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A Few Common Scifi Mistakes - Quick Ways to Improve
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- Опубликовано: 6 авг 2024
- This video is something I've wanted to make for a awhile. It's my goal to help people who are getting into scifi some quick ways to start changing how they think, or just to start thinking! I used any examples I could find online, If i used your art of course I mean nothing by it. I just want to help people to improve.
I have a design Gumroad you can get here: gumroad.com/l/visualdesign
Instagram: / alex_senechal
Artstation: www.artstation.com/acms
As a plumber i would like to add something to the pipes part. A singular pipe is pretty rare (unless in a particular industrial settings), almost anytime you see pipes in a facility they come in pairs. For water, it's hot and cold. For heating and a lot of gas, it's the same. Singular pipes at least to me just looks wrong because most pipes people see in their day to day come in pairs or groups. Also valves are mostly placed parallel to each other in one spot to make maintenance easier, placing them wherever looks unnatural unless you are going for some chaotic steampunk shit.
That last sentence is really important. Intentionally violating engineering (or design) "best practice" principles can be used to tell a story (visual storytelling).
@@Pyrohawk EXACTLY! Valves in inconvenient locations, disorganized cables hanging about, maybe throw in some rust and chipping paint... these can all contribute to a very lived-in, "just scraping by" sort of feel if done right. Maybe your cast can't afford the newest, sleekest ship around and it's all they can do to keep the one they have running as long as possible. Maybe there is some sentimental reason they're still keeping the old junker around. Either way, parts are probably long out of production, so they just have to make due with what they have or bodge in some alternative. Look no further than Joss Whedon's "Firefly" for a perfect example of this "life on the raggedy edge" concept, and it's not just environmental detail. Serenity (the ship) is more than just transportation or shelter. She's a character in her own right, and her age and failing parts become major plot points on a few notable occasions.
This just feels so much more "real" than Star Trek's immaculate, stark white iterations of the Enterprise or the Star Wars prequels' streamlined chrome that somehow regressed by the time of the original trilogy... but I digress. THIS is the flavor of Sci-Fi that I enjoy most. This kind of depth will always impress me more than unfathomable scale.
@@andrewsprojectsinnovations6352 I actually thought Star Wars' ship designs made a lot of sense. The shiny chrome ships were ultra-high-luxury "royalty" ships, whereas there where plenty of junkers like the Millenium Falcon for all the plebs. I actually think Star Wars really nails visual storytelling, especially in the newer more CGI-heavy stuff like the Mandalorian.
But I totally agree. I *adore* good visual storytelling, and there's an art form into making believable shitbox spaceships.
Another good example of great storytelling were the old EVE Online "captains quarters" (that are no longer in the game :C); each faction had a different quarter, that reflected the living standards and philosophies of the factions. Brilliant. I miss those.
> Also valves are mostly placed parallel to each other in one spot to make maintenance easier, placing them wherever looks unnatural unless you are going for some chaotic steampunk shit.
I think people sometimes look at the cabs of steam locomotives and get the impression that it's just a bunch of valves and shit thrown in around the place but there's a purpose to all of these things. Steam locomotives had an almost 150 year long life as the main form of land transport and throughout that life new features and safety measures were constantly being added, if you look at an early locomotive they very often just have some basic controls like a reversing mechanism and a boiler water gauge. Over time however steam locomotives got a lot more complex and as such more controls were added. The thing about steam locomotives however is that unlike a lot of vehicles you often aren't controlling them by manipulating something that then controls the vehicle (the wheel on a car itself doesn't directly turn the car etc.), you're directly controlling all of the aspects of the vehicle themselves. Steam engines of course didn't have electric control systems and since they relied on steam you couldn't have a mechanical system to simplify the controls so that meant that you had to put the valves and levers where they needed to go, the regulator has to be where it is because it is literally the lever determining how much steam goes to the pistons, the water gauge is physically connected to the boiler and water tanks, etc. Not to mention along with all of this you need room for someone to physically shovel coal into a fire continuously.
These are the limitations you have to consider when designing steampunk things, unlike later forms of power steam engines are fundamentally limited by their nature and requirements in a way that tends to make comfortable design pretty impossible.
Most of the pipes in my house I can find are singular, and I've done some of my own plumbing, mostly just tracing and clog clearing.
My personal rule has always been:
Use caution tape where caution is warranted.
If you're still using too much tape, make your design less of a deathtrap.
This.
One of the core principles of mechanical engineering is to make things fool-proof. Because you will always find some idiot trying to ignore all safety guidelines.
Hehe like Spartans in Halo. Using the caution lines on their metal boots. Don't want someone getting stepped on by a half of a metric tonnes of force on your feet by accident. 😂
I use Caution Tape like some of the companies I've worked for.. As little as possible and often, none at all or worn and ruined.
This works for anything in life tbh.
