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Pursuit

For a while I got into modeling military vehicles - Panzer tanks, bombers, jet fighters, etc. The above scene, a science fiction themed image, is probably the best of the lot. By this point I'd learned how to use "image world" in LightWave so the reflections in the cockpits are more realistic. I'm really quite proud of this scene because I was able to combine several techniques to increase the realism: photographic background (monsoon clouds building above Flagstaff, AZ), motion blur to give impression of high speed, UV mapping for the camouflage patterns, and particles (the engine exhaust).

Vicky

One of the coolest things about the 3D scene is that even if you can't make complex human models yourself there's a ton of pre-built stuff available that you can use. One of the more popular models at the time I made these images was called "Vicky", from DAZ 3D. People on the 3D sites were (and still are) making some truly amazing erotic art with her. Before I tired of it I made these scenes:

3D Pots

This started out as a simple exercise in modifying primitive shapes in LightWave but grew into an interesting scene. The ground is a bump-mapped flat poly with an image of some dirt from my former backyard applied to it. The pots are textured using procedurals and the grass is just a few polys stretched into a blade shape and bent. Later, in another scene I tried to make fully modeled grass using a much higher polygon count and it didn't look nearly as nice as the low-poly grass here. It's funny how sometimes the simplest techniques yield the best results.

Star Trek Hand Phasers in 3D

A while back (okay, a long while back) when I was heavy into LightWave one of my projects was to recreate in 3D the hand phasers from the original Star Trek series. I really like the look of these weapons, especially the Type 2. I had some really good reference material to work with from the Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual so I thought it would be easy. Wrong! The two objects ended up taking me many hours of modeling and texturing. Still, it was a fun project.

First I made the Type I phaser, the smaller weapon that the original crew carried with them on most missions:

and then, using that model, I went on to make the Type II, the larger "pistol"-like weapon:

Note how the Type I basically just fits into Type II's body.

Making the formica backdrop for the Type II scene got me thinking about compositing so I tried to composite the Type II into a photo of my desk. The result didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped because I didn't know about the "image world" LightWave plug-in at that time. Making the attempt gave me new appreciation for the compositors working with green-screens in movies, though.