Christmas card project

[wildcard]

Almost Christmas and already Christmas cards are landing on my doormat and I expect I’ll find some digital Christmas e-card in my email box any time soon.

 

So instead of building my own e-card online with often pairs with unwanted e-mails I thought why note create my own digital Christmas card created with AM. Quick easy and simple... or at least I initially thought it would be easy...

 

I’m expecting it’s not a whole lot of work, but for someone who is still learning never done any kind of animating before it’s really time consuming and a challenge.

 

The idea is,

White background/ground,

Render 1 or 2 Christmas balls, hanging from a branch,

shadow cast on the ground

Text added (what should be seen in the reflection of the balls)

 

Pretty much the following image

 

I’ve created a branch with thick green hair that would qualify as Christmas tree branch, best I could come up with in the least amount of time Not really that good looking, but quick and easy and will pass for a branch. (So if any one has any points on modeling a more realistic looking branch in a short amount of time I'm all ears)

 

Created spheres to pass for Christmas balls, but I’ve not much experience setting up a reflective surface and the color don’t feel right, but I guess that’s due to the reflection, shiny, bling bling look that is missing and very likely the light sources around it. Added a Ribbon tying the ball with the branch, but the ribbon looks... leather/plastic like.

 

If anyone could assist me in setting up the proper color/reflection settings that will make a ball look like an actual Christmas ball as well as getting the ribbon to look like actual piece of cloth that isn’t reflective, shiny like plastic/leather.

 

Any help/points more then welcome

 

***Edit***

My current trial 'n error project file

xmas.prj

Quick render of what I got so far

 

Made few changes based on the advice been given, but didn't quite understood everything

The sphere is low patch count, but thinking about redoing it to get a slightly better rounder looking ball.

The Ribbon looks much better, but hoping to improve it a bit more. It still has a real thin look when twisting and turning. Anyway to make it more fluffy cloth looking? Though about adding hair to it as well but, very dense but extremely short, just to buff up the thickness a bit, but I expect that there is an other way.

 

What bothers me the most is still the look 'n feel of the ball it self.

Might be because I've little to no object to show up in the reflection of the ball, but i expect there a more settings I'v not played with yet that can improve the look.

[Fuchur]

You should show us what you've got so far, so we can help you better.

 

*Fuchur+

[wildcard]

You should show us what you've got so far, so we can help you better.

 

*Fuchur+

Will do when I get back home from work

[robcat2075]

getting the ribbon to look like actual piece of cloth that isn’t reflective, shiny like plastic/leather.

 

Turn off all the specularity

 

drop the "Diffuse falloff" to something lower than 100%

 

possibly add some tiny "roughness"

[agep]

Created spheres to pass for Christmas balls, but I’ve not much experience setting up a reflective surface and the color don’t feel right, but I guess that’s due to the reflection, shiny, bling bling look that is missing and very likely the light sources around it

For the ball I would suggest HDR environment. Set your material to 100% reflectivity, Reflection Filter and Reflection Blend to about 80%

 

Quick setup:

 

 

soft reflections:

 

[John Bigboote]

This would be a good fit for the MatCap shader... if it still 'was'...

[robcat2075]

.

The Ribbon looks much better, but hoping to improve it a bit more. It still has a real thin look when twisting and turning. Anyway to make it more fluffy cloth looking?

 

Yes, single patches are infinitely thin. You can fake thickness by grouping the CPs on one edge and setting the group to "render as lines" and picking a slightly lighter or darker color and a small width value for the line. Then do that for the opposite edge.

[Rodney]

This would be a good fit for the MatCap shader... if it still 'was'...

 

Matcaps still work fine in v16 32bit... they just haven't been reworked for 64bit.

 

[NancyGormezano]

What bothers me the most is still the look 'n feel of the ball it self.

Might be because I've little to no object to show up in the reflection of the ball, but i expect there a more settings I'v not played with yet that can improve the look.

 

A couple of things that might help:

 

1) You can set ground/options/cast reflections=OFF. That way, you won't get that bottom white half reflection.

 

2) Create an environment map material (like Stian was suggesting) on the ball, but you can use any ol' image for the surface, it doesn't have to be hdr.

