Finally getting my hands on Kibaretto's Beautiful Astromaster starship, I really wanted something different for its interior. The new supplemental Cockpit kit is Gorgeous. It really is. But it doesn't really fit with the look of any of the interiors I'd like to use for other parts of the ship. I already knew what I wanted, so it went together like a dream!

One of my very first purchases at Daz 3d, when I bought Carrara, was Kibaretto's Command - Starship Interior Solution.

This has been my favorite starship bridge to date, although I do like many others as well. 

I could tell before getting Astromaster that it was going to be considerably smaller than the Massive Commander, so I was thinking I'd use the Geometry Editor to carve parts away and move stuff around a bit. You know... having fun with a good ol' kit bash!

I think my life has changed permanently now. MeshGrabber is such a blessing for Daz Studio. I can't thank ManFriday enough for creating this amazing tool! 

I'm usually using MeshGrabber on cloth and making corrections to hair simulations - which it's amazing for, by the way - but this time I had to be careful... symmetrical. 

I took my time making my selections. Having two starships overlapping each other doesn't make selection processes easier. The really nice falloff adjustments for how the rest of the mesh behaves is fantastic. Several smoothing options for the falloff range too. Sweet.

Commander has these really cool corridors that lead out of the bridge deeper into our imagination - one on each side and another in the center. Above that center doorway is a balcony leading to the lift - again... imagination time. 

The main fuselage fit pretty darned nice right away, but the rear corners by those corridors stuck out just too far, so I trimmed them back a touch with Geometry Editor, but the cool Sci-Fi décor was able to stay - all of it!

Those three rear corridors are pretty long (Commander is an amazing setup!!!) so that was my first attack zone for MeshGrabber. Going back and forth with the falloff, I was able to shrink those corridors right down, which gives a really nice dimension to the Astro. Still a work-in-progress, the lift will take us up and out the airlock (which I'll have to make) and down to the lower deck.

It's my plan to use Petipet's Sci-Fi interiors (various collections) to stage events in other parts of the ship. Being three times larger now, AstroMaster (now Astro Commander) has some room for breathing. We can stage some long distance adventures with this thing - and so we shall!

Another early purchase of mine was Kibaretto's Star Carrier, which is equally as amazing. It's a massive launch bay, but there are all kinds of nooks and crannies throughout that are fully detailed and beautiful  - perfect for staging nearly anything. 

Rounding out the image is The DigiVault's Stardomes, which I've performed some Iray magic to. Check this out:

In the Surfaces pane, click the main texture map to see where it is in the list, then select None for Diffuse, and set the color to black.

Now load that map into the following: Translucency Color (first set Translucency Weight to 1.0), Gloss Color (probably don't need that one) and in Emission Color. 

Load a nice HDRI into Iray's Dome (I use JoeLeGecko's HDRI Photoshoot) and then blast the Emission Luminosity with a few extra zeros to bring up those levels until you get a good match for your Dome. I didn't make the dome visible in render, but I'm sure you could. It would certainly add to the background. 

The Digivault's Stardomes have some really nice options. I'm really glad I grabbed it. 

Then I did my color grading, motion blur and signature using Project Dogwaffle Howler. My goto for artistic 2D!

HDRI Photoshoot, by Joelegecko, is the lighting solution you see on most of my work over the past couple of years. He's a master, that's for sure. He's the one who does some of the best promo art we see at Daz 3d. 

This set has over twenty HDRI and their mirror, so some 46 or 48 HDRI altogether. There are a lot of HDRI packs out there, and I have quite a few. When it comes to rendering my characters (using an alpha (invisible) background for compositing over backplates layering in other elements along the way) I always use this. 

That dark blue and red from my Rosie 2023 Demo was almost always number 21 and its mirrored version. Rotate the dark to the front and let the light seep in over each shoulder - red contrasting to blue. Fun! I love number 21!!!

The medieval video that followed almost exclusively used 22. Right now Rosie 8 is enjoying quite a few, but her Base scene is set up with number 10, rotated to have a subtle bit of sunshine coming in from behind her on one side with a cool blue center, and a sunrise pink over the other shoulder. 

It's really fun because rotating the dome around gives a limitless supply of excellent character lighting - like my new starship! :)

Woah... I thought I'd have to wait another year for this, but...

...here she is!!!

Rosie 9!

She still needs the Genesis 9 Essential Shapes Bundle in order to function properly, at which time finishing touches will also be made, but I think the look is right. She's ready to take on the world!

Wow. I am stunned that this is happening right now.

Check out my page for Rosie 9 for more information about her.

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