Makes a gun
Puts caution tape on barrel, stock, shell outlet
too much caution tape
stopped making guns
World armed conflicts dropped to zero
1:39 bolt in every corner
2:41 caution tape (everywhere)
3:55 inset existing geo detail
6:14 sandwiching effect
8:35 vents (everywhere)
9:55 cables and pipes
16:23 breaking the box
22:45 greebles
26:25 tangents (4+ intersecting lines)
30:55 illumination/lights
32:25 align diagonals/random diagonals
34:15 rest area/70-30(-5)
Perfect summary, gratz
Thank you so much. Now I don't need to waste 40minutes
@@slendiv13 Actually I felt no minute was wasted watching all of it.
@@slendiv13 to be honest man, that attitude would kind of support if you think something is up with you art. In my opinion I think you should watch as much as you can from different sources for every detail in different points of views. I think this allows you to have a more open mind.
thank you so much!
"Use caution tape sparingly."
Iron Warriors: "And I took great offense to that..."
I don't think there's an industrial Sci-Fi aesthetic he doesn't offend at some point, in spite of the fact that most of this advice is really good for industrial sci-fi.
I see no problem with the IW, they absolutely ARE a hazzard to your health and well-being, to be honest its nice of them to warn others.
@@vavra222 really its just good safety and health practice for a work place environment and they are just following the basic standards and practices.
Oh Petey Turbo, if you hadn't joined Horus nothing else could have changed and the Heresy wouldbhave broken down and failed 1/5 the time as the ate their own face. Literally and figuratively. Truly the greatest "carry" in any multiplayer game.
*My bolter/leg/shoulder/everything is not a step plate*
If you're a Sci-Fi artist and want to make your work more "realistic", study some mechanical engineering. Think of how the structure would be built and repaired. There's actually a lot of monotony in architecture which won't change in the future. Why make a dozen different panels when one panel will work? It doesn't matter that materials and manufacturing will be simpler/cheaper in the future; the concept of economy and efficiency will always be there. It may not be as visually appealing, but it will be realistic. That's engineering.
Microoptimisations?
Yeah, you don't need to be any good at it, you just need to be thinking about the right things, and figure out a plausible model in your head for how the thing would actually work.
Without that you get... The Transformers movies' CGI. Overdeveloped stuff. Just incoherent stuff.
But bring even a half-baked sense of composition and mechanical design and it's miles better.
This 100 times. This is what's missing in the video. Always think about cost of production. All these extra cuts, cavities, holes and extrusions look straight useless and pointless, except if the point is to overdo the design.
@@ScorgRus I had the same gripe with the way the OP "merged" separate panels into really large ones. This kind of design is often impractical and difficult to maintain. It's important that, for a believable *sci*-fi, that careful consideration is given to the engineering capabilities of the engineers behind whatever you're making.
I do agree that in the case he showed with the round robot, the giant panel looked a lot more beautiful, though. There is definitely a lot of room for exploration here. God I love sci-fi design.
@@Pyrohawk Well there's some nuance with that. Panels covering some sort of vehicle tend to be single panels that are made to fit the vehicle. Like your average car will just have a separate panel for the hood.
Like there'll be a separate panel that can be opened if there's something underneath there you need to access but otherwise it'll be one panel because using several introduces new points of failure and it's also not really expensive to just shape a piece of steel or aluminum into the shape required.
"Lighting is gonna be lighting whether it's the year 20 billion shillion or the Ice Age fuckin' dinosaur times."
Got my like, and also a great way of hammering in the idea of practicality.
As an industrial welder, and someone who has taken part in actually building the world around us, and as a digital artist myself. things in sci-fi just look over the top all the time. i love the style. but the way the designs of the future will play out will be a lot more basic and standard like as we see today. as uninteresting as they are, H beams and concrete will always be a thing. both here today and on mars in the future.
one thing i notice in Sci-fi art, is the world doesn't look "lived in"
if you look at the real world, you can find a wall, see that they added a cable, painted over it, then installed a compressor in front of it having to rip the cables out, leaving holes. someone strung some other cables behind those, drilled some holes and fed them into the next room.
the international space station is a good example of a sorta sci-fi yet lived in space. its messy, there are laptops and wires going everywhere, but it doesn't feel sterile like sci-fi does. it is very much alive and human.
even in new buildings and construction, there are always things it is trying to hide. cable management, electrical panels, janitorial supplies and floor waxers left in places.
if anything, high detail panel specific environments like what we see in sci-fi would only be made for style which i understand. or luxury.
its all up to the artist though. like i say i do enjoy the scifi style. those are just my thoughts from the real world is all. be an artist. love what you love, nobody can stop you.
