sculpted it for real out of styrofoam hemispheres from Hobby Lobby. Anyway, when you've got so much CG going on, it helps ground the shot in reality when you have a real practical object in there anyway. The plane is done now, and I will add more "studio lighting" type shots later.

(RIGHT CLICK OPEN IN NEW TAB FOR FULL RESOLUTION IMAGES)

And the finished model under natural lighting...

And also a VERY ROUGH test composite of the model into the shot it's going into...

station · Jun 8, 2018

Nice job!

DanielB · Jun 8, 2018

And a beauty shot...

And another composition test shot...

division 6 · Jun 10, 2018

Very well done.
What did you use for the surface texturing?

Britcinescribe · Jun 10, 2018

Never mind the model (which is superb!), I want to see the Doomsday Machine wreaking havoc in the Kelvin universe! To my favourite episode from the TOS, and your shots above are wonderful!

DanielB · Jun 10, 2018

division 6 said:
Very well done.
What did you use for the surface texturing?

I used Floracraft Smooth Finish for styrofoam. Sculpted with a flexible rubber spatula tool. Then I painted the whole thing with oil paints.

Britcinescribe said:
Never mind the model (which is superb!), I want to see the Doomsday Machine wreaking havoc in the Kelvin universe! To my favourite episode from the TOS, and your shots above are wonderful!

StevenBills · Jun 10, 2018

How is this not getting more attention? Your "rough" composite looks cleaner than many finals I've seen in theaters this year. How about giving us a bit of post-production BTS, eh?

Amazing work!

SB

jontom · Jun 10, 2018

Great mix of practical and digital. I think you achieved a much better result than Zbrush would have given you.

DanielB said:
And a beauty shot...

https://i.imgur.com/ryU4uB9.jpg

And another composition test shot...

https://i.imgur.com/engWlbT.jpg

Thomas Guycott · Jun 10, 2018

This is awesome. Can't wait to see the Machine itself.

DanielB · Jun 10, 2018

Thomas Guycott said:
This is awesome. Can't wait to see the Machine itself.

Gonna be similar to this, but I want to add more surface detail and maybe hints of alien architecture. The original design worked in the 60s, but I want to bring it up into modern times while still being recognizable.

Mark2000 · Jun 10, 2018

DanielB said:
I used Floracraft Smooth Finish for styrofoam. Sculpted with a flexible rubber spatula tool. Then I painted the whole thing with oil paints.

I'm very interested in a full run down of your sculpting process as I may be making some planets of my own soon. Did you sculpt all the detail out of the floracraft including those fine craters? How long does it take to dry? How long is it sculptable for? This really is inclredible. Thanks!

Blackbirdcd · Jun 10, 2018

This looks fantastic. Great prop and it looks excellent in the composites. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out. Cheers

Haui · Jun 11, 2018

That planet look absolut fantastic

Galactican · Jun 11, 2018

If I ever need a planet I'll call you! Fantastic job, mate! I'm looking forward to seeing more.

DanielB · Jun 11, 2018

Mark2000 said:
I'm very interested in a full run down of your sculpting process as I may be making some planets of my own soon. Did you sculpt all the detail out of the floracraft including those fine craters? How long does it take to dry? How long is it sculptable for? This really is inclredible. Thanks!

Yes, all detail is sculpted from Floracraft. The craters were made by pushing in small cylinder shaped objects into the Floracraft while it was still fresh/wet. Pencil erasers mostly, and toothpicks, pen tips, anything small and cylinder. The Florcraft is activelly sculptable for maybe 5 minutes. I basically just slathered it on randomply and smooth it out. It makes the texture/detail on its own. I don't know if Floracraft is good for a long-term model as it's kinda of soft and pliable even after drying fully. A coat of Stynylrez primer helped to harden it a bit, but it never becomes fully hard and dry.

This model was never made for a long term display piece, just a filming prop to be disguarded once finished.

StevenBills · Jun 11, 2018

DanielB said:
This model was never made for a long term display piece, just a filming prop to be disguarded once finished.

Are you gonna film it with motion control, or will it be a static frame? How tight of a shot can you get before the details fall apart?

SB

DanielB · Jun 11, 2018

StevenBills said:
Are you gonna film it with motion control, or will it be a static frame? How tight of a shot can you get before the details fall apart?

SB

It's a still frame (animated matte painting, essentially). It will have animated CG enhancements on top. Perhaps even projected onto a 3d sphere for some parallax. The shot is 1920x804 (2:39:1) and you can do the model full frame, but any closer and it starts to fall apart. Luckily, I am also putting several dust and lava passes (WIP posted below) on top which will help hide the sins of not using a larger model. If I were to do it again I would probably do it at 16" or even 24". Luckily I was able to cram enough detail into 12."

robn1 · Jun 11, 2018

StevenBills · Jun 12, 2018

DanielB said:
It's a still frame (animated matte painting, essentially). It will have animated CG enhancements on top. Perhaps even projected onto a 3d sphere for some parallax. The shot is 1920x804 (2:39:1) and you can do the model full frame, but any closer and it starts to fall apart. Luckily, I am also putting several dust and lava passes (WIP posted below) on top which will help hide the sins of not using a larger model. If I were to do it again I would probably do it at 16" or even 24". Luckily I was able to cram enough detail into 12."

https://i.imgur.com/LrMqXkv.jpg

Nice. I've been looking into projection mapping in AE, but it's honestly not really the tool to use for that. There ARE workarounds, but it's generally pretty clunky.

Man, we've certainly come a long way since Mustafar back on TF.n!

SB

DanielB · Jun 12, 2018

StevenBills said:
Nice. I've been looking into projection mapping in AE, but it's honestly not really the tool to use for that. There ARE workarounds, but it's generally pretty clunky.

Man, we've certainly come a long way since Mustafar back on TF.n!

SB

Yeah, if I projection map it, I wouldn't use AE. I'd use 3ds max based on a photoscan geometery of the actual planet model.

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