United3dArtists Archive

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 04 Aug 2015, 15:54

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Finis · Post by **Finis** » 05 Aug 2015, 18:29

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jamesmc · Post by **jamesmc** » 05 Aug 2015, 19:43

Hey this stuff works pretty good. I put some it on your device. Hope you don't mind.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 06 Aug 2015, 01:48

Thanks James! I might need shiny ones too for the picture. Not sure yet.

Hey! Wait a minute. Now it won't be rusty for the challenge and your entry ...

jamesmc · Post by **jamesmc** » 06 Aug 2015, 07:22

Finis wrote:Thanks James! I might need shiny ones too for the picture. Not sure yet.

Hey! Wait a minute. Now it won't be rusty for the challenge and your entry ...

That's the idea!

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 06 Aug 2015, 17:34

Here is an experiment with Bryce terrain in Daz with Iray. Bryce height maps look like height maps with no horizontal detail. No overhangs etc. so cliffs and steep rocky land doesn't look right. I made two Bryce terrains. One I exported to an .obj file and I exported the image for the height map of the other. Then in Daz I imported the terrain object and applied the height map image as a displacement map. The terrain has cubic UV mapping so some displacement is horizontal.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 06 Aug 2015, 18:48

Wow, nifty trick. I started playing with terrains from Bryce too, since I got a deal one day. The height maps yeah, they work nicely, the terrain exports too, but interesting how you exported then applied the cubemap displacement. I do notice some jagged meshes due to that, but looks very very cool.

Like an iceberg.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 10 Aug 2015, 02:45

Getting work done gave me today off. By applying poor judgement and lack of discipline I worked on this instead of doing paperwork or cleaning my house or my yard.

The scene will be mysterious and kind of surreal. What the strange objects are, where they are, why they are there, and such will not be clear to encourage the viewer to use his imagination. There will be a theme which is also open to interpretation. It could be hope or perseverance or victory or similar things. This is a rough sketch that gives me a visual to refine. The scene will be dimly lit with several of the objects on the rocks and ground. One of them will be open. The ball will be free and will do something.

This Bryce terrain is mostly the Mounds modifier with a touch of smoothing. I'll probably put in another terrain as the ground in the foreground to better control the texture and shape.

I don't know Blender yet so I used trueSpace 7 model side physics to make this pile of Bryce rocks. Some need more simulation time to fall into place or I might move the odd ones manually.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 16 Aug 2015, 03:03

Too much work. I've done little on this project and I want to finish my flower picture too.

Changed the idea for the canyon bottom. It will have rocks spread around on sand and not a big rock pile. Maybe some small piles. The mystery objects will be on rocks and sand.

I had been arranging Bryce rocks above the sand object or foreground terrain and letting TS physics drop them to the ground so they would settle into believable positions and piles. That is really slow. Then I realized that Bryce is the tool for spreading rocks. So now I will spread the rocks with Bryce instancing and then just move them partially into the ground to hide any unrealistic positions. Maybe TS physics on a few to make a few small piles.

Bryce's renderer is awesome with very high polygon counts! I experimented with spreading instances of rocks and turning them into regular rocks instead of instances. I accidentally converted 275 instance rocks into terrains for a total of over 144 million polygons. Bryce rendered this in less that one minute! (true ambiance 9 rays per pixel) I have a 5 million polygon scene that took 20 minutes to render so there are many factors that effect its render time but that is impressive.

Also, it looked like each terrain was independently randomized so they were not copies of one terrain. Trying this again and converting instances of a few rocks to regular rocks I found them re-randomized too so that is a way to produce large numbers of unique rocks.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 20 Aug 2015, 00:53

Cold is much better but I took today off. The mysterious object needs work. UV's and some modeling for the open version. There will a few of them. The canyon walls texture could be better but the scene will be mostly dark. I'm eager to learn Blender. Moving between programs with .obj files is not the best.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 20 Aug 2015, 01:57

The sand is awesome!

