JohnArtbox

Tests on using hair with dynamics and forces. The grass looks good but the leaves on the tree seem to be moving a lot more than they should. They have the same dynamics settings as the grass. grassB000.mov One aspect I'm not sure about is the number of leaves which don't seem to be reacting to the forces at all. There is only one hair system on the ground and another on the tree, so I would have thought the forces would have produced equal motion across the board. Initially I also had dynamic constraints on the tree trunk but I pulled them out so that I could isolate the motion of the leaves.

PeterS: to get the reflections I photographed the chrome sphere 3 times at 2 exposures apart. I used a Sony HDV camera so it only has exposure not fstops (which could be part of the problem). I then used the demo version of photomatix to create the HDRI and unwrap the sphere to Latitude Longitude. At the same time I took a background plate and fed it through the same process. Once the HDRI was ready I opened it in AM and assigned it to the choreography as the IBL light source with ambience and AO set to 100%. I then mapped it onto a flat shaded sphere enclosing the scene to act as a reflection source. After that I loaded a plane to act as a camera projection target, and a couple of sample objects. Then I used a Kleig spotlight to cast a shadow on the ground plane, which had been set to flat shaded to avoid modifying the colour of the BG image. A far as can tell flat shading nullifies the AO. I'm not following any tutorials, although there are bits and pieces from Yves and Mat in various HDRI threads, and I'm also learning Photomatix at the same time which does make it a little harder. Tone mapping is a process which tranlsates the HDRI images into standard 8 or 16 bit images which duplicate the tonal range of the human eye(my current understanding, I could be wrong ) Yves: Thank you very much for the information. I think I'm going to have to take it away and digest it over a few days. Then I'll have to see how Photomatix translates the photoshop instructions. PDaley:I don't have a driveway, just a wharf....I live on an island

Thanks Matt, I redid the render using a HDR Map for the reflection and the background image, then ran it through tone mapping. Before tone rendering the image looked completely Bleah. And even in the tonemapped version the rendered models appear flatter than the initial rendering. There's obviously stuff still to work out

The starting point for some tests on using HDRI images in AM. Even with this fairly simple image there were a number of pitfalls and workarounds but I think I'm getting it. Am I right in thinking that HDRI images are no good for reflections? I had to tonemap my HDRI and convert it to a 24 bit image to improve the reflections.

I use AM as a general 3d workhorse, so I though I'd show a couple of simple and very quick projects. I thought I'd put them into a single WIP thread so that people can ask any questions they may have, and because I don't think they'll be worth a thread each. Amway Business Centres.. total project time was 1 and a half days, although it wound up at two days when I needed to alter one of the render settings and had to redo a render. That's for the sequence shown and a global map animation showing the centre locations. The project is based around the final image of a man climbing a building, the rest of it was pretty much up to me. I started the project using newton physics to collapse a building and then playing it in reverse, which worked terrifically on a newton explode model. but then when I went to explode a custom built object, with explode groups for girders, windows and other structures, it didn't work. I didn't have time to work out what I did wrong (but if you know how to do this, enlighten me) so I built one storey as one model for the steel girders and floor, and another for the walls. I then animated an action building the single storey for each of the models. Move to choregraphy and I simple stacked the structure models on top of each other, randomly rotating them through 90 degree steps so that it's looks like I've done a whole lot more work. AMway.mov

Hi Lee reduced the saturation and added bloom, grain, and some volumetric light(2d) .

Great work Dhar, and great thread from everybody else who has chimed in. Like so many others I was surprised to see it's your first character model. Your presence has been on the forum for so long. It's always interesting to see how different people approach modelling. Personally I'm a "less is more" kind of modellor, but the extra splinage does guarantee you control, I frequently wind up adding more splines when I'm animating. The only comment I'd have about the body is aesthetic, it's relatively conventional in proportion while the head is quite cartoony. Have you thought of a longer trunk and shorter legs?

Fantastic Lee. The eyes feel a little low to me, but that's being nitpicky. I've never spent anything like this amount of time and complexity on a model. Beautiful

Hi Stian, Your images are becoming almost monotonously beautiful. One after another, all of them fantastically modelled and lit. But you're right, old cars have so much more character than their modern equivalents. Lovely

Not being a car man I thought Edsells must have been a scifi illustrator thank goodness for Google. I just like the proportions, but I can't be too far wrong if Agep likes it. Thanks guys, it's always good to read comments Anyway, here's the next update. Now that there's no use for it, it qualifies as procrastination, which means it will probably get completed pretty quickly

Started this for the scifi entry, guess it's a very early start for next year

If you are just setting a constant surface attribute then materials will be faster than decals. If you are applying a pattern then decals are generally faster, especially as the materials get more complex. Decal channels override materials channels but you can mix and match ie a decal bump with a colour material.

Great work Cronos, lots of detail. I can't wait to see the end result

I'd pay extra for a release version of bottleneck .

Damn...This is a superb model. I have to echo the other comments, don't let this one languish. Tuck it away for a couple of months if you have to..we all have times like that...but then come back and finish it. This month's contest is free choice. Enter and beat us all. No I take that back....who needs superb modellers like you for competition.

Beautiful truck....fantastic mechanical modelling. Pretty much superb in every way.

Hey Dark, very different subject....but the style remains Very cool.

Bill: Built in 13 Logrus:It just keeps getting better Clonewar: it's an image of a cluster of leaves. The material is included in the zip.

Rodney: Render time was just shy of three hours on my 1.8 centrino tablet. Clonewar: The foliage is a custom fur material MtPeak: Fun aren't they Bill(and anyone else interested): I've attached the tree model file for anyone who wants to pull it apart. tree.zip I'm not sure how well the hair would animate for growth, at a rough guess I'd animate a single branch from beginning growth to leafy final, and then map that onto the hair as an image sequence. In theory it would work Robert: One of the fabulous zpider plugins

It's a tree. Done as a foliage test, the groundcover needs more work. Built in about 10 minutes with treeZ, the render took a lot longer.

Mark and David: Thanks for completely ruining my Sunday I've avoided the Squetch rig it because it looked like such a time consuming process, at the same time regretting the fact because it's such a nice rig. No longer... this is so very very cool.

Open a new model and right click --->Wizard--->import--->obj Having said that it's not terrible useful in most cases. AM is built around splines and the topology is different. Generally splines are more efficient, especially for organic forms. You can also bring obj files in as props, retaining the obj polygon format rather than converting to splines.

Time, time, time. Even repainting the colors of the cars takes extra, and I have to move onto the next deadline. Here's the original road photo.

I created some images for the local residents group to show the effect of widening a road and adding parking on the roadside. I've only had time to build one car, a basic Audi which uses a colour map for most of the detail, but I widened the road in a paint program and then used a camera rotoscope with the ground set to front projection. I might build some more cars, they're always useful for bg / architectural work, but the image is for a meeting tomorrow and will probably never be seen again.

Rodney, I think Jojo's refering to Hash's Multiplane Compositing module which was released back version 6 or so. It was a fantastic piece of software, some of which was integrated into AM proper with image layers. JoJo I think you're safe, although the more people who use composite and OpenEXR, the better.