Pagoda

[Masna]

I've been focusing on rigging, stylization, particle systems, I thought it was time I concentrate on something new for a while. I decided to try and work on terrain. The first thing that came to mind (for whatever reason) was an oriental mountain top with a small pagoda, a waterfall, and an enlarged looking banzai tree. I modeld and textured the mountain...now I need to find (or make) a pagoda, and somehow a waterfall. If anyone has any suggestions for making a waterfall or has a model of a pagoda that would be great. I doodled a bad drawing to kind of get the idea of the layout.

 

Thanks for your time,

Masna

[Caroline]

Just curious, why did you choose to have such a dense mesh on the mountain instead of something like this?

 

[Masna]

I used the terrain plug-in, the lazy way, and I guuess I didn't take into account the density of the mesh.

[Caroline]

I used the terrain plug-in

 

Oh, I haven't tried that yet.

 

If you want it that simple, the pagoda looks fairly easy - just extrude a circle and scale each spline as you go up.

 

The water could be a DarkTree material applied to a modelled waterfall.

[Masna]

I don't seem to have any DarkTree plug-ins. Do you know anywhere I can download it?

[Caroline]

If you have v13 (?) up, the plugin is built into A:M - create the material, right click the Attribute, change type to > Plugin > Darksim > SimbiontA:M. You then load the DarkTree material under Properties.

 

Otherwise you need to go to http://www.darksim.com/html/simbiontam.html and install SimbiontAM. I have not ever done this.

 

If you mean where do you find the DarkTree Material, they are on the same site in the Downloads section under Shaders.

[Masna]

Thanks Caroline. I have V.13 so the plug-in was built in. I didn't realize Darksim meant DarkTree. I thought it was some type of simulation.

[Masna]

I tried making the waterfall but I just couldn't find the right texture. I want to try to give the waterfall a flowing look which none of the DarkTree materials gave me. Is there a way to do this?

[Eric2575]

Yes, use particles. Do a search for "waterfall" and you will find a discussion on how to do it.

[Masna]

Thanks for the tip, Eric. I ttok your advice and used particles. The only problem i'm having is with rendering. Whenever I render the choreography form the camera view, the mountain is invisible. I took pictures of the rendering options. If anyone could tell me what exactly it is that i'm doing wrong, that would be great.

 

Thanks for the help,

Masna

[Caroline]

I don't know what is wrong with your settings. Maybe someone else can immediately pin point it?

 

What I would try is changing the Rendering Options to use This Dialog, rather than The Camera, and then render to tga with all options turned OFF except particles, and see how that goes.

[mtpeak2]

Try turning the fog off. I think particles ignore fog, that's why it's the only thing showing.

 

Also, as Caroline said, try changing it to this dialog, instead of the camera. You may have different setting in the camera properties, which doesn't show in the render options you are showing us.

[Masna]

Hey it works! Now about those trees... I remember seeing a post about a tree plug-in awhile back. Guess I should do a search.

 

Thanks,

Masna

[Caroline]

Search is good - you've probably found it already.

 

Just in case, it's called Treez and Holmes's tutorial is here:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=30938

 

It's brilliant.

[Masna]

Thanks for the link Caroline. Your right, it is brilliant.