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December 2008 MMC
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
December 2008 MMC // Work in Progress
Post by Finis // Dec 11, 2008, 1:32pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Thought I wouldn't have time for the MMC but I did.
While looking at some old photos I thought this would be appropriate. Some experiments showed that this might not take long. It took around 9 hours total.
There is room for improvemnt but I might not do anything else since I need the time elsewhere.
I took these photos years ago at the Gila Cliff Dwellings. No scanner so I took digital pictures of the paper pictures. |
Post by Finis // Dec 11, 2008, 1:56pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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First I made a cliff with a cave.
I began with a cube, subdivided a couple of times, then point edited to get the basic shape. I beveled some faces to make a cave in the front. I subtracted a shape made from a cylinder to extend the cave through the cliff. That left the pillar. Then I used SDS and extracted the final mesh. Then I used the Wiggledy plugin from Cool Powers 2 to give the geometry some details.
The rock texture is a free sample from somewhere, or did it come with TS?
This is in TS 5 with TS 6.6 mostly for rendering with HDRI. |
Post by Finis // Dec 11, 2008, 2:10pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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The village is made of modified cubes. I should use Wiggledy to make the buildings less perfect but I have difficulty dividing them after the inside, windows, and doors were booleaned. Some crumbling and aging and dirty textures would help too.
The wall texture is not seamless but it works well.
The vigas and supports above the doors and windows could use less depth on the bump map. |
Post by Finis // Dec 11, 2008, 2:17pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Here is the cliff dwelling.
The lighting is HDRI with two infinite lights for sunlight and two spot lights to simulate reflected light.
The background is a photo from a hike. It is on a plane behind the cliff. |
Post by Breech Block // Dec 11, 2008, 5:17pm
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Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
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Great work Finis; the cave is just awesome! |
Post by tahnoak // Dec 11, 2008, 5:18pm
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tahnoak
Total Posts: 487
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Here is the cliff dwelling.
The lighting is HDRI with two infinite lights for sunlight and two spot lights to simulate reflected light.
The background is a photo from a hike. It is on a plane behind the cliff.
Very nice job Finis. I am still trying to master daylight lighting. |
Post by Mr. 3d // Dec 12, 2008, 12:51am
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Mr. 3d
Total Posts: 747
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Very NICE Indeed !:cool:
Great Textures.
With some doors, glass, and central air.....I'd definitely move in !!!
Ed Flintstone |
Post by rjeff // Dec 12, 2008, 2:02am
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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Looks nice. Love the light setup. I still don't know what I am doing wrong with my HDRI. I cannont keep from getting what looks like a 1000 points of light. I have way to may shadows from way to may directions on mine. No matter how many samples I add. How do you have your HDRI set up? |
Post by Steinie // Dec 12, 2008, 2:18am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Isn't this the tribe that mysteriously disappeared from their dwellings according to Historians?
My theory is that they were all Sleep Walkers...
Looks really good! |
Post by Finis // Dec 12, 2008, 11:08am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Breech Block and Tahnoak: Thank you.
Mr. 3d: Hmm, a modern cliff dwelling, hmm ... there may be a variation of this picture someday.
Steinie: The Mogollon people lived in the area from about 400 to 1400 AD. The cliff dwellings were abandoned in the early 1300's and are thought to have been built only around 1280. A pueblo on a nearby mesa was occupied around 500 through 1400 AD. It too was mysteriously abandoned. There are many other structures and archeological sites in that area. The Gila site is one of few cliff dwellings that are open to visitors.
rjeff: I'm no lighting expert either. Maybe it's the mapped shadows that prevented the multi-shadow problem. My HDRI settings are shown below. There are also two infinite lights and two spotlights in the scene. |
Post by Finis // Dec 13, 2008, 10:34am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Here is a test using Virtualight. There are two infinite lights pointed at the cave openings. I like the way the light reflects to the interior of the cave. The bump maps are gone of course. I thought I might do a VL render for cave lighting and a Lightworks to get the bump map and try to merge them in PSP. Too much work and time. I did rework the image though. Pic soon.
Does V-Ray do bump maps? Does any GI renderer? |
Post by Finis // Dec 13, 2008, 12:20pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Here I have done some more on the cliff dwelling.
- Pointed edited the village so the walls aren't so straight.