@@jd5734 the space marine thing. Thats really brilliantand something i had never realized I had realized just need the word put to the world. Like 40k, Ignoring the futuregothic stuff the plain unadorned spacemarine armor in 40k i thought looked practical in that sense. Big fat plates of armor sitting over the actual powered exoskeleton. You dont want bumps or grooves or hatches unless they are absolutely necessary. Also the tech is supposed to be 20k years old and so streamlined and reliable it makes an Ak47 look like a temperamental racecar.
Which contrasts with another 40k faction, The Tau. Whose style is techno panels because their stuff is brand new and needs constant upgrades, replacement, and maintenance.
Well Elons Musk space vehicle looks like modern Sci/Fi.
Great comment. Nice 👍
This. Scientific fiction =/= futuristic fantasy.
@@SeniorAdrian Space X's. Not Elon's. Musk did not build it, his company just owns the work of those who did. Also it looks a lot more like golden age/hard-science fiction rockets than futuristic fantasy art.
I like how you're so clear and professional throughout this video and then at 31:30 you just go "The Ice Age, fuckin' dinosaur time."
Except for that first cut at 1:30
@@yewwowduck and the weird visual fade in and out just after that. I actually almost clicked off because of that
"Light is used sparingly, aestheticly and has a purpose"
Cue me looking at my gaming keyboard glowing in all shades of the rainbow simultaneously.
My wifi antenna has a light on it to let me know it's plugged in.
My wifi antenna. Which is affixed to my machine. Has a light. To let me know it has power.
My TV has a red light and a blue light. Blue means it's on. My TELEVISION has an extra light to know that it is turned ON. The thing with a SCREEN. And the red light? Comes on when it's off. So I know the TV, which is a screen, is off.
My heater, which has a fan and blows heat, has a light to let me know it's on. The light will only light while it is running. Loudly blowing hot air.
The worst offender? My DESK LIGHT has an LED light in the power button. Red if it's off, fine, whatever, I can see the power button in the dark... IT LIGHTS UP WHITE WHEN TURNED ON. MY FUCKING LIGHT HAS A LIGHT THAT LIGHTS TO LET YOU KNOW THE LIGHT IS LIT.
So yeah no, lights literally just have... no functional purpose. There's just lights on everything. My RAM has RGB. My keyboard has RGB. My mouse has RGB.
@@chrismanuel9768 In defence of those kinds of lights, if the TV screen is off but the blue light is on, you can be quite certain the TV screen is broken.
@Keegan Young Fair point. The blue light might be a bit useless. Though, if it picked up your remote and turned itself on, but the screen is black, the blue light would at least inform you the fault isn't with the remote.
@@chrismanuel9768 you have to realise that products are also made with disabled in mind so what you might percieve as loud will never be perceptible by a deaf person
@@jetaddict420 I would assume deaf people can feel heat and moving air, and see the fan spinning behind the heating coils. There's nothing that would indicate the need for a lightbulb.
For non-artists, this is like a tutorial on how to be annoyed at stuff that didn't use to bother you XD
Honestly don't let it bother you if you can avoid thinking about it, if it worked before it works, it's really just some tips to help express yourself after all. Not some set of rules
that selection of cable designs was especially pleasing, I need to find a way to integrate some into my 3D prints
Very helpful video. Most tutorials nowadays are just "how to use X software". We need more tutorials like yours, talking about the theory of the design. Thanks
2 Years late but I still agree. Barely any theory / design videos even though they are arguably ten times more important.
@@denno445 4 months late but agreed with both. Theory videos end up being >1hr long, and often involve a timelapse of a big piece or practice swatches with no end product. I like this video because it feels like a lecture, bringing up examples and drawing over them to explain what's going on. I would love to see more of this, but tbh you have to have a pretty great skillset and a ton of experience to be able to identify what works and what doesn't, so I don't expect many people to make videos like this.
I think feng zhu would be a great start, he's even working for George lucas. His "design cinema" series is quite good
4 years late but I still agree.
Lots of people who do scifi art don't know what they're doing. They just slap things on to look cool without thinking about the purpose of the prop. Everything has a purpose when someone engineers something.
3:05 As a guy who works in a factory. Yes, someone will trip over that ramp.
There's always one. Where I used to work he was called Brendon. He broke every hammer in the shop and once tried to put out an electrical fire with his hand.
Great video but I think you missed the biggest cliches: long echoing corridors. While you're pointing out bolts and panel insets I'm looking at these big wasted hallways that would need to be climate controlled , pressurized, have artificial gravity, etc. Instead we should look at the ISS or submarines, airliners, ships in general , even service areas in regular buildings, where corridors are small, tight and short as possible. We get the Sci fi endless corridor from OS Star Trek when hallway sets were cheap to build and easy to move cameras around. Now 80% of sci fi "environments" are long, purposeless, empty tunnels with a bunch of crap stuck to the walls and a giant blast door at the end. I guess that's fine in a FPS where you just need a maze to run around and shoot stuff but it is a ridiculous and persistent cliche.
the ISS and Mir are great reference points, but its good to remember these are extremely expensive projects and so every square inch of space has to be used. They provide a vary rare piece of real sci fi reference, but its useful to use that with as you said submarines and ships.
