photoman

Looks good so far! Did you model those trees, they look great! Photoman

Ok, I redid it using Stian's and Eric's way: I think I got it down, at least for the body/shell. I just need to tweek and add wheel wells and the interior and the wheels too. Thanks Photoman Note: Those patches that didnt render have hooks, AO doesnt seem to like that

Thanks!! That seems like a more logical approach, I will have to try that! Hmm It seems that you topped all my modeling in just 10 minutes That definitely helps! This will be my 3rd restart on it, though I am in it more for the experiance, knowledge, skill, etc than for the model itself. Photoman

At the risk of sounding like a complete newbie (To late) how do you create hooks? I know what they are and how they work but I just dont know how to make them! Thanks in advance. Photoman

I realized that my model is patch heavy, I will try to weed it down a bit (To get the curves/surfaces smooth) Then I will add more if needed. I scrapped most of the original model and tried again (I kept the side splines). It looks better, but I need to work on the creases, crinkles and depth. Here is the blueprint Im using Photoman

Looking at Stians amazing truck model I got inspired to model a classic mid 60's Ford GT40. This is the first time I have even attempted at modeling a car so I am going to have a lot of questions. I downloaded some blue prints and did a quick once over on Xtaz's car modeling tutes as well. So far Here is a shot of a modern Ford GT I am using as a visual reference: I REALLY want to finish this model and not forget or lose interest in it. Photoman

The T-shirt link is broken Photoman

The best method is to start A:M up with the disc in and then take it out once A:M is booted up. I have to do this with my macbook fairly often (A:M v13 Disc) Photoman

Done! I finished it! Just in time too, because I "officially" get out of school today (Though no one goes to school today) The first skylight I took the godray light out and put in one of Yves skylight rigs to get a more even light. Enjoy Photoman

Half update. Did a little work here and there. -John I did move the lockers themselves up but at my school if you get a bottom locker you get used to meeting the floor This is just a RADIOSITY test. Took AGES to render even that far so maybe not the best type of render engine for the scene (AO maybe?) I am currently CRAMing for my Chem honors final tomorrow morning so probably not much more tonight (Got my caffeine soap, coffee, coca-cola, and my toothpicks, Im ready ) Photoman PS I set the basic Hall module in a action. That way each section acts like a model versus having to put together 6 models per section in the choreography.

Update. Started the texturing and nearly finished it. I just need to tweek the coloring and lighting now. Here are two different runs at it. Which one do you think is better? Photoman

Hello ! I have found a new idea to get me going. I got my inspiration from the halls at my highschool. Here is where I am at now: 5pass 27min Im experimenting with lighting right now. The modeling is pretty much done as well. For texturing and shading I plan to use a lot of decals and one or two procedural shaders. I want the floor to have a slight bump to it and it to be reflective and very specular. The doors are wood, and the lockers peeling painted metal. The other walls are going to be a dry wall esq texture. Photoman

That would mean its a memory issue, if I do my math right your rendering a 35 megapixel image. That can easily be a 300mb file. I have that same problem on my render node, it has only 256mb of RAM and can only render an image if its under 2000x2000. Try rendering the image at a lower res and upscaling in photoshop. Photoman

Wow, thats one of the best A:M models Ive seen. I love the pose as well. Can you post a wire please? Photoman

Wow that looks good. Though he reminds me of David Bowie a bit Photoman

I usually render my animations at 5passes but if its still jaggie I will just render it with the AA renderer. Photoman THX1138 Is a CLASSIC!!

