Exercise 14 - Playing Marble

[MasterFunk]

Name: Sean Concannon

 

Exercise Completed: Exercise 6

 

Date Completed: Feb 26 2008

 

Instructor: Manual

 

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: This one had me confused for a while.

[rikdiculous]

Following this tutorial was easy enough but I have one question...when I drop "marble" on "bottle" in the project workspace and look at it in shaded mode the bottle is either all white or all blue. When I render it though....it looks like what I expect. I noticed that in the tutorial video (those are awesome by the way) the artist rendered it too to see the final results. The chrome material works without rendering...why not the marble? Any ideas? Thanks for looking. -PM

[TheSpleen]

Lesson 14 Playing Marble

October 11th, 2008

Robert Thompson / The Spleen

Instructor: Video Lesson

 

[number]

Name: Tim Roberts

 

Exercise Completed: Exercise 14: Playing Marble

 

Date Completed: Nov 20, 2008

 

Instructor: Manual, forum

 

Comments: Easy to follow lesson. Had even more fun with more bottles and a "sleepy" Thom. I think I've felt that way before.

 

 

ex_14_test_render_test2_movie_1.mov

 

[TNT]

Lesson 14 Playing Marble

Feb 22nd, 2009

 

Here's my entry for marble.

I decided to try making it a transparent marbled glass and play with the light and other objects showing thru it.

I wanted the "white" part of the marble to be clear and the "blue" to be nearly opaque.

I placed the marble on the outside of the bottle only as though it was painted on and not part of the glass itself.

It's simple but it was fun.

 

 

[Rob_T]

This is a really short lesson which is more like a "recipe" than a lesson. I'm far more concerned about what it doesn't tell me rather than what it does.

 

The instructions are simple. Do this, then do that, then do that and poof... a marble looking texture you can apply to models.

 

Great.

 

What about the other ten trillion materials throughout the known world? This is what worries me. I see a lot of folks here on the forums making models with some crazy-cool looking textures and materials. Then I look in the library and the extras disc and I don't even have a skin texture. How do I make skin?

 

Then I look at the past entries of this lesson and I see one of the guys before me did transparancies and changed the background... and another guy made the Knight change slowly into marble after drinking from a marble bottle and I realize I don't know how to do any of that stuff (I know how to decal the camera now so yes I can change the background in the final render but is there an actual way to "change" the background?).

 

And the guy with the Tomette and the Knight looking up her dress has a fantastic sheen to those models... the Knight really looks like iron and the Tom and Tomette really look like stone. How did he do that?

 

Is there some sort of database that spells out the different settings to achieve certain materials?

 

I realize that a lot of the learning here is playing around with the program but this lesson had me run through about 15 or so different variables with no explanation on what they affect and to what degree. One could potentially "play around" with all those different settings for a lifetime and never find the exact material one might be looking for.

 

So I guess you try and find other cool stuff that other people have done and what: ask them what settings they used for the material?

 

This lesson scares me a bit. That said, what I was required to do for the lesson was pretty simple. Picture is attached.

 

As you can see, some improved knowledge of Smart Skin would have been helpful here in light of the unfortunate look of Tom's elbow, shoulder, knee and hip joints. When bent, they look ugly. Also, I applied the material to the bench when it was tiny in the modeling window and then upscaled it in the choreography. This turned out to be a mistake as the material scaled with it instead of staying small and ending up looking more like Tom. I actually like the stool better though. I think it looks more like real marble than Tom.

 

But it does add yet another unaccounted for variable. If scaling the material on the model can make them look that much different how does one experiment with different sizes without going through the arduous process of constantly importing the model into a choreography to see the differences?

 

This lesson left me with a LOT of questions.

 

[Rodney]

What about the other ten trillion materials throughout the known world? This is what worries me.

 

This lesson left me with a LOT of questions.

 

...and rightly it should.

Materials are a rather complex subject and it will take years to explore all of the options.

This exercise does introduce us to a much larger world out there.

 

One of the best ways to learn how to create a Material is to find one that strikes your fancy (or fulfills a particular need) and pick it apart to see how its made.

 

Start simple and work from there.

 

If you have a desire to really understand materials it may help to set other things aside and focus there. I wouldn't do this while working through TaoA:M. While working through TaoA:M you are trying to get a good look at the options that are there. The fact that you are seeing what other have applied to their scenes that you don't yet know how to reproduce tells me you are well on your way already.

 

Unless you want to specialize in materials however I wouldn't dive too deep into them just yet.

 

Now that you've been introduced to materials... try to work a little with them as the need arises and learn a little more about materials you encounter every day. Take good notes and share what you learn here. The rest of us will do the same.

[robcat2075]

Now you know how to make a "combiner' material.

 

Now you know enough to experiment.

 

Try the same steps but with a different combiner (checker, gradient, whatever..._)

 

Try different settings on the same combiner

 

Try a combiner in a combiner. Any attribute can be changed to a combiner, even an attribute in a combiner. These are called nested materials.

 

There is some further info on materials in the tech reference.

 

You can see a material on a model in the model window by using Q or Shift-Q and -drag a box around part of the model. You don't' have to render it in the chor.

[Timekiller]

Exercise 14

Complete 14 Feb

[HomeSlice]

Cool stripes!