In a ship, yes space is not wasted, but sometimes you do just need a long corridor with little going on.
REALITY IS NOT SCIFI. Stop assuming scifi structures will follow the way that modern structures are designed. That's not the way it works.
Absolutely, as an engineer, I hate seeing big empty spaces where a big empty space is the worst thing that could happen to the design. I don't want every designer to know how everything is engineered, but if you're doing sci-fi it has to be grounded in reality in some ways. Different sci-fi settings use different levels of realism ranging from hard sci-fi to full-on fantasy. (@protoborg And no, sci-fi is not reality; however, sci-fi is science fiction and is based on science. There is a difference between general sci-fi, hard sci-fi, and sci-fi fantasy)
All that is required is to at the very least consider this aspect in your design and do as much research as your allowed in your given time. Just consider it and weigh its aesthetic to the kind of sci-fi you're going for. If it leans more into fantasy than realism then you can go for looks more than function, or if it is far enough into the future where "advances" can be a valid excuse.
Sci-fi isn't reality but you have to consider how realistic your setting is and whether your art matches that. My absolute favorite science fiction art pieces are from the late 1900's with massive empty spaces that completely defy what we can do in reality. But that style doesn't fit into something like The Martian or The Expanse but does in Star Wars or a Dune setting.
@@protoborg Sure, but design has to have some kind of logic behind it. What's the point of a long empty corridor even if it was cheap to build and easy to maintain? Science Fiction, apart from fantasy or space opera, is imagining what the world or some other world might look like in the future. If you just say 'anything goes' then its not Scifi its fantasy. Why do these cliche corridors reference reality then? Pipes, expanded metal mesh, airlocks, hatches etc? Why assume all those things will be in use in the future? Regardless its not worth an all caps shout.
@@Dynoids Love the Expanse! And glad you like my point but even still from a design point of view I want to know why that massive empty space is there. We've been building boats for 2 millennia but you don't find silly empty corridors on an aircraft carrier. You do on the hanger decks 'cuz they need room to move the planes around. But half the time in the corridor art you'll see a really cool looking airlock door thats a third of the size of the hallway. So what''s moving down the huge hall that can't fit through the door? Its like every time they go into the hold on the Enterprise. Here's this huge 2-story room with like six 55-gallon plastic drums in the middle. And I love me some Star Trek too, but its just sad how 95% of sci-fi doesn't take common sense into the world-building let alone the physics and challenges of space travel.
I'm doing the design work for my sci fi story right now. I'm doing the main character ship first. It's an old military ship that saw combat sometime in the past. Being a military ship, it was built by the lowest bidder.
Panels are reused instead of unique parts as those are cheaper to produce. Metal pieces are bent around corners rather than cut into separate pieces in most cases. This means less fasteners and parts. The whole ship is designed to be cheap, functional, and easy to repair. It's basically just built like a brick.
I have a background in doing building renovation and construction work. I like to bring that experience into the modeling work that I do. Despite the complexity that you see in commercial building infrastructure, every single pipe, conduit, wire and duct serves a purpose. Air ducts are particularly challenging to route. I've been in buildings that have had giant ducts that are 10 feet in diameter that had a service ladder to get across the thing. Ducts have to be routed without compromising any structural members. An experienced building engineer will look for ways to tuck them between trusses and joists. If you suddenly have no choice about where an elbow goes, then you have a giant protrusion you have to manage.
Plumbing usually goes in afterwards, as it's a much smaller system. Sprinkler and waste pipes are larger in size, and can still be tricky to route, especially when it gets terminated inside a valve control room. Think of how the pipes will be connected. Are they welded, brazed, crimped, or bolted together with flanges. A pipe that has been welded or brazed will have discoloration from the heat. Pipes that use flanges will often be in conjunction with modules that need service (valves, filters, tanks)
Electrical is usually routed after plumbing, as you can snake the wires just about anywhere. As technology advances, more and more cabling get put into buildings. The main power will be a couple of giant cables that then go into transformers, banks of breaker panels, and finally branch circuits to the rest of the building. If you're wiring a corridor, you would have a cluster of conduits that would get smaller by the time you get to the last room (which would have only one).
Inside equipment cabinets, controllers often have a nice well designed plastic panel, but it's then surrounded by clusters of screw terminals. Depending on who wired it, it can either be tidy or a rats nest. Sometimes you can find bags of spare parts and a service manual rolled up and tucked inside.
