Concrete Bridge Textures

[R Reynolds]

Here are three large stills of a railroad bridge I'm building.

 

railroad bridge WIP

 

The fourth image is the magazine photo that inspired me.

 

It's reinforced, poured concrete and I'm going for a look of being in service for about 50 years; used but not abused and rust coloured like in the photograph. It's over 600 ft. (190 m) long. You can get a sense of it's scale by comparing it to the red-checkered reference cylinders which are 6 ft. (1.8 m) tall.

 

I've been working on these textures for some time and I'm beginning to lose perspective. I've started applying the decals to one end of the bridge and I'm asking for opinions before I continue.

 

I'm satisfied with the small scale, colour & bump materials of the aged, slightly spalled concrete. But I'm wondering about the large scale discolourations and streaks. I don't want them to be too detailed so the images don't have to be unreasonably large (currently each bridge section gets a 1000 x 1000 decal). Any close-up detail (cracks, graffiti, etc.) I'll add with separate decals in those areas closer to the tracks since they'll get more camera time.

 

So whadaya think? Too light, too dark, too distinct, too subtle, just right?

[KenH]

Very nice. I think abit more dirt/streaks would add to it. It looks brand new right now which might be what you want. Also, the edges of the arches especially are sharp. You might think about rounding them off with some extra splinage.

[Zaryin]

I agree, you need at least some water stains rinning down the side. It's great looking so far.

[jesshmusic]

The work you have done so far on the textures looks really nice. What lighting set-up are you using? That will affect the look of the textures, also.

 

I look forward to seeing the entire thing done.... Then on to modeling the train!

 

[hypnomike]

The concrete looks great.

 

The stains don't look so good to my eyes, I think they should be darker, like the colour of tea perhaps. Like water stains as Zaryn suggested.

 

The bridge it's self is excellent.

[ypoissant]

I agree with the others coment about the general lack of stains. I would definitely add more. Your reference photo have a lot more.

 

Concrete have a very dull reflectance pattern. You should use the Oren-Nayar shader with a rather large roughness property on your concrete bridge to get this dull reflectance pattern.

[heyvern]

I agree with the comments on the stains. In the reference photo the stains are much larger as well.

 

On another note... the edges are... too sharp I think. I am sure they are all beveled but from the wide shots they look pristine and very sharp. Maybe a more pronounced bevel that is "varied" in its width and/or some more chips and nicks (not to be confused with chips and dip).

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

[nf1nk]

Something that might really help would be some horizintle stripes placed irregularly in both light and dark colors

[John Bigboote]

Lookin good! I can't wait till you have some animation of your streamliner crossin that bridge!

 

Are you going to add those decorative recessed boxes along the top of the bridge?

 

I modelled the 'Ambassador Bridge' which spans from Detroit Mi, to Windsor, Ontario in Hash and learned a great bridge trick...only model 1/2 or 1/4 of it...the rest can be duplicated and flipped in the chor. where the scene is assembled...

[R Reynolds]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

I've taken another pass at them; punching up the streaks and changing the colour balance to something a bit rusty-er. Use the original link; the first image shows the new version. The larger arched section to the left has the new texture while the section to the right has the original. Please ignore the decal distortion around the arch; I didn't take the time to massage the decal.

 

Jesshmusic;

The light setup is a hand positioned version of one of Yves skylight setups. That is I let one of Yves pre-rigged actions tell me where to position all 52 skylights. (This manual technique was my response to the original v8 action not playing well with subsequent versions.) However none of the skylights is casting shadows only the sun.

 

Yves;

Yeah I know about oren nayar but I can't justify the 35x increase in render time (from 17 min. to over 10 hrs. for the above image). This shader won't be useful to me until processor speeds have increased significantly, as they inevitably will. Of course thats also true of 52 shadow casting lights.

 

Ken & Vern;

All corners are filleted with a 2 in. (50 mm) radius. Considering the only concrete bridge in town of a similar vintage has 1 in. fillets I thought this was more than sufficient. I'm assuming they look sharp due to the scale of the structure.

 

Matt;

The decorative boxes are there (but so far only on the sections with individual columns; you can just barely see them in the long shot, just above the columns nearest the camera) but I built them using bump maps and they only really register in close-ups. I may have to add a colour decal to darken them.

I'd like to see a render of your Ambassador Bridge. Did you paint it the current teal colour? I always preferred the more industrial look of the original black. How'd you handle all the rivets? I love the look of structual steel bridges but that's what attracted me to a concrete bridge, no rivets.

While I fully understand the advantages to building things in the choreography, personally I consider it cheating so I avoid it.

[D.Joseph Design]

Looking good.

 

Ditto everyone else's comments.

[Paul Forwood]

This is going to be fabulous if your previous images are anything to go by.

 

I think you need at least one more layer of staining though, which is wider and darker near the top of the bridge and fading out as it runs down the side. The main source of the staining would be the rails themselves, I guess, and also exposed ends of steel rods in the concrete.

 

When I first saw this thread my jaw dropped. I thought that you had modelled and rendered that last image.

[3DArtZ]

I think the pit marks in the concrete are too big...

looks like it's on its way to looking real good though....

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com