Starbright Illustrations (blog)

By The Illustrator 　http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/2010/04/27/using-edge-split-in-blender-to-make-my-spaceship-model-look-less-melted/

It's like it's coming into focus

I’m using the modifier suggested here in this Blender wiki page to add some definition to my spaceship mesh. It’s a do-over of the Franklin, a model from the Vega Strike open-source space trading and combat game – or at least that’s the intention.

At the moment my mesh is “set smooth” which makes it a little organic looking and, well, smooth. A technological object like a spaceship needs some hard edges, even in games with a far future setting like Vega strike, and there is a simple way to add them. You just add a modifier to the mesh and chose edge split from the list of suggestions.

This particular spaceship mesh already has a mirror modifier applied so the edge split makes two so far. I’m sure there will be more.

I would never have had the idea to use this modifier myself, it was suggested in critique on my models I received at the Vega Strike forums.

When the model is done I’ll be marking the edges that I want sharp manually, but until then I’ve already added the modifier at the default angle of 30 degrees just to make my work in progress renders of this spaceship model sharper, and closer to what the final mesh might look like.

I’m also working on the thrusters, and as I was doing research I discovered that thrusters are a real thing which can be used on real spaceships.

Not just for games

I grabbed this thumbnail from the royalty-free content at Wikipedia. I particularly like the detail of the second beam of ions being added to the main beam from the top. This seems to be a common feature of real world spaceship engine thrusters. I’ve added a pipe to the top of the main thrusters on this spaceship to suggest this little technological querk.

http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/12franklin_render_askew.jpeg

It's going away

http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/12franklin_render_back.jpeg

from the side

http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/12franklin_render_side.jpeg

http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/12franklin_render_top.jpeg

Spaceship from below

http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/12franklin_render_under.jpeg