It's quite common these days for several ethernet cables to be routed to every room just for control systems unrelated to computer networking. Huge networks are routed along cable trays. Attached to the trays are conduits that lead to wherever they get terminated. Anywhere a bare wire enters a conduit will always have a plastic anti-short bushing. Bundles of cables will be taped or strapped at regular intervals to keep them tidy. Both Ethernet and fiber optic cables have a minimum bending radii. Installers tend to leave a few feet extra and leave it coiled in a loop where it gets terminated.
In the future all architects are on some kind of meth and can't design a straight wall or column anymore. And their sense of insecurity makes them put support struts absolutely everywhere. 😉
I’m a sci fi artist. Good points! Totally right about the too bolts idea. The more bolts, the less techy it looks. The more bolts, the more steam punk it may look.
Yes overusing bolts is problem but the examples shown dont make sence since from structural point of view it just makes sence to have bolts in corners. The examples of "good" design would be awful for realistic aplication they would either be always loose or nightmare to dissasamble.
This video had more of a profound effect on everything I do than any other I've watched to date. I dove into Blender on 11/14/14 and today is 7/8/19. I was making just about every mistake pointed out, and what defined "mistakes" made sense. All of this really resonated with me, and forced me to stretch beyond what I thought I couldn't do. ESPECIALLY "everything has a purpose and a function." OMG I had long ago decided I can't do THAT, nobody else is doing THAT, random is good as long as it looks cool. I ended up stripping out about 75% of my current project and began reworking it in line with "everything has a function." IMHO it is coming out far better than anything I thought I would ever be capable of.
Nesting pipes like that isn't realistic. You're making maintenance a lot more difficult... exposed piping is often the more realistic choice on any design where their function is critical. Another important factor is redundancy.
Basically realistic Sci-fi isn't what you're proposing, you're proposing extreme stylisation for aesthetic purposes. That would only make sense in luxury areas and not in most other sci-fi settings.
YES YES YES
I was waching the video and he was descriving every single bit of desighn choices that i dont like, i'm more of a industrial Sci-fi look and boxes are simple to manufacture and install, bolts on the corners is the way to go to hold them, straight pipes exposed are easyer to maintain and check etc.
His opinions and recommendations are more for the "Sci-fi porn" look, estilized over function and practicality.
"1500 BC, you know, the Ice Age, fuckin' dinosaur time"
"I'm not really looking to make scifi art so I'll just watch the first ten minutes of this video" I say before watching the entire video
Just random pass by, not a modeller nor scifi designer, i'm not even a graphic designer. But I am an UX designer working on digital products.
The interesting thing about this is that most rules you covered can be found in gestalt psychology, and this way of thinking applies to most fields of design. Good thing is that you got me back to the early days I kept thinking about if everything makes sense for every design choices, and as projects goes, everything becomes more and more modularized - which is a bad thing for positions like me because there aren't a lot of things to be thought about.
Anyway nice thoughts you got here
Hello! What are the rules that relate the gestalt psychology?
@@TheShadow7426 I can give you a simple example: In the vid, there is a topic about even placed objects/elements, they fill the space while not creating individual spaces, which, makes the design less interesting. By applying the rule of proximity, even the elements are less interesting, we can place them into different groups and make different sizes of groups. Now we have only big elements and they are same and different at the same time (which is interesting to look at) - the 70-30 rule in the video is sort of talking about the same thing.
I hope you understand my explanation well, as for other rules you can just figure them out by yourself.
@@Fretice Okay thank you for the explanation! I'm studying psychology at the moment and have only just touched upon gestalt so I'm finding it really interesting!
Purpose > Function > Dynamic areas > Identification and Form. These were the ingredients chosen
to create the perfect little Sci-fi, But you accidentally
Added extra ingredients to the concoction--
'Personal Taste' Thus, The Powerpuff Designs were born.
I completely understand what you mean when you see shapes being predictable or without function. I love!!! looking at form that looks relevant to the shapes around itself. All shapes should look like they integrate with other shapes as a cohesive body. Literally, everything you mentioned here in this clip, I once did as a novice myself.
I appreciate your tastes on sci-fi. What sold me was your preference for elegance. Huge yes and thank you.
This is probably the most valuable design lesson I've ever had. Really appreciate you putting this together man, thankyou
Great video! One suggestion for future videos is make it clearer when you're talking about a "good example" vs a "bad example" as sometimes you'd be talking about _to_ do while showing an example that contradicts that, or what not to do while showing something good. Annotations might be all it takes.
I second this. Do we have a third?
I third this
Great video, Alex. I think that on your concept of 'breaking the box', one very important factor that is specific to games is vert count. The age-old geo limitations from a few gens ago meant that artists had to work in 'boxy' forms as a matter of rigid limitation as a result of the tech of the day.
