Modeling Sci-Fi Megastructures in Blender

Lukas Sprehn

Episodes you will never release? :( Still holding out hope that we will see more of OG episodes released!! Especially all that stuff that happens to Gage and Axle, and Sterling. That's what a lot of us are here for, I bet :D

J D

hello, this is and amazing tutorial!! can you upload your Battleship picture that you have?? Thank you

Hi Ian can you please do a composite tutorial 🙏😭 that would be Awesome!!!

Tolga Katas

great job! i love convert to railing and all the bells and whistles of this add-on thank you

Levy Bergman

thanks for this, Pablo!

Pablo Nicolas

I turned the technique I told above into a small addon. I made it for myself, so don't expect bells and whistles (I'm also not a dev so the code may be clumsy). I share it here in case it's useful to someone else. It's 100% free, you can download it from github: https://github.com/g3ntile/gen_ParametricPrimitives Just download the .zip from the green button and install as any addon.

Pablo Nicolas

Hi Ian! I'm new to your Patreon, but I've been following your YT channel for some time, and I have to say you completely changed the way I approach doing stuff in Blender. Thank you! Still slowly watching all your Patreon stuff and it's really amazing. I have a long way to go, and so much to learn. I have a small improvement to share for your "Wireframe" technique to build quick scaffolds/trusses that is pretty neat: • Add a "Single Vert" object • Extrude vertically (or whatever, just extrude) • Add Skin modifier • In Edit mode, scale the size of the skinned vertices to taste (Ctl+A/drag thingy) • Add triangulate modifier • Add Wireframe modifier. The Skin modifier, subdivides the geometry at regular intervals, resolving the detail automagically :-) so you can quickly sketch trussed thingies at the speed of thought, and wherever you extend/extrude any vertex, the subdivisions and triangles scale accordingly. Just try it, it works out of the box with minimal effort. And you can scale each vertex separately (CTL+A), to make, for example, tapered cable towers. And you can scale the x and y vertex radius independently for more awesomness. It's really fun. Thanks again for all the awesome content!

German Bauer

Super appreciating your "iterate as you go" and "what is the shortest path that I can throw away if it doesn't work out" 3am methods - such a good message to not get to precious about things early on!

Carter Burr-Kirven

Check out this one https://www.patreon.com/posts/some-post-35533684 and this one https://www.patreon.com/posts/scene-breakdown-44512824

Manuel Grewer

These tutorials are so good. I am still a total Blender noob, so it takes me hours to recreate what you are doing but I am learning so much fascinating new stuff. It's so fun!

Robert Singler Jr

This is my favorite tutorial since you started. I'm so thankful for it. I'm trying to render a scene right now and I can't because apparently the poly count was too high. Or something. Eitherway, trying to build settings for the other models that I've has proven really difficult with respect to the scene size issues, so this was magic.

Zander

Triangulate on the wire mod for the scaffold...GENIUS.

Brad Fichter

Unless you've already put something out that I've missed, I would love to see a quick video of your folder structures. For your projects, archives, and just assets in general. How you organize everything. Thanks for all you do!

Paul and Anna Spooner

Nathan Vegdahl has that effect on people.

Man, I love this model but you should animate a crash and destroy it for your revenge

Paul and Anna Spooner

Sweet work! I had too many comments for text, so I made a video: https://youtu.be/FXbhBug4RyA

Wow, just, wow.

Pete Burges

This is a masterclass. It's hard to believe you can get such good results from such low poly, simply textured assets. Makes me wonder why I bother with the high to low poly PBR workflow...

Just what i was waiting for ❤️❤️ love u Ian

Benja Min

You will never know how much of a lifeline these videos are and how much joy they bring me. Even though I am trying to tell you. Many Thanks

Did you already make a compositing video Ian? If not, I would love to see one.

