TommyDAQ2

Hey Mark, did that tool allow you to set the dimensions of the tileable area? Like could you set it to 512x512 or 3600x3600, or is it just it's fixed size? I think it's pretty easy to make tileable textures in Photoshop using the Offset filter. If anyone needs a tutorial on it, I'd be happy to throw one together. Been making them for decades! (literally - that's kinda scary!)

That looks interesting, Mark!

Mark, That does look really good! and I LOVE your rendition of that character! I've attached a rendering that Kevin set up w/ my guy. It definitely hits what I was trying to achieve - a nice, professional looking "product shot" to show the client the character - and it's a very simple setup. Thanks everyone for the input and ideas on this. Very educational and inspiring! Character spin_640x360.mov

Thanks Rodney... I didn't think it ever became available, but wanted to check.

Is there a way to use DarkTree materials on a Mac yet?

While reading Martin's post from earlier today, Stolen Smells, I followed the link to YouTube, and then happened upon the Hash CG History channel on YouTube (very cool, if you haven't checked it out), and it reminded me of a project I had worked on in a day gone by... TBT Circa 1998 - Review and Herald New Releases 1998 conference! https://youtu.be/sHgrs2pu6Z8 I had worked on a video to announce all the books that would be released that year by the Review & Herald Publishing Association, and a live action Book Store Manager would be meeting some Interesting Characters! The T-Rex (in the linked video) was one of the interesting characters! There were 4 different animted characters in all - A Walrus, Goat, Snake, and the T-Rex. Fun Project! Unfortunately, at this point, the T-Rex is the only excerpt I still have from the video. All characters were modeled and animated in A:M. I was the sole TD, Modeler, Animator, etc... We were using A:M '98 - I think that was like version 3.3 or something??? I had been a Mac Guy, but for this production, the A:M on the Mac was just not stable enough, so the client had purchased a Pentium 300 for me to work on! Fun Stuff! -Tommy

I agree... hadn't gotten to the facial decal yet. BTW, Your setup didn't look as good w/ my character - he got quite washed out and flat. Perhaps settings may have gotten out of whack in passing from your setup to mine, Detbear tried a setup for him that is basically just a Klieg, AO and some GA, and it looks really great. I've got to keep playing with this so I can start to get these nuances right. Thanks for everything guys. I'll post something back here when I'm further along with it.

Doh! You just made me realize what I forgot to do during my recent testing. I didn't crank up the ambient setting. Another trick in similar fashion is to make the ground plane mostly transparent (each setup calls for a different percentage but a good starting place is 80%). Then set the camera background color to the desired color and the ground will render 'mostly' that color and tend to fade into it as it progresses to the horizon. This also works well when rendering with alpha channel because whatever background the image is placed over will blend in with the partially transparent ground plane. As such we can control the color of background and ground dynamically on a webpage via CSS or whatever. Shhh... this is a very secret technique so don't tell anyone. I like that idea of the translucent floor - going to play with that... Also, thinking about he IBL that I had been struggling with, I hope to do some tests today w/ a reflective cube and sphere to document how each of the different environment mapping techniques resolves. Unless that's something that is already around in relation to IBL, I think it'd be a nice resource to have.

Perfect! Thank you!

Wow, Rob, this is really great!!! I look forward to learning what i can from your sample files, as well as the bonus tips! I had no idea I could set Surface>Average Normals... Thank you, so much!!! Is the "Average Normals" set with the Normal Weight of whichever group I want to adjust? -Tommy

Looks really nice... Yes, I would love to achieve that look, but I'm not sure how to. Want to share your .prj, or .cho? or at least where and how you have your lights set? Looks really great, Rob!

Rob, Will you share what your Z-buff settings are on your first image? And how do you have AO set in the second one? Also, and this is a (has been) Newbie question: Are my progressive renders representative of what my "Final" renders would be? and... fwiw, I can't get IBL to work for S***! Have a nice HDRI Studio lighting image loaded, set to Lat/Long, then Mirrrored Sphere, but it just renders flat. I've obviously got something set wrong. Going back to using lights!

1 Z-buffered Spot: Shadows 20% soft, 80% dark Choreography: - Global Ambience: 25% - Ambience Occlusion: 100% Camera: - Global Ambience: 23% (What's the difference???) - Ambience Occlusion: 50% (again, what's the diff???) - SSAO: On (default settings) Nothing reflecting for spec highlights. Still not there, but very simple setup. ~1 min per frame

Right Robcat... The Image I provided is the character the client found on iStock and said, I want THIS guy - so, I've built a model based on him. Really having trouble smoothing the mesh on his face though. Seems like such a simple model, but it's giving me difficulty. Here's my first render for he client review (of just the model), but I have not yet gotten that look that I want to get like in the sample: https://youtu.be/nSSON4gXlZg FWIW, I tried one large Z-buffered light, but hadn't played w/ Ambient light, which would probably be necessary to get that look. \\ ...and Sorry I missed Live Answer Time... I thought about it at about 2:15 - It was 1-2 in my time zone.

Awesome mock-up, Rodney! Can't wait to see what you come up with! I'm rendering a quick (or not so quick) 180 frame character turning around so the customer can evaluate v1 of the model, so that knocks me out for the next few hours (and house work calls), but I'll start playing with some IBL w/ HDRI images after my rendering's done.