Chess Aeternae!

Member : Nate

Image description
The low light in the Tap café created a certain atmosphere in the room as the Human followed the Chindirion in. They moved toward the edge of the busy room, and took a seat. The glowing of the indicator showed the friends they were at the twenty-third table, the table they always sat at. As they settled in, a droid waiter came up. “Would you like a menu?” it asked, gravely in its electric voice. “No,” replied the Chindirion in his heavy voice that matched his appearance, “But I would like a chess board.” “And a cup of Senka,” quickly added the Human, “I can’t play without it.” he said, smiling at the Chindirion. As the droid moved off to obtain a chess set, the pair observed a cruiser that needed fuel from the larger ship they were on, drift towards them. The Aldean system was a hard place to be, and their's was the only base for several thousand light-years. The waiter eventually brought the board, an old, almost ancient model of Earth design. The holographs still worked, however, and very quickly a game was in progress. As the Chindirion lost, they played another game, and another. Chess will last, if not till the end of time, for a time almost equivalent.

Description of how this image was created
Chess has always intrigued me. I play chess quite often with a friend, and a serious, in-depth game calls for either blind luck, or good strategy, or both. Therefore, I was very happy to see that the subject for this contest was “Chess Masters”. Now, I’m going to be honest. My modeling/texturing/rendering skills are pretty poor, and my contrast scene (the Challenge) was pretty much ruined because of that. So on this image, I was not going to overdo the scene. I was concentrating more on the art of the scene than the detail and getting every right. I was going to have fun on this image. I created a holographic chess set within a few days after the contest began. Modeling the pieces was fun, and texturing was more so. I hadn’t settled on a scene yet, but I saw the possibilities. Darth Vader playing Luke Skywalker, or Yoda, or something. But then I thought up the current scene. The old human, playing the alien, in some dirty old tap café with smudged walls and dinged cushions, but through the window, a planet, the sun coming out behind it, and a star carrier floating along. I knew this had possibilities, so I started modeled a simple room, to do a test render. Right as I was about halfway through, I had another idea. How about a massive restaurant, with glass tables and such, with a waiter, and detail, and a huge glass wall, where you could see the planet and the ship? I had worked on this image for most of a month when I realized it was too cluttered. There were plants, and tables, and glasses, and waiters, and chaos. Total chaos. I realized that the subject was not fully realized in that scene, so I looked back at the original, and found that it fit perfectly. A few days of wildly modeling and lighting, and this is the result. Now I must say that 95% of everything in this scene is hand modeled by me in Blender. I don’t like to use the free models off the internet unless it perfectly fits or something; to me, that seems almost like cheating. The person and the alien were originally modeled in Make human, imported into Blender, and then remodeled. The chess board is one of my personal successes; I think that’s one of my best models. The holo chess pieces were a challenge, but they turned out okay. Having used POV-Ray before I switched to Blender made me wish for the POV particle/volumetric system, but I managed. The planet is also one of my successes. I spent quite a while getting that atmosphere right, and the clouds, and everything else. The glows were created with Blender's built-in compositer. The stars were created in Gimp, following a tutorial. The shader for the human’s skin was made following Victor Malherbe’s Blender tutorial. The plant behind the human’s head was created with a plant/tree script for Blender’s Python created/fixed by Chris Dawson. And finally, thanks to the Blender Foundation, for creating one of the best 3D applications out there, and then making it free for anyone. Ethan

General statistics
No of ratings	:	18
Min. overall rating	:	23 (5 / 5 / 13)
Max. overall rating	:	52 (17 / 17 / 18)
Sum of rating	:	723 / 1080
Date uploaded	:	2008-12-16 23:01:31

Specific details Note: The maximum value below is misleading as the voting system has changed. If the member votes for all the entries and has created one him/herself, there is an automatic 20/20/20 score added to the value (This encourages all members who enter to vote).
Rating type	:	Min : Max : Sum : Out of
Artistic	:	5 : 20 : 236 : 360
Concept	:	5 : 20 : 225 : 360
Technical	:	9 : 20 : 262 : 360
Overall	:	23 : 60 : 723 : 1080

Comments by members when rating this image

1.   31-12-2008 I told you your first shot was really good for a first shot. I must say it again: this shot is really good for a second shot! 2.   31-12-2008 I like this image very much, it reminds me of Thunderbirds, Stingray and Fireball XL5. It would have been an advantage to have the droid there and possibly hovering. Also, nothing in this image gives it a feeling of being 'very busy', so maybe some kind of 'busy' reflection in the window glass would do this. Nice image. 3.   25-12-2008 Awesome planet! And I know what I'm talking about... good modelling work too, although you should try to improve on your textures (esp. the bottles bother me). And you really need to check your monitor brightness / contrast / gamma settings - we can't see the star carrier at all; again an important detail drowned in darkness. And I'm not exaggerating. 4.   19-12-2008 Very nice job on the image. One of the few Blender images that I'm impressed with. Nicely done! 5.   18-12-2008 Well done