- Changed to a high resolution version background image.
- Changed the textures on the buildings, vigas, and door supports to have less bump height.
- Added local lights in some buildings to avoid the totally black openings, and set one infinite light to ray traced shadows so the vigas would have shadows.
- Used SDS, extract final surface, then polygon reduction tool on the cliff to remove some jagged spots.
- Changed texture scale, bump amplitude, and rotated UV space.
- Edited in PSP to cover some artifacts from the polygon reduction tool.
Crits and comments welcome. |
Post by Finis // Dec 15, 2008, 8:54am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Help me break stuff!
I'd like to add broken pottery to the scene. I can make a pot or bowl easily but how do I make shards and remove the missing pieces from the pot? |
Post by rjeff // Dec 15, 2008, 9:05am
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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Why not use the seperate tool in WS? That way you can seperate the exact parts out and they will fit. Is it also possible for you to post the hdri image you used, or is it to big? |
Post by rjeff // Dec 15, 2008, 9:09am
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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The only thing I can see about your image and your background image is the sun is shinning from a different direction. It appears that by your TS image the sun is bacisally over the sholder (left) of the viewer. The bkg image it is shinning from the right of it. Just a picky observation. |
Post by Finis // Dec 15, 2008, 9:49am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Hi rjeff,
I do have a light shining from the sunny side. It shines into the far side of the cave. You have a good point though. The lighting on the near side looks wrong for the background image. I'll work on that. Probably flip the background around and adjust infinite light positions.
Image needs dirt, debris, etc. but no time for all that. From what I've seen hiking and exploring, erosion features like this (this isn't a limestone cavern) are occasionally windswept and have little dirt except in "pools" where it collects. There would be rocks, boulders, and shards though.
The HDRI image I used came with TS 7.6 free download. It is house_outside_pano_half_VC.hdr. It is in some subdirectory of the textures directory. I saw the 1000 points of light phenomenon you described on pottery. The bump map seemed responsible for it.
I'm still workspace phobic. I planned to wait until TS 8 and then try the more finished product. But, people have been using it effectively so I'll try the separate tool with a scene having only pots and bowls to be saved as .cob files.
Any suggestions for non-workspace methods? |
Post by rjeff // Dec 15, 2008, 2:59pm
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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maybe a virtual hammer? :) |
Post by rjeff // Dec 15, 2008, 4:06pm
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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Post one of your pots and I will take a "crack" at it. |
Post by Finis // Dec 17, 2008, 11:28am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Here's some broken pottery.
Made in TS 6.6, model side with point edit mode, rectangle select tool with backside on, and separate tool. The pieces needed editing to add edges where they used to be connected.
@ rjeff -- Thanks for offering to break stuff. I tried virtual hammers -- particle systems that can explode an object. Might work if I took time to learn one properly. Separate tool on model side worked once I learned how to use it. |
Post by Finis // Dec 17, 2008, 11:39am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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This one has broken pottery and the background picture is reversed with moon repositioned.
I adjusted the angle of the sun light (infinite light with ray shadows) to better match the back ground. I removed the local lights inside some of the buildings since their effect was too subtle. So lighting here is HDRI plus one infinite light plus two spot lights.
Various touch ups done in Paint Shop Pro.
Large picture:
http://www.phosphorgallery.com/storage/Pueblo1280x1024.jpg
1080 wide screen:
http://www.phosphorgallery.com/storage/Pueblo1920x1080.jpg |
Post by tahnoak // Dec 17, 2008, 11:59am
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tahnoak
Total Posts: 487
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Keeps getting better and better. Noticed the moon moved more into the direct line of sight within the opening. Nice touch. |
Post by Weevil // Dec 17, 2008, 12:01pm
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Weevil
Total Posts: 534
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Nicely done, you've got a knack for making "blasts from the past" |
Post by Birdnest // Dec 17, 2008, 3:32pm
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Birdnest
Total Posts: 152
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Nice.
Where in the world, are those cave cliff dwellings located btw?
I noticed a comment a few posts ago that Vray and Virtual Light can't render the bump maps on the 3D models? Is that correct? ......just curious.
Where did you get that rock texture finis?