Nowadays, we can be much more liberal with our geo. Mid-poly+FWVN is becoming more mainstream. The day of the 8-sided cylinder and the horror at adding a chamfer to a shipped asset for fear of 'breaking the engine' is thankfully behind us. The problem is that that concept of 'low-poly' is still drummed into students' heads in a lot of these shitty, 3rd-rate '3D colleges' that seem to be everywhere. Out of touch teachers teaching strict rules that they don't seem to understand themselves. I see it all the time. Polycount has endless tales of 'but, my teacher told me that n-gons are the spawn of the devil.........' Pure bullshit, yet it persists and seems to be widespread.
That aside, great points on the more complex form transitions. With Zbrush hard-surface over the last few years and now a lot of CAD and boolean workflows becoming more and more common, I think this is giving new modelers confidence to attempt forms that they wouldn't dare in Sub-D. Just don't tell them that they'll spend a silly amount of time doing manual retop...... :)
I ran some tests in Unity with regard to this to at least get a ballpark idea of the triangle limitations. 40 million and I was still getting over 60 fps and that was in Unity. I'm sure the performance is even better with the game made into an exe. If you're using nanite in Unreal Engine 5, you can have billions of polygons and it will crunch it down to the few million that need to be displayed. In their demo, I think the number specified was 20 million as the goal to crunch down to. For reference, a polygon tree in World of Warcraft (which is low poly) is on average 1500 polygons. Most objects you can achieve an excellent looking mesh with even 3000 polygons. I am modeling a sci-fi corridor right now that is under 10k so far and it looks extremely detailed. 40M poly budget divided by 10k polys is 4000 ; I could have 4000 of these corridors on screen and not drop in fps. I have seen some people who are new to ZBrush unknowingly up their poly count to several million, not realizing what they've done, and if you're exporting meshes like that, then yeah you need to pull the reins back a bit because if your mesh is 4M, you're only going to have 10 NPC's on screen. One benefit of space ships is that all the detail is close up. That means you can make all of it high poly, unlike open world scenes where you have to worry about everything you can see a mile out in every direction.
As a 3D artist who has been stagnating in my personal growth over the past few years, this video video was of excellent insight and help.
It highlighted some very pressing and even some previously unidentified issues I've been facing which has been hindering my progression as a 3d modeller.
I know where to start now to break the glass ceiling I've reached - cheers!
I've been avoiding some of these already unconsciously. It's kind of weird and enlightening to see them laid out this way, and the reasons explained. I've always gone "by eye" all this time.
Same here
It brings the stuff I subconsciously do when i model into the conscience
5 seconds into the video and I'm going to yell at whoever designed that gun asking why they have pointy stuff facing the user's eyes.
I love how you discuss specific examples, and give artists who do it correctly. There's a few concepts I feel you didn't quite cover in enough detail, but overall this has given me a ton of great direction to work with, especially as someone who loves sci-fi but who doesn't know where to begin with original designs or expanding existing designs.
30:00 A good trick for avoiding these sorts of tiled details, especially in situations where you actually will be tiling details to cover a larger space, is to divide the strips of space into sections of different prime numbers. So, for example, if you have the middle pipe divided into 3 segments, try to divide the row of panels above or below into 5 or 7 segments. For longer spaces, do the same thing with higher primes, and the result will look much more natural.
Unless, you want to give your space a sterile, artificial vibe, in which case tuning everything to multiples of the same basic unit can help you do that.
As a technical systemplaner for supply and equipment technology,
about pipes, it's not necessarily uncommon to have even-sized pipes running parallel to each other.
With air conditioning for example usually there are big main pipes running down the floors and have smaller pipes coming out of the big main pipe that go to the rooms.
Now you need fresh air to go to the rooms, but also need to suck out the 'old' air out of the rooms, and you need to have the amount of fresh air put into a room be the same as the amount you suck out.
So that's already 2 pipes about the same size. Now sometimes you need sperated pipe system for special rooms (usually not in homes, but more functional buildings) and again you need both fresh and and 'old' air to have their pipes, so another pair of same sized pipes, which depending on the occasion can make 4 same sized pipes running along each other.
Vents are there to not just have the raw pipe stick into the room or corridor, but to make it look better and to disperse the air in the room better and sometimes they can have some additional functions.
As for Sci-Fi designs tho they can be really overused. For example sometimes we have a very very long and big corridor or hall, but they only require on vent for fresh air and another to suck up the old air, however there can also be 3+ in one room.
As for air conditioning tho i wonder why they would emit some kind of smoke, i mean you wouldn't wanna fill a room with Exhaust gases right?
In some kind of freezer-room, white mist emiting from the vents does make sense, but in a normal corridor? hmm
I just started making my first scifi scene and I have no idea what I'm doing. This helped me so much. Thank you!
Great talk. I think it could apply to most areas. I was glad to hear you mention Paul's work. It's nice to see that he's not forgotten.
Found this years later, but it really helped me think more deeply about design as a beginner in sci fi modeling. It would be so exciting to see you come back and make more!
Thanks for sharing Alex! Huge amount of knowledge!
