It depends on the effect that you want. Star Trek the Next Generation illuminated their ships farely well because they wanted to show a sleek, bright future. Deep Space Nine used very harsh lighting with portions of the station going to black because they wanted to show the "grittyness" of their particular reality.

Your graphics should show something similar. Meowx's Magma ships all go to black because the general tone of their environment is very "gritty" and not all sleek and beautiful. On the other hand, the original EV graphics were very sleek and didn't have many things that marred the surface of their ships. That universe was portrayed in a very different light, despite the fact that the story wasn't changed.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

I can't see any links.

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Quote

Originally posted by sparky:
**I can't see any links.
**

Links? There are no links on this topic. Only in peoples' signatures. What the heck are you talking about?

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Quote

Originally posted by sparky:
**I can't see any links.

**

Do you mean pictures? Some of the picts no longer exist where they are supposed to be, only the current one is there in a later post.

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Quote

Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
**I do want to make one change to my statement that "ambience = bad". When you're modeling the ship, turn on the ambience so that all your parts and bits are visible, but when you make your final render, turn it off.
**

Usually what I do is have ambient lights for modelling and when rendering for the spins, shipyard, comm, etc then add all my point lights in and turn down the ambient to about 5-10% with shaddows for the ambient light disabled (ie it iluminates the whole ship, not just the parts the light hits). This makes it more visible in the spins and creates a nice effect IMO.

ewan

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may contain nuts

Quote

Originally posted by Jules:
**Usually what I do is have ambient lights for modelling and when rendering for the spins, shipyard, comm, etc then add all my point lights in...
**

If you want to speed up your renders, try using spotlights rather than point lights. It reduces the number of calculations that your computer has to make be reducing the amount of light in a scene. A point light radiates light in ALL directions, while a spot light only radiates light in a SPECIFIC direction. Since the ship will be the only thing in the scene, it's the only thing that needs to be illuminated. By simply using spotlights rather than point lights, you'll reduce the render times (actually, the reduction in time might only be noticable in complicated scenes, but trust me, it's there).

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Quote

Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
**If you want to speed up your renders, try using spotlights rather than point lights. It reduces the number of calculations that your computer has to make be reducing the amount of light in a scene. A point light radiates light in ALL directions, while a spot light only radiates light in a SPECIFIC direction. Since the ship will be the only thing in the scene, it's the only thing that needs to be illuminated. By simply using spotlights rather than point lights, you'll reduce the render times (actually, the reduction in time might only be noticable in complicated scenes, but trust me, it's there).

Matrix
**

Actually it is spotlights that i use, I just forgot the name

ewan

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may contain nuts

Quote

Originally posted by Jules:
**Actually it is spotlights that i use, I just forgot the name:p

ewan

**

Yea. But I've noticed that we've digressed pretty badly off the original topic. A lot of things, like how we like to build our ships, are all based on personal preference. As long as it gets done, it doesn't matter much how you got there. What we've said are only several possible solutions to a problem, and should by no means be treated as the only way to do things. As for modifications to the ship, they're also based off personal preference, so he can do anything he wants with the suggestions (and the ambience, etc).

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."