Been busy as I always am... so progress is minimal right now. I plan to get a high res picture of a weed to use as the hair/grass though it still is spring here and the golden hills next to my house are a mix of greens and light yellows. I did start on some different type of lighting schemes to get indirect lighting. Im settling with radiosity! Yes I know that is asking for long rendertimes but I like the challenge. Ive read all about how to use it from Yves site and here is a test. Still tweaking the exact settings before I try it on the whole scene. Here is a just for fun caustic test too : More whenever I can. Photoman

To get a pure AO render you do have to blank the lights. Make sure the global ambience is set to 100% and that it is turned on in the camera settings (Ive had that problem before). You should also turn the camera background to white. -Photoman

On my current project Im delving into using some alpha pictures on a hair system too. Your method looks great so maybe Ill try that. Side note, when using a hair system with images, set the density in the particle system options to 1% or else it will take a LONG time to render, then work up. Photoman

I would definetly use ambient occlusion for the indirect ambient lighting, and a couple rims or a sun for some slightly defined shadows. I like the texture s you have going to, but a bump map on those would give it that little push on details. Overall its a great scene. Photoman

Update. Did a test final render and Composite. Unfortunelty I didnt see this posts till after the render.... Busy right now so Ill update more later. Photoman Yes that render only took 10 hours at 6000x3200 16 passes

Update. Another quick update of tweaks. I tapered the grass and did a few adjustments on the lighting as well. I also grabbed a horse model of the A:M CD and posed it in. The model has tons of deadend splines and folds/creases. It looks ok but not great, after this render I adjusted the model a little bit and adding some bumps maps to it to at least simulate fur without using particle hair. More off the machine as it gets done Photoman Thanks for the C&C !!! It helps!

Update! I fixed the barn a bit. (Changed the door decal so its physical correct now) You will probably notice I did not change the roof edge to match the top. The reason for that is that it follows the "grain" of the steel slates on the under side. Though part of it is me being lazy , though chances are that I will fix it as well as making the roof a bit thinner. I need to run more passes to get rid of the pixelly hills, the grass needs more passes to be able to look its best. I also picked the day/afternoon atmosphere, it brought out more details in the scene than the dusk. Im fiddling with the sun and ambient light amounts to get the right shadows, theyre at (Sun 150%, ambience 20%). I want to have those defined shadows as well as the slight lighting of the barn roof. I did a bunch of tweaks to the whole scene as well. I feel like it needs something more though, I dont want to add trees because that will kill my render time (Still reasonable (Reasonable as in it can render in one night at my full res according to my calculations which I proved accurate)). Though if I dont find anything else I will have to throw some in. The amount of trees I would have to add to comply with the scale would be VERY high say at least 20,nall with a probable patch count of 1-2k and a DarkTree Texture. I would not be leaves on them though, that would make the render even longer. (Right now its at 18minutes passes at 1500x800 which is very reasonable.) I also readjusted the hair again, I made it more dense and longer (The far hair/grass is 3 times as long as the foregrounds as the foreground is 4 times more dense). I did many render tests today (at 750x400) and figured out using some basic algebra that my final render at (3000x1600 9pass) settings would be around 12 hours pessimistically. Time to tweak everything again and again. Photoman PS look at the windmill. EDIT: Clarity and Grammer

Quick Update. Adjusted the atmosphere to dusk to see if it would look any good. The sky is actually the MultiSky material plugin. I also redid the grass so its now at 100k hairs. Took 37minutes @ 750x400 4pass. I can only imagine the final render (3000x1600!*) More coming Photoman * I know the whole discussion on resolution and Im willing to deal with the render times.

Update! Modeled a fence (Took all of 3 minutes including the texture). I also created the terrain and a *quick* ground texture that will be improved later. I set the scene together too. Then I played god and made hair umm grass grow on the scene. After applying the color decal I checked the hair count and found it to be: Not very surprised but to put it into comparison one of my previous scenes which was hair/grass intensive had only 23k hairs. So I tweaked and created several seperate hair materials at different densitys which decreased with distance from the camera. I check again and it was at: That is a much better number, it will actually not cripple my computer and leave it bleeding. Now all I have to do is tweak and tweak and tweak! I plan to experiment with different lighting scenarios and skydomes. Hmmm just imagine a AO render! Anyway more coming. Photoman PS Thanks for the comments!