Would love to have more video about design in the future and the tips & tricks series are great too
Alex, this is one of the best videos on the subject of design that I've ever seen. The fact that you gave so many examples and even did a few brief overpaints made a huge difference for my understanding. Thank you for sharing some of your observations and experience! I will make sure to check out the resources you linked!
Recently, i was struggling about exactly this kind of step : the design. Your video bring me a lot good tips and give me another point of view about rules i already got and for that, thank you very much. I feel like my next creations will be more interesting. Really great video.
Great video, really nice companion to your Gumroad on visual design. Thanks a million for uploading, would love to see more covering general topics like this!
I've been building irl models not in software but this video is still really useful and relevant, so thanks!
One pet peeve I have that comes up a lot in sci-fi art is metal thickness.
When you build things with metal in real life you use very thin sheets, even if somethings supposed to be military you only have thick armour sparingly where it's needed. It seems to be very common in sci-fi art to have structures (most often furniture and supports) that look like they're made of solid chunks of metal, and it just makes whole model look more like some kinda stone sculpture than metal construction.
Thanks for making the video, handy for students to get another artist perspective and take some of these pointers on board and potentially avoid or identify cliché. Haven't checked out the book 'Architecture, Form, Space and Order' before, I but downloaded the sample and looks great. Cheers
Вот! Не просто наляпать фигни всякой, а хотя бы похожее должно быть на что-то рабочее! Правильно сказал парень вначале) Влезая в стезю, сначала поинтересуйся как там все устроено)
Outstanding! Thank you so much for share with us. The way you split the designs into terms of art fundamentals just amazing and comparison with the industry experts and where people do the mistakes most making sense to me. You are simple awesome :)
Really enjoyed this and found it incredibly helpful. Pretty sure I was guilty of every single one of those points on your checklist and wasn't even aware of it until you pointed it out.
Hey Alex, thank you for this video. I learnt loads and my current sci-fi project is going to get a significant overhaul as a result of watching this. I'm guilty of at least half the things on your list!! Great video - appreciate the professional guidance.
This has been the most helpful video I've seen in a long time. A very complicated subject explained very clearly, and well divvied up into consumable chunks. Thank you.
For pipes I like to look at real life examples, I have taken hundreds of photos of interesting pipe runs, corner splices, wall entries, etc. I also like industrial sci-fi, mind, but even so a thing I notice a lot is that pipes tend to be labelled. Hot water. Cold water. Sewage is usually not labelled but also usually a different material and bigger.
You have to consider the function and the practicality of it, if you want the environment to feel 'real' at least. The purpose of the pipe dictates how it's run and how 'integrated' it is, there's a time and place for both tightly integrated pipes and more utilitarian pipes running along (or inside) a ceiling or catwalk and it largely depends on what the pipe is for, a drinking water supply pipe will probably be relatively accessible for ease-of-maintenance. But also keep in mind, pipes aren't usually *ever* seen in 'normal' environments. They're seen in more 'maintenance-y' areas, basements, maintenance corridors, factory floors, and other non-hab areas, even if it's used as an access corridor by the people in the hab area it isn't strictly part of it.
5:12 on most of these inward-extrusion examples I would go for triangles with rounded points.
Cutting triangles out of solid materials or pressing them into sheet material just makes sense.
Lightweight and at the same time hard to bend in any direction.
Both things you want if you want to hold air pressure and conserve propellant.
11:05 This hose is an eyesore for the reasons you praise it.
Visible pipes, hoses cables and the like are to connect to things outside the case they originate from.
This hose runs between two points on the same part ending right where the next one starts.
There is no reason to have it exposed like that as it should never be moved.
This is great video, has a lot of deep and wise thoughts about design. I made every mistake possible and could not realize why my models look like crap.
Very helpful. Thank you so much. I always get lost about what to do in a scifi design
You have made the most important video and very helpful to new artists such as myself. I think new artist just look at old images and then try to make it bigger and better rather than their own creation. You said it, it’s futuristic should be better than last decade. Thank you
I am very impressed by this tutorial. We need more like this to exist. Thank you!
Thanks for the great tip about the bolts. It does make it look low tech having lots of big bolts everywhere.
Hi Alex, this video is amazing. Thank you. Your suggestions are very interesting. there're some elements, like the pipes, that I've never thought about that in the way you suggested, and it blow my mind. Thank you
1. Break that box
2. Design stuff
really love this;
first time trying to model sci fi stuff, coming from decade of drawing real world buildings... it's REALLY tough to "break the box"...
Awesome!. I could not be more grateful. This is not just a Scifi tutorial, it is just a Design tutorial.
We are more than artists, perhaps our "art" could be the reference of the future real design of houses and stuff.
This is also an invitation of not just making things look "cool", otherwise, it is a research path's invitation. THAN YOU!
Excellent video. Everything you said was fascinating! I look forward to seeing more. Videos about design and aesthetics.
