Building the Pyramid

I built the pyramid in stages. I made a simple pyramid shape, inserted edge loops to create more faces, and pulled edges out symmetrically, increasing or decreasing the width of the pyramid in sections, to create the 'levels' of the pyramid, e.g the floors inside.

I only used a few textures; the red metal texture, a grey metal texture, and the shiny metallic scale surface. Between these three most of the pyramid is complete, though I don't think this is a drawback as only the underside of the ship is really seen, so that is where most of my concentration went. I could have spent more time with more textures and such, but I didn't want the pyramid to be a complex rig of many textures and parts. Even in the concept art, I wanted it to be a smooth, seamless machine that glides through the air. Only a few parts underneath move.

After redefining the shape of the ship some more I set to work creating the underneath according to my concept art. Four panels which stretch towards the center from a ring. In the centre, the gun that fires the transporter beam would descend from the interior of the pyramid. I also parented lights so that the lights would follow it as it spin.

I then added the four rings in the middle. I couldn't get these to spin as well but realised even if they did, it would hardly be noticed. 

I decided to add an outer ring and extrude some of the faces to create points. This would rotate the opposite way. It also has panels that stretch towards the center. You can also see the gun which comes down from the middle, which fires the beam that beams me up to the ship. It slowly descends into position throughout the animation.

With high quality on and the lights reflecting I think it looks fantastic and I am very pleased with what I could do with the bump maps, textures, lights and a simple rotating animation. I didn't want to make it too fantastical as it would only be on screen for a few seconds and I wanted anyone who saw it to be able to understand what it was supposed to be - in which case, you're only supposed to be sure that whoever built it isn't human and that this technology far surpasses anything that we have.