To infinity and beyond!
Create a spaceship that’ll take you to the stars
01 START WITH BASIC SHAPES
The first step of the process is to build out a few rough concepts to find one what you like and want to keep working on. For this we’ll use the Sculpt mode tools, like the cube and sphere Clay tools. Enable guides: Mirror and
Clipped Mirror. Start sculpting using the sphere Clay tool. Enter Edit Shape, then stretch the shape a little and enable Section. Switch the Sculpt mode to Stamp since Smear isn’t ideal for this type of work – you want clean, precise edges.
02 BUILD MORE SHIPS
Scope out of the model once you’re happy with it. Change the material if you like and add a spotlight to throw some shadows and show the form better. Start building a few more models so you’ll have a selection to choose from.
I sculpted ship number 2 in the example above almost exclusively with a cube Clay tool to get a different, much more angular look. You can change the tool shape as needed via the Edit Shape menu.
03 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Using the same technique of laying down basic shapes in Add or Subtract mode, build a few more quick concepts for your spaceship to see what works for you. Here I also spiced up the environment a bit with some ‘greebling’, (repeating shapes to add interest and imply a lot of design and detail). You can add a more moody light setup to get an idea of how the ships would look in a light scenario closer to what you want your finished scene to look like.
04 REBUILDING THE CHOSEN DESIGN
Once you find a design that pleases you, it’s time to take it to a more finished state. Isolate the design from the other prototypes either by moving it away from the others, or by saving it out as a new sculpt. You might be able to reuse your design ‘sketch’ for the next part of the process, but in my case I decided to start over and replicate the design to optimise the number of shapes I used. This decreases the overall performance cost of the ship.
05 ADD PANEL CUTS
Your ship has a fairly smooth surface, so let’s break up its surface a bit by cutting thin panel-lines through the model.
Select the cube Clay tool, set it to subtract and open the shape. Flatten the shape all the way down until it looks like the outline in the screenshot. This is the Extrude mode which will allow you to manually choose the depth of each cut. After cutting through the shape, fill the gaps between the elements.
06 ENGINE GLOW
Any proper spaceship needs an engine. For my design, I make a new sculpt and place cones in inserts I made below the spaceship wings. I then open Sculpture≥Outer properties and turn up the Glow property until I get something that I’m satisfied with.
This glow is very closely related to the Bloom effect, which you’ll find under the Cameras And Lighting gadgets≥Grade And Effects≥Screen Effects tab.
07 CUT UP THE MODEL
Up until now, the ship has been one single model. This means that everything has the same material properties. But what if you want part of the model to look like plastic, and another part to look like shiny metal? Luckily Dreams makes that quite easy! Scope into the model, select Tools≥Cutout tool and turn on the Upright guide. You can’t use Mirror with the cutting tools so sometimes you’ll have to eyeball things and do your best to keep your spaceship symmetrical (if that’s the look you’re after). After cutting the model in a few pieces, you can go in and change the individual material settings.
08 PAINTING EXPLAINED
Painting is a big part of making your models look believable. No real surface is as even as the default surfaces in Dreams, so you want to detail them a bit. Scope into the part you want to paint, then switch to Tools≥Spraypaint tool.