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Smoking area


itsjustme

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  • 2 weeks later...

I haven't posted an update in about two weeks, so I figured I should do so to keep me rolling slowly forward. Unfortunately, it's been extremely busy for me...the progress doesn't look like much at the moment. I wouldn't have posted such a small change, but I needed to make sure I don't go more than a couple of weeks without showing something.

 

I did several experiments before I went back to what I had originally planned for the walls...going down dead-ends can really eat up time. I went with a modeled cinder block wall and will eventually get all of the remaining walls looking similar. I'm hoping to get a little time over the next couple of days. The present patch count is at around 280,000.

 

I'll try to have more accomplished next time I post something.

smoking_area_09_10_2010.png

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OK David, seriously. If you aren't going to be shooting that wall with a Macro lens, all that geometry is probably going to be way way way overkill. However, since you ARE modeling each brick.... Can you make the building explode using Newton? Or at least crash a car into it or something? Pleeeease? :)

Really great looking model.

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OK David, seriously. If you aren't going to be shooting that wall with a Macro lens, all that geometry is probably going to be way way way overkill. However, since you ARE modeling each brick.... Can you make the building explode using Newton? Or at least crash a car into it or something? Pleeeease? :)

Really great looking model.

 

The geometry is crazy overkill...absolutely.

 

I didn't think about it, but there is a future opportunity for a little destruction on the brick wall. I'd have to add a back side to each brick and change the way the grout is made, but I think it would be worth adding...at least for a portion of the wall. Thanks for suggesting it, Holmes!

 

The cinder blocks are connected into large sheets, so they would be more work to break apart. Here are closer views of a section of the cinder blocks showing the spline layout and how it looks in a final render.

 

 

-----------------------

EDIT

-----------------------

 

I decided it might be better to post a section of the cinder block wall in the "Free Models" section...here.

09_10_2010_cinder_block_wire.png

09_10_2010_cinder_block_final.png

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  • 3 weeks later...

Another two weeks has flown by...I've only been able to do a few hours of work on this since the last post. Just to show some kind of forward movement, I'll post another set of "so far" images. I've finished the cinder blocks...next I'll work on the ground and set up the break-away portion of the brick wall. My last estimate was pretty accurate...the patch count is 280,762.

 

Hopefully, I'll get some free time this week.

smoking_area_09_26_2010a.png

smoking_area_09_26_2010b.png

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  • 4 months later...
It's been a while ... any plans on revisiting this, or using it in production?

 

It's still ongoing, but extremely slowly at this point. Right now, I'm working on getting the installation tutorials for the Squetch Rig put together...of course, there are some tweaks that I'm adding to the rig before that gets finished. I've had very little free time lately, so that is also working against me. This project will get finished...although I admit it's taking me way too long.

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  • 4 weeks later...
David

 

Really looking forward to more of Bertram.

 

I'm trying to get to more on this, Steve. I've been spreading myself very thin lately, but it will happen. At the moment, I'm upgrading the Squetch Rig and then making installation tutorials...which is loosely related because that's what is going to be put into Bertram. I've had very little free time since sometime in December...I thought it would taper off at the end of January, but it hasn't. I've got about seven or eight irons in the fire, so there is still movement behind the scenes. Sorry for the delay. I'll see if I can do more in the way of multi-tasking...maybe that will help show some movement.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 1 year later...

David

 

I would be interested in the light settings. Very nice

 

I'm doing some borrowing of methods used by Rodger Reynolds, Stian and Yves...in combination.

 

There are three kliegs that make up the sun, the yellowish shadow casting sun, a blue non-shadowcasting sun and a negative blue shadowcasting sun. The yellowish sun is positioned 140,000 inches (about 2.2 miles) above the ground and the other two sun kliegs are set to "translate to" and "orient like" it. Then, the Choreography has the "Global Ambiance Type" set to "Global Color" set to the same blue color and the AO is set to "70% Occlusion Sampling" in the render settings.

 

I've added captures of the settings at the end of this post.

 

I still haven't added bounce lights, so it's lacking that for now. To possibly decrease render time, you could try a blue skylight rig to replace AO.

 

Hope that helps, Steve.

sun_klieg_settings_10_10_2014.png

neg_sun_klieg_settings_10_10_2014.png

neg_sun_with_shadows_settings_10_10_2014.png

sun_klieg_positioning_10_10_2014.png

AO_settings_10_10_2014.png

AO_render_settings_10_10_2014.png

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  • *A:M User*

Thanks David. I will break this down. I will be honest. I did not know you could add lighting to ao. Thank you for posting this, as I was wondering how you were able to achieve the results!

I think the results are wonderful

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this is looking really good so far... but 70% occlusion sampling??? :huh: are you sure you need it to be that high?

 

70% has given me great results with purely AO renders, but it could probably be reduced...I haven't experimented with turning it down for this scene yet.

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I rendered the smoking area with AO only with a white Ambiance Color to better see the AO grain. The quality settings (for these test images) go from 30 percent to 70 percent in increments of 5. If I were to stay with AO, the lowest setting I like is 65, but I still prefer 70.

 

I've added the renders in the attached ZIP file as individual images and as layers in a GIMP XCF file for comparison (you can just hide layers in GIMP to A/B each setting).

 

I then set up a 17 light hemisphere of blue bulbs to replace the AO and the render time was reduced considerably. I also reduced the saturation of the yellow sun light and put the present version of Bertram in the shade to see what it would look like...attached is that test as well.

 

There is still a lot to work on...it needs bounce lights, possibly a couple of fill lights, etc. I'll also need to finish Bertram so that I can see how he will really look in a closeup in the shade (texturing will help). So, I'll have to start making some decisions about how the final Bertram will look.

AO_quality_percentage_tests_10_16_2014.zip

sun_klieg_settings_10_16_2014.png

hemi_with_suns_test_shaded_Bertram_10_16_2014.png

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I think the minimum AO setting is 10% and that's worked well sometimes for animation. The flickering grain kind of cancels itself out and then compression smooths things over too.

 

I think I didn't write that very clearly...the test images start at 30 percent and go to 70 percent in increments of 5 (I'll tweak the original wording).

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Interesting study. what are the render times with AO? What was the render time with the sphere? We are using a sphere as well and some of the frame renders are very large in time.

 

Steve

 

I don't remember the render times for each AO setting, but (using 16 passes), AO at 70 percent quality with the three sun lights was about 1 hour and 45 minutes (of course, the time gets faster as you reduce the quality), with the 17 bulb light rig and the three suns was close to 1 hour and just the three sun lights without any ambient light was about 18 minutes.

 

I'm not too concerned about the render times since I'll be compositing Bertram into the scene. Also, my render times are pretty high due to the underpowered laptop I'm currently using.

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  • 5 years later...

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