Strato Sailer

Project timeline: 4-27-20 to 7-7-20

Total Hours: 100+

What if you could sail the boundary between the sky and outer space, gliding effortlessly over the clouds?! Or slip between the clouds tops of some alien world! This project started as a dream. After soaking up a long series of images from the International Space Station in low orbit, it seems my subconscious amalgamated all of the imagery into this project idea. This was a great lockdown project as it was limited in scope and visually compelling. The project itself started with some really frantic (and messy) concept imagery. Most of the time dreams fade quickly, so quick work is a necessity.

After The initial idea was down on paper, the modeling of the “Skimmer” was started..

Once the basic shape of the craft was done in 3D. The tasks then turned to developing the different views. Working on lighting and composition. It was important to convey the perspective and camera lines seen in the concept sketches. The placement of the camera was critical to convey the “floaty”, and “dream like” feel seen in the concept work. Initially there were only going to be three views. All of the views were to be long shots with no close up views or details. Basic renders were produced to “lock” down the perspectives and lighting, as seen in the images below. So here is one of the basic composition renders.

As you can see the view above has the basic lighting, a great perspective full of movement, and a nice hand painted background environment sphere for reflections. The image map used for the sphere can be seen below.

As the basic renders with the lighting and perspectives were completed, the work then turned to Photoshop. In Photoshop the clouds were painted in and adjustments to the horizon line, the thin wispy upper atmosphere, as well as the city lights (seen in view 03) were added. When painting, the entire background environment sphere was replaced. This was necessary due to the fact that the environment sphere seen in the 3D render did not all ways line up with the perspective. The sphere was used ONLY to help produce the reflections seen on the craft.

As the three views were being completed, it was decided to add two more views of the “Skimmer” craft docked at a harbor tower, similar to the view seen in the initial concept sketches. Since these views were to be much closer to the Skimmer craft, additional modeling was needed to build out the details seen at the front of the craft, as seen below.

As work on the docking tower progressed it was decide that the craft would have a “hood up” with service personnel tending to the Skimmer craft’s mechanical structure. Thus a rough character was needed. Though many character artists are secretly cringing at this character, (I see you!), the reason will become clear in the final image.

Also, the Skimmer craft had to be modified to have a hatch open with the mechanical parts showing. Though the camera was closer to the Skimmer craft in the new docking views, the details needed would still be seen from far away. So with the given distance of the camera from the figures, making sure the profile of the personnel and shapes of their equipment read correctly was a major concern. The detail seen in the Skimmer model with the hood up, was only to be seen from a camera view that did not directly view the mechanical compartment, thus no great effort to produce a highly detailed model was needed.

Again, as in the previous long shots of the Skimmer craft sailing the upper atmosphere, the 3D models were used as a “baseplate” to paint on in Photoshop. Note the completely new environment sphere map used. This was done because the lighting called for in the new docking tower views had changed, thus the need to create a new environment map. Also note the difference in lighting between the Skimmer and the tower in the blocking image and the lighting on the Skimmer and tower in the final image. Because the Skimmer and the Tower were rendered in 3D, an alpha channel render could then be generated and used to cut the Skimmer and the Tower from the background environment sphere, as well as provide a quick way to paint shadows on the Skimmer and tower.

The final painted “Docking Tower” renderings!

As we can see, the two views of the docking tower have much different lighting than the previous three views of the Skimmer in the clouds. The lens flare was produced manually in Photoshop as a series of layers and then manipulated depending on the position of the key light source. Also note the very tiny size of the figures in the View 02 docking Image. All that was needed was the silhouette of the figure to read correctly, thus no great effort to design a detailed “personnel” character was necessary. The soft shadows seen on the craft and the tower were done in Photoshop and help to build the dream-like quality of the images. The lighted interior of the Skimmer craft was partly created by the initial blocking render (transfer layers), and some interior lights added in the 3D scene as well. The subtlety of the lighting works well with the sun setting in the distance, and helps to produce a sense of interior space within the Skimmer craft. The lighting of the docking tower windows was done entirely in Photoshop, and provides little “pops” that pull your eye to the structure.

I hope you enjoyed this project. I wonder if humans will ever be able to “Strato sail” the clouds tops of Venus, or Saturn! Well at least we can do that in our minds for now….