MODELLING and TEXTURING THE Lambda
Thad Clevenger explains his process for creating the Imperial Shuttle
“My biggest challenge personally was that I wanted to make this shuttle as accurate to the original studio model as possible,” says Obsidian artist Thad Clevenger. “So I spent a lot of time attempting to get every piece of greeble in the right place. I had to make up a few areas that I didn't have great reference for, but hopefully the hardcore fans will appreciate the attention to detail.”
Was it worth it, we ask? “Looking back that might have been a bit of overkill, but it was a good lesson in studying the time and care that the original model makers put into their designs. I chose to create a high-poly mesh first and then bake down to a low. The positive of doing that is you can get a relatively low-poly model that looks much higher-poly than it is, however, the downside is it can take much longer to produce both models.”
In his day job at Obsidian, Thad uses this same process to make extremely accurate tank models so he wanted to put that same process into action for the shuttle and test it to see where it can be developed.
“To texture my shuttle I strictly used Substance Painter. It was my first real attempt at texturing in Substance Painter and I wanted to to learn the software and integrate it into my workflow,” says Thad. “Again, the goal here was to recreate the models they used in filming so I tried to match the look of the poster board and plastic from the original model.”
The result was a matte finish, “Then I put a lot of dust and dirt on the model. I wanted it to look relatively taken care of, but still covered in some dirt and grime from regular use. I doubt the Empire would let their shuttles get too dirty,” quips Thad.
“My advice when texturing vehicles in Substance Painter is to let the different materials build up just like they would in real life. By that I mean order the layers in the same order things appear in reality. So I always start with a base metal, then a coat of black primer, then the actual paint colour, then older stains, then dust and dirt, and finally newer stains.”
“Once you establish things this way it is much easier to achieve natural-looking damage and scratches on your model. You can determine the depth of the scratch by whether it goes all the way to the metal or just reveals some of the primer beneath the paint.”
Thad's last piece of advice: “While texturing with programs like Substance Painter or Quixel, never let the program do all of the work. They will get you very far in terms of where they place dirt and scratches, but it is easy to tell if someone put the extra time in to make their work look natural and custom-made.”