 

If you want red ball - use a red shinyish image in the environment map. Set surface reflectance property to whatever % value you want. I have it at 80-100%. Don't set the ambiance intensity surface property of the ball. Leave it default. And yes make sure the ball has something to reflect as well. Set spec color, size, intensity of ball surface to whatever you like.

 

3) You probably want to change the length of the branch hair (I made it 3"). Probably make the density less (I used density = 2, tweak to taste). Use an image emitter for the hair, I used a cream/white variegated image, that actually was the same image used for the "white christmas ornament" surface. It adds some variation, dimension. I made the specular on the hair emitter surface property bright yellow. Make sure the lights in your chor have spec = ON

 

4) I played with the diffuse shader as well for the ball - found I liked oren-Nayer. You may not.

[wildcard]

A couple of things that might help:

 

1) You can set ground/options/cast reflections=OFF. That way, you won't get that bottom white half reflection.

 

2) Create an environment map material (like Stian was suggesting) on the ball, but you can use any ol' image for the surface, it doesn't have to be hdr.

 

If you want red ball - use a red shinyish image in the environment map. Set surface reflectance property to whatever % value you want. I have it at 80-100%. Don't set the ambiance intensity surface property of the ball. Leave it default. And yes make sure the ball has something to reflect as well. Set spec color, size, intensity of ball surface to whatever you like.

 

3) You probably want to change the length of the branch hair (I made it 3"). Probably make the density less (I used density = 2, tweak to taste). Use an image emitter for the hair, I used a cream/white variegated image, that actually was the same image used for the "white christmas ornament" surface. It adds some variation, dimension. I made the specular on the hair emitter surface property bright yellow. Make sure the lights in your chor have spec = ON

 

4) I played with the diffuse shader as well for the ball - found I liked oren-Nayer. You may not.

 

Looks really nice, not having the floor appearing in the reflection does give it a much better look. the altered branch is also much better looking.

Would you mind sharing the adjusted/new project file? So I can get a better look/feel for the property fields that have been altered.

I'm not very accustomed yet will all the AM settings (what they are called and their location in AM) so often I'm looking for a needle in a haystack even when it's right under my nose. To many option to drown in for a beginner

[NancyGormezano]

My pleasure! I've enclosed 2 project files, with the images used as well. Put the images in same folder as project, but you will probably have to relink them when A:M asks you for their location. The differences between the project files is that 1 uses the plug-in FakeAO (ver16beta5) and the other doesn't. I am guessing you haven't downloaded the plug-in FakeAO.

xmasMod.zip

[wildcard]

My pleasure! I've enclosed 2 project files, with the images used as well. Put the images in same folder as project, but you will probably have to relink them when A:M asks you for their location. The differences between the project files is that 1 uses the plug-in FakeAO (ver16beta5) and the other doesn't. I am guessing you haven't downloaded the plug-in FakeAO.

Nope don't have that plugin.

 

Noticed that my original Christmas ball almost matched your tweaked one. Just copying those changes in to my project didn't make much of a difference.

Lights and more elements to be seen in the reflection where needed to give to a whole lot more realistic look.

 

 

The branch did you brush/groom the hair in place? for it looks really nicely done and evenly spread out. Or did you apply an other trick to get them in place?

[NancyGormezano]

The branch did you brush/groom the hair in place? for it looks really nicely done and evenly spread out. Or did you apply an other trick to get them in place?

 

I don't believe I groomed them. I thought you had aready? All I did to yours was to increase the length (Materials/branchhair/hair system/length=3"). Thought it looked nice the way it was, so I left it. But I thought it was too dense, so in the hair emitter props I changed the density=2. Perhaps the direction variation of 15% is what is giving it a nice random look. I also added an image for the emitter. And I changed how they were being displayed hair system/realtime/density factor = 100%, so that I could see the changes as I made them.

 

When I look at it now, I see that perhaps the needles could be shaped to end pointier (by changing thickness property at 100%) - but it's a matter of taste.

[NancyGormezano]

Nope don't have that plugin.

 

There is a free version that works only with ver16 found here

 

Not essential for this image - but gives an added ooomph.

[wildcard]

Ah, so thats why it didn't work. Will give the plugin a shot in V16 later

 

I don't believe I groomed them. I thought you had already?

The branch in the project I uploaded is not longer the same in my current project. I guess I groomed it right on the first attempts and with all the tweaking/tinkering I did with my current branch I made a mess out of it. Beginner luck