Great video, that cable concept image you showed was fantastic
This channel is a treasure, you are a treasure! So much professional insight and such gentle way of teaching, I'm a fan!
Thank you for sharing your proper box-smashing technique, friend. I hope it will serve me well in the near future.
This video is very, very good. I'm very thankful that you took the time to make it!
2d artist reporting in. this video is absolute gold for me and im so glad you made this. thank you!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge
As a mapper - This is INCREDIBLE. he talks at a pro mapper pace - unlike other videos where they talk at one word per second slow. This is #1 ever mapper needs to watch this no matter what engine - currently I'm making q2rtx close to ue5 (purist mapper - raw brushes) However this is best vid to explain simple geo yet get the effect. I could expond upon a lot but yea - he nailed this demo. Very GG and I learned a lot.
Great information! Thank you so much, Alex!
Man, you put a lot of thought into this. You are a true artist.
One of the best talks about sci-fi design. Thank you.
this was a really nice design class, i reaaaaaaaaally wish i watched this earlier, nice work!
This was great. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
exactly what I was looking for, very instructional thank you.
Thank you for this video. So many great advice in this video.
Really cool, excellent information; thanks heaps!
Amazing video, really helpful. Will be waiting for more like this. Not enough good theory videos with examples.
Really insightful and helpful video! Thank you very much!
One thing every sci-fi designer should do is to stroll down the ice chest, tackle box and water cooler aisles at the local department store every summer when the new model camping gear rolls out. Row upon row of professionally designed, functional, mass producible boxes and cylinders, are here for you to look at at no charge.
It's a great opportunity to think about how different materials and manufacturing techniques influence the design of a piece, and to consider how those designers maximize the utility of the internal space, while still trying to create an appealing appearance for the product.
Brilliant! I had started to become aware of some of these things, but great to finally get someone coming in with them all and giving me some proper terms.
This is such a great and useful video thank you for making this!
fantastic, i really needed this years ago when i started learning 3d
Just noticing the reference at 24:05, i can see lots of car related parts he's integrated, i can see welch plugs, hydraulic handbrakes, clutch master cylinders, spark plug sockets etc
What a fantastic tutorial!!! Thank you so much!
this is one of the most meaningful design videos iv ever watched
So I watched this video in 2022 and it made me understand why nowaday the Bolean/remesh workflow (disregard to the topology at first) is so popular for hard surface modelling.
This was immensely informative, thanks man!
Great guide, learned a lot from it!
This was actually a really, really, really good vid. Thanks for this mate.
Very thought provoking! Thank you!
Great information! Thank you!
Thanks a lot for share this video, help me so much!
Great tips Alex. Thankyou.
thanks this was informative and straight to the point :D
I think that the most important point of that video is giving every detail a purpose and making it look like it has some sort of function. A good way of doing this is to think about what it is that you're trying to make and what elements should it have to make it seem plausible/realistic. Realise that often times real life machinery and tech can look really interesting and it's a great thing to use as reference. It's extra helpful if you have some interest or background in actual engineering/science. For example if you're making a spacecraft then ask yourself "What sort of spacecraft am I making and what elements should it have?". Well if you're making a spacecraft that is supposed to be able to fly in an atmosphere then add some sort of aerodynamic surfaces and make it look curvy, maybe think about how do you want it to enter the atmosphere and add some sort of heatshield in places that you think would face the most airflow. Spacecraft that operate under the influence of gravity need engines capable of generating a lot of thrust, so maybe you should give it chemical or nuclear engines instead of electric propulsion. If you settle for chemical thrusters then think about how plumbing on real rockets looks like, go over some diagrams on wikipedia, research engine cycles to make it look real as possible. If you decide to model a nuclear thermal rocket instead then it'd be a good idea to learn how nuclear reactors work. Maybe your spacecraft is actually for use outside tof he atmosphere only, so it'd make sense to add big radiators. I could go on and on with this and my point is that when you add details that would have an actual purpose in real life you'll likely end up with a work that looks a whole lot more intentional and planned than it would otherwise.
Although I go for more of an Apollo/space shuttle design, in place of randomly shaped greebles I've built up a library of component modules like fuel tanks, thruster groups, heat radiators, etc... that way the models look more complex along with allowing the design itself to explain how it works if the person is versed in real world space travel.
Great video - I really got the part about not allowing the software to dictate things like panel lines when a more engineering rationale makes more sense. I don't agree with your piping philosophies - but I actually know more about that because of my profession. There are common sizes and scale of the facility dictates the use. Many of those huge pipes make no sense. But that is a nit pick- - I am really educated by this - Thanks.
This is a good background listen while I design my mech android. I initially made a super fast design by just decimating a human body till all that was left was triangular limbs.
This video is pure gold! Glad I found it
great video alex! I learned a lot!