Imperial Ornithopter Concept

 So I also played around with an Imperial 'thopter to appear briefly during the exterior shots of the Emperor's palace on Kaitain, based on concept art by Ville Ericsson?
With the still work-in-progress adaptable folding wing design from the Atreides 'thopter.
The other issue of course is the Atreides 'thopter is also Gold.

The Emperor's "Selamlik" - Work In Progress

Frank Herbert uses the term "Selamlik" to describe the metal "tent" that the Emperor's uses as his base while dealing with the Arrakis affair.

"The selamlik (Turkish: selamlık) was the portion of a Ottoman palace or house reserved for men; as contrasted with the seraglio, which is reserved for women and forbidden to men.
Selamlik was also a portion of the household reserved for the guests (from the root word selam, "greeting"), similar to the andronites (courtyard of men) in Ancient Greece, where guests would be welcomed by the males of the household. The harem is the portion for the family."

The description from the novel:

"It wasn't the lighter that excited Stilgar's awe, Paul knew, but the construction for which the lighter was only the centerpost. A single metal hutment, many stories tall, reached out in a thousand-meter circle from the base of the lighter - a tent composed of interlocking metal leaves - the temporary lodging place for five legions of Sardaukar and His Imperial Majesty, the Padishah Empror Shaddam IV."

Other details include Gurney Halleck's observation that it has 9 levels (Instead of only 6 in the movie version).

Below you can see the original model being prepped for filming, how it appears in the movie - as seen by Paul through the oil lenses of his binoculars, then two of My work in progress renders, the first matching the same angle as the movie version but with the camera pulled further back to permit visibility of the entire structure and the second render revealing more of the environment, including two Spice Harvesters and the Baron Harkonnen's ship.

I am looking at rebuilding all the DUNE 3D models I have made to take advantage of the improvements in 3D since I first made them - in particular to take advantage of new more realistic rendering engines that should help to take the CG curse off of the images.

As a side note, the image with the sand-crawlers took 37 minutes 53 seconds to render out on My machine at home, while a render at work during My lunch break, took only 7 minutes 19 seconds!

PREVIZ: Folding Space: Interior

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0oJ6LgutsQ

Here is some early "Previz" animation I have been working on to try and work out a better way to handle the scenes of Guild Navigator folding space.
I would like to try and stay close to what was originally envisioned for the sequence, while keeping what is going on clear to the audience.

Guild Heighliner - HD Redux

So I have decided to sort of start over - after a fashion - in as much as I am starting at the beginning again and retooling everything for the greater detail demands of HD. Means more work of course!

Have never been happy with the level of detail on the Guild Heighliner, so I have been working out how to use the new "instancing" features in Lightwave 11.5 to create a good look. Had to remodel the ship to accommodate the way instancing works. I also have not added in the node flow that allows the instances to rotate in 90 degree increments for more variety.

Here's a couple of in progress comparison shots... Same model with instancing turned off and instancing turned on. (It's not lit properly yet though and I will eventually play with the surface textures when I have finished modeling - still have to do the three large vertical doors)

Atreides Landing Field

   As you all might have noticed, I've been pretty quiet in this forum for a while, but My new job - while fun - has plenty of long hours and tight deadlines to meet, so I have barely had a chance (or I must admit - the motivation) to sit down and work on the DUNE: Special Edition...

That said, I AM still working on it!

Found better versions of the original concept art from 1984 a while ago and with a better understanding of what is going on in the art, I reworked My model of the Atreides Landing Field to better reflect the design... (It's still in progress so proportions and sizes are all in flux)