You Added Cranes ! :D

Doug Brown

Bangarang! I mean... when YOU don't like something Ian my brain says... are you completely mad? That's EPIC! Then you do something else... and brain says... alright, my cortex is aching. Another epic post from the master of space disaster... I could have easily watched another hour or so... :)

Ian Hubert

I could!! I should! I wanted to! Although it's BASICALLY just have a super bright sun light with almost no ambient light. If you want fill/ambient light, you have to have it bounce off of something else (like a planet, or solar panels or a different part of the ship)- that's only for realism, though- lots of folks cheat space-lighting, and it might even look more cinematic if you do? But yeah!! I should go more in depth at some point! I'm glad you enjoyed the video! :D

Amazing tutorial thanks Ian, I've always noticed the large structures in your scenes and the thought of modelling something similar was quite intimidating, they feel just that little bit more accessible now! So many great techniques I'll have to try soon, thanks again.

Chris Fast

This was really cool Ian! Thanks. I remember you saying in an interview one time that when you were working on a movie (I think Prospect?) you had to teach yourself a bunch of techniques for realistic lighting in space. I was honestly pretty struck when you said you can't see stars in space if you're focusing on an object with direct sunlight because of the exposure. I was wondering if you could do a video on that, realistic lighting for space. Thanks again for everything. You're such a great teacher!

Is there a reason you are still using the 2.93.0 beta rather than the current stable version?

the flying mode broke my mind

ian keepin it real

Ian Hubert

Wooo! I hope it was as useful as you hoped!

Ian Hubert

Ahahaha I had one that was, "Making automatic procedural assets" and someone shared it'd shortened in their email to "Making Procedural Ass"

Ian Hubert

Ah thanks Stephan! And hah! Yeah, wish I'd gone into a bit more detail on that bit, honestly!

Stephan

Weird, I'm able to watch it in 1080p right now.

Stephan

Amazing! Super happy for the updated building workflow from the quick method a couple years back.

Greg DiGenti

Love the way you work! I’ve been a professional motion designer for 10 years, using primarily AE, and I’ve been trying to learn Blender for about a year now. I’ve gotten good enough that I’m using it in a lot of my professional work, but there’s just so much depth to it, I still have a ton to learn and I find it difficult to instantly remember how various aspects can be combined as I’m working. Watching you work is always so inspiring in that way. But I’m curious, why is this video 480p? I kept trying to read the nodes that you were using, but they’re all a blur and there’s no higher res option available.

N_COUNTER

The truncated notification came across as 'Modeling Sci-Fi Meg,' and here I was thinking Stewie might be making an appearance as a guest host.

Blake Rizzo

I love ramble starfish boat!!!!!!!!

Jostein Lie Svalheim

Oh my lord ive been waiting for something like this... all my life? no long enough to be like "YAAHS" when i saw thr notification.

Stijn Windig

The more ramblings the better! Loving these!

Safi Ullah

wow

Tommy Shades

this is great! don't stress about the process and the ramblings these are the things we like to see!!

epic

Paul McBryde

Yeah, selecting the camera is one of my daily annoyances!

Volen CK

Hell yeah! Weekend just got better :) Thank you sir!

JØRGEN WETAAS BULL

Extremely good content! thanx

Hope things get better for you soon!

Ian Hubert

Ahaha, "In less than half a decade" would sound awful good to mine.

Exactly what I wanna see in the morning when I sit down to eat my breakfast. Cheer Ian!

Brian Mortensen

I am going through some rough times emotionally. This is godsend and will help in keeping my mind a little busy😅! Thank you so much🙏

Word combination "next episode" is like sugar to ears. 😄

I'll stay awake for another hour I guess.

Roy

Blessing us with another one

I am tickled

Mike Hay

Ooh! I am looking forward to this one! 🤘🤖🤘

aRANDOM

Yeeeeeeah!! Thanks for this tut Ian. Always wanted to creat awesome megastructures! Thank you very much!!! Have a great day!

Oh yeah !! Can’t wait to watch it !