What Happened on Odysseon Station?

Not abandoned, but...

...Empty?!!!

Since I've started this article I've added a Lot to the collection. Earlier on in the building of the article, I fit things in where I thought they should go for continuity. Now I'm adding new additions to the collection toward the bottom of the page

Each of these sets come fully loaded or as parts, and each include a spacious corridor environment filled with Sci Fi detail. 

For example, this (below) is the entranceway to the Computer Room. With this many cool corridors already, the actual corridors of the product line sat in my wishlist, always opting for another large setting kit instead.

These are promo images. Wait until you see it with Carrara glass in that huge window!

Just from these images I'm sure you can see that these kits are easy and fun to light. So many glowing things makes lighting super easy!

PC+ Sale Expansion

After seeing how nicely these kits set up in Carrara (So easy to optimize with lights, shaders and cameras) I have since added to them the Observation Deck, Tech Corridor, Corridor Junction, Containment Tank, Stasis Chamber and Control Center.

Being "Legacy" products, they're often on sale for a very good price!

It's really nice how spacious these environments are. It makes it much easier to set up camera angles and individual scenes for bringing the stories to life.

Each of these kits have a Lot of detail all over the place - and it's geometric detail that still renders nice and fast. The fact that it's mostly geometry mesh, it lends well to artists with specific needs, because it's so easy to change the material look or even type.

The spaciousness of it means that we can set up a scene in a corner and have all of that detail in the background already set up, lit and ready to go - And the whole series of kits match, so we can really just bring in our animations, set camera angles and render!

In storytelling, it's often necessary to show our audience that we're moving up or down levels, running around exerting ourselves, etc.,

Have a look through just the images I've put on this page - take note at the images with stairs in them. When we need our characters to go up or down stairs within the environment afforded by the collection, we can pick any one of these sets, depending on the stairs we need and render the characters performing their actions on these stairs. The rest of the environment will take care of the rest, because it all matches.

Here are some quick examples:

For shorter distance stairs, the Medical Lab, Reaction Chamber, Stasis Chamber and Control Center all have these shorter level stairs and, if we remove anything that might not fit the scene we're rendering, like medical equipment or a stasis pod, for example, the rest of the surrounding details in the rooms look great and match the rest of the whole series!

If, however, we need longer, full story flights of stairs, allow me to point out the wonderful stairs in the Landing Bay, the cool ladder in the Storage Bay, and both the Engineering Shaft and Atmospheric Scrubber along with Stratos Comm Array (I still need to collect this one) offer distances to fall from!

Another PC+ Sale Expansion

During one of the massive events that allowed me to score a bunch of the stuff in the Thanks Daz 3d May 2021 Compilation, I was also able to get my hands on two more of Odysseon Excellence!

After looking at the promo image below, I really wanted to have the Atmospheric Scrubber to use as a main interaction prop for my actors to climb around on. I doubt that I'll use it as an atmospheric scrubber, but might use it as a lift in addition to using the underside to climb on.

Remember when the aging Obi-Wan Kenobi had to disable the tractor beam aboard the Death Star? Well I grabbed the Engineering Shaft for these sorts of fun adventure plots! ;)

Checking More Off of my Wish List

My Odysseon Station series collection  is nearly complete now that I've acquired the following items.

Of course, this won't mean the end of my collecting of Nightshift3D's awesome products!

This will give plenty of room for the story to unfold. I love how these kits all work together to tell a whole story of their own. Plenty of depth and detail, and complete with entire entryway setups.

...and the Sci Fi Weapons Bundle is such a complete collection of cool weaponry that completely matches the look of the incredible gadgetry that comes with the Sci Fi Gear Bundle, all of which is the perfect look of the Odysseon Station series - making for a great means for our characters to 'gear up', all while giving purpose to the look!

In preparation, when I'm in my "Set Design" mode, often when I'm in between experiments and simulations, animations, etc., I bring each of these kits into my Base Scene Preset and go straight into the Texture room and set all shaders according to my default optimization, much as we see in my Character Design for Carrara 01  and Volumetric Lighting video tutorials.

For environments and vehicles, I always check the textures folder for special maps intended to make things glow. Quite often it's incredibly obvious - a map (or several) with shapes of solid color. Other times it might be a black image with bright, colored details, like machine specs, a map, an advertisement, etc.,

Those most likely go into the Glow channel in Carrara and, since I'm using Gamma Correction = 2.2, I multiply this map by itself in the glow and color channels.

Sometimes if there are materials that should be polished, reflective metal without any other mapped details, I'll replace the entire shader with one from the Carrara Browser > Metal presets. The same also applies to Glass, but in both cases I like to check for maps that I can use in those Carrara presets to better fit the situation.

Tip: We can open a Carrara Preset shader into the Texture room along with a shader from the model, and Ctrl Drag any channel from one to the other. This is incredibly helpful for using a product's included maps with an awesome Carrara preset material!

It's amazing how good a surface can look if we open the main shader, then load in a Carrara preset, and drag image maps from the original shader into the preset! 

Platinum Club (PC+) is now Daz +

Update to Stairs and Ladders Situations

I also picked up the Nexus Base Building1337, which has a very Odysseon Station look to it, and includes plenty more doors, stairs and ladder that are surrounded by the cool looking walls that the series has!

...and Then There Was More!

,,,as well as the 

CommSaber Satellite Dish

More Crossed Off My Wish List!

To be continued with some of my renders in Carrara and Daz Studio....