Where can I get a world of Junk?

[Shade01]

I would make lots of little pieces and clone in layout. For stuff way in the background I'd just make low poly heaps that resembled junk.

If you have time, you could arrange lots of junk shapes, render them then reapply them as sprites on strips of polygons. You could layer tons of junk that way.

[CourtJester]

I recall one meeting at Westwood where we were looking at some of Craig Mullins' (http://www.goodbrush.com) work (the bank commercials) and our AD looked at one of those shots and exploded "Do you know just how hard it is to get good junk?"

I suggest you determine ahed of time what sort of junkyard you want. Are we talking landfills, with mounds of barely recognizable stuff, or more like an auto wrecker's yard or industrical scrap heap, which will be filled with rusted out, but still recognizable hulks and shells of distinct objects? The approach I'd take would be different for each, with the latter being the most daunting.

I'd suggest that you collect as many meshes you have of cars, spaceships, buildings etc. and kitbash their parts all over the place with Pointclone. When composing your shot, have a few dominant structures or objects to lead the eye, then fill in lesser details using "cheaper" techniques like clip-mapping low-poly clusters of geometry.

Be warned that doing this to a photoreal level could be a big task. Be sure to share your results so we can learn from your experience!

[LWD]

Time to tap into the internet's supply of free, often crappy LW models. Especially cars. Crush and pile high, work out some rusty textures....sounds like fun actually. This is one time when not so great looking free models would actually be useful.

Dave Adams
I,ROBOT/Digital Domain

[Claymation]

Get a good pile or two that you can rotate and put them in the background. Then render out a image and load it back in as a backdrop. Alot of geometry will take forever to render.

That said I would take a camera and walk around the city (if you are near one) and just photograph every pile of junk you can find. I'd even just map some of it onto squares and such. There will be so much of it from what you are saying that I wouldn't even worry about making every piece detailed.

Also you might want to have dust covering some of it, or paper since it will be too difficult to walk on actual piles of junk.

I also rememebr there are some good images of piles of junk in teh Akira comics. look through them for some ideas.

Jay

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