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 20 Aug 2015, 19:06

Thanks Draise. It is a Bryce terrain, Perlin hills, with equalize modifier, and a beach texture from http://www.cgtextures.com" for color and displacement.

The rust hides my modeling so here are some images show it. I started by modeling random things in Hexagon and let the idea come from them. Otherwise the objects would be simple since the detail isn't needed for this image.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 20 Aug 2015, 19:09

Here is the open mystery object. Now to do camera and object placement, lighting, etc.

jamesmc · Post by **jamesmc** » 21 Aug 2015, 20:01

Need to shine that metal up Finis.

Perhaps some chrome shaders would help.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 22 Aug 2015, 18:03

James neither your de-rusting nor your painting it white kept me from rusting it again!

The close up of the distant mystery thing may be more artistic than my main picture. I think I'll add another mystery object. The black sky will have stars. Need to adjust the brightness of the glows. Dim for the distant one. I might make it darker to conceal the stretched texture on the cliffs and the background is intended to just suggest the land shape. Some depth of field helped that. Dimly lit pictures are difficult on computers since everyone has their screen brightness set differently.

I was going to put a plant sprout near the gold light but that is an overused thing in art. Also, while the balls could represent life or similar I want the picture to be open to varied interpretation by viewers. What could I put there? What could represent the effect of the free ball's nature/power/ability that would stimulate the imagination of viewers?

How many mystery objects do you think should be in the back ground and where? Should there be new or less rusty ones?

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 23 Aug 2015, 00:44

Wow, that last rust image is.. amazing.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 27 Aug 2015, 04:26

Thanks Draise. Can't take credit though since its awesomeness just happened. I was looking from this view to place the object, rendered, and there it was.

Here is a tube thing similar to the ones on my vase image. Some of these will grow around the light ball. Not sure about colors yet. I started to make it translucent with subsurface scattering but that is tricky with Iray and test renders took too long.

The red ball mystery thing on the left is needed to show the closed shape. I'll move it back some so the open one, ball, and tubes are closest. Also move the ball so tubes can be in some of the open space. The ball and mystery thing in the background will be moved closer.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 28 Aug 2015, 05:00

Rusty Mystery

bitkar · Post by **bitkar** » 28 Aug 2015, 10:07

that model is very nice... actually looks 10000x better in ceramic material than the rust :)

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 29 Aug 2015, 13:16

Finis wrote:Here is the open mystery object. Now to do camera and object placement, lighting, etc.

This one is my favorite. <3

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 29 Aug 2015, 15:43

I agree Bitkar. I modeled most of the objects with no image or idea in mind so they have more detail than needed for this image. The rust, especially the displacement, hides the detail. I'll probably put these objects in my Freebies thread.

Good eye Draise! I think I'll make an improved version of that one as the showcase image for this project for my website ... whenever I get it back online. Your favorite shows the objects better, tells the story with a sequence from closed to open object to free ball to (when added) tube growth, improves or fixes many things, and is a simpler more focused scene.

I like this accidental art one too. Here. It has the mystery, shows the objects, colors good, visual angle of the object complements the sand ripple angle, stimulates the imagination of the viewer, and has that look and feel that makes art. The simplicity is appealing and could be part of the story: the object is complicated which contrasts with the simplicity of the sand. Another contrast, intended for this project, is eternity vs. temporary. The balls and their power are forever but the containers rust away and the balls are freed.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 03 Mar 2016, 17:02

Working on creating a version with the viewpoint and arrangement of objects Draise favors above. I had moved the camera and changed things so how to recreate that? I created a plane in front of the camera, parented it to the camera so it would remain in front, and applied the existing image to it. With some transparency the camera looks through the plane. Then I moved the camera around, looking through the camera view, until I matched the image with the rocks in the models.

Now to place the rusty objects and balls. In this version the free ball will be yellow and the tube things will be there.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 06 Mar 2016, 20:17

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Rusty Mystery

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Re: U3DAC August 2015 - Rusty Mystery

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Re: U3DAC August 2015 - Rusty Mystery