Quick question........I notice many of these posts contain a title of December MMC...can someone enlighten me? |
Post by Finis // Dec 17, 2008, 5:41pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Hi Birdnest,
The Gila (hee-luh) Cliff Dwellings are in western New Mexico, USA. There are others around the southwest. http://www.nps.gov/gicl
Virtualight does not do bump maps. I think Tom had a plug-in with something that would let Virtualight do that. Radiosity sort of will with one of its mixed modes. I don't know about V-Ray and bump maps.
MMC is monthly modeling contest. It is an informal contest run by forum members. There is a thread at the main forum level for it http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/forumdisplay.php?f=79 . The winner is chosen by a poll where forum members may vote. He gets to pick the subject for the next month's contest and also takes care of the technicalities like threads etc. The SMC, speed model challenge is similar.
The image for the rock texture is a free sample from Marlin Studios. They had a free sample hemispherical sky there too. Redistributing the file is probably not allowed by their rules so here is their site http://www.marlinstudios.com/
The finished rock texture is a double layer texture for the Lightworks renderer. The base layer has the image, bump, etc. Layer 2 has a color. That's to lighten the rock color. Settings: |
Post by spacekdet // Dec 17, 2008, 6:04pm
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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I think that you achieved the best shadowing/ lighting in the first image in post #4.
Observe areas like on the inside of the door frames...much nicer in the first shot.
The latest version has too dark, almost cutout-appearing openings- you lose the sense of the thickness of the walls and the nice shadowline from the top of the door frame.
The rock texture looks good so far, how about a bit of variation to break up the overall uniformity- some scuffing and wear /'sandier' where the foot traffic is, some vertical streaking on the curved upper portions, and a darker gradient tending towards the bottom/under the overhangs where the 'varnish' accumulates? The photos also show the rock a bit more red in tone, dunno if you're trying for an exact match or not. |
Post by Finis // Dec 17, 2008, 6:37pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Hi spacekdet,
You're right about all that.
I'll do some lighting to fix the openings but the rock texture will have to stay this way due to time. I'm making a version of this for a Christmas card and have already spent too much time on it.
The cliff could use more geometry too.
Not trying for a match to the photos. I just used them for general reference.
I'm no good at texturing except for multipart things where each piece has a texture. I can't make sense of what the UV editor does. Material rectangles appear in more than one place and I can't keep the extra rectangles from appearing in the image. Painting textures on selected polys would work. I tried that but it was going to take forever. TS 5 was faster at that than TS 6.6. Maybe TS 6.6's layers would be useful. I'll learn about that sometime. |
Post by Breech Block // Dec 17, 2008, 8:17pm
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Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
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Great work Finis and ditto tahnoaks's comment about the moon, it looks a lot better in its new position. |
Post by spacekdet // Dec 17, 2008, 9:05pm
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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I hear you there... UV Mapping is a Black Art.
As much as I love texturing, I'm not that good at wrapping my head around UV mapping.
Material Layers in 5/6 are still a joy to work with compared to the one-layer VRay texturing method we're stuck with in 7.x (only for the time being, I hope)
It's so much more satisfying to be able to mix and mask textures, bumps, and reflectance right on the object and not have to exit to another 2D program and glob everything onto one map there.
I barely have time to comment on 3D this time of year, I dunno how you guys manage to actually produce any!
My hat's off to you anyway, I've always wanted to try a cliff dwelling scene like this. They seem like very evocative and mysterious places.
Here's my stab (http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showpost.php?p=4011&postcount=5) at a sandstone/limestone formation, circa 2006. |
Post by Finis // Dec 18, 2008, 4:48am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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@Breech Block - Thanks!
@spacekdet - Those are great rocks. Moved together they would look like the real cliff in the photos in post 1. I'll probably work on the textures on this later. It could be a good project to learn from. Not for the MMC though.
I wonder though about investing too much time in learning about Lightworks texuring since it eventually might disappear from TS. Some skills would be useful for many texture systems I guess. |
Post by Finis // Dec 18, 2008, 12:58pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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This is probably my MMC entry.
This one has the sunlight direction adjusted to illuminate the doors and windows better and the color of the cliff adjusted to fit better with the background.
Crits and comments welcome.
Large Image:
http://www.phosphorgallery.com/storage/Pueblo1280x1024.jpg
1080 Wide Screen Image:
http://www.phosphorgallery.com/storage/Pueblo1920x1080.jpg |
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