Anakin's gauntlet

Our final project in 3D Modeling and Rendering was to model a human hand.  The hand is one of the most difficult things to draw with pen and paper.  Modeling it in a 3D program is just as difficult.  It's actually much more time consuming.  The teacher gave us leeway to make any kind of hand we wanted.  It could be a detailed human hand, a scary monster hand, a robot hand, whatever.  We just had to use the techniques laid out in the online lesson to make it "come to life".  I decided to make a detailed glove.  Specifically the glove that Anakin Skywalker used to cover his prosthetic hand.

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I tried to include seams on the glove and make sure the straps around the forearm were sharp.  I then tried putting it in an appropriate setting with appropriate lighting.  I couldn't get the lighting quite right, though.  Fortunately, my next class is 3D Lighting and Surfacing.

I have a light source coming from the city in front of the room where the sun is setting over Coruscant.  I tried turning on shadows but I got no shadows from the table or the columns.  None.

 

I tried to create a chrome texture for the lightsaber.  It seems to be reflecting the wood of the table but I'm not sure it's coming across well.  The table reflection is making part of the saber near the black grips look invisible.  Again, no shadows from the lightsaber or the glove.  I don't know why.

Now here's something kind of odd.  Why is the inside of the glove transparent?  I see the wood grain of the table through it.  Again, not that the chrome cap at the end of the lightsaber is so reflective as to appear transparent.  Again, no shadows.  Not sure why but it was the last assignment of the class.  I'll have to get some more help elsewhere to figure this baffling lighting problem out.  I will, eventually figure it out, though.

Ciao!

Flying Ship

My professor figured out what went wrong with the render on my flying ship.  I had, inadvertantly, put a displacement map onto some of the metal surfaces.  As soon as I removed that, my renders worked a lot better.  I put a photograph of the Pleiades behind it and lit the model.  First in a dramatic silhouette.

And then with a lot more fill lighing.

Not bad for a beginner, I suppose.