Animation: Craftsman-style house flyaround

[Stimpy]

hi

right now it looks like your shadow casting light is nearly right above the house..

try putting it further away from the house, so that the posts and roof can actually cast some shadows onto the house or the ground.. i think this will make it look more interesting and give some more contrast and hence definition..

the model looks great but so far its just rather flat, like in that bottom pic of the stairs you posted... the upper pic you posted looks far better, since you can see where the sun hits the wall, the shadow of the roof, etc. only judging by the shadow of the tree in the lower right the lighting is a bit TOO dramatic.

try finding a nice middle and you should really be fine.

the reflections in the windows actually didnt bother me too much.
and i assume the moving patterns on the roof are due to low antialiasing ?

[gnarlycranium]

I'm having a hard time deciding where to put the main light, because if I shine it on one side of the house nicely, the other side is too dark, and flat as you pointed out. The first pic I posted is of the front of the house, and the second one is under the carport on the opposite side. It's a dilemma... I'm also not sure why the tree shadows came out so dark. I can't afford to raytrace the shadows, but I need to figure out something to make those trees less dense.

Yes, the weird swimming patterns are from the aliasing and compression.

Thanks a lot for taking a look! :D

[BiTMAP]

your far away render looks good, your render under the carport has no feeling to the wood
perhaps add shader's and such
give the wood a gloss and depth to the texture, also try something more detailed with the ground if you can figure out how... I like the house, and your rocks are quite nice.

[gnarlycranium]

What do you mean, add shaders? Are you sure it isn't just the bad lighting, that wood material is actually fairly complex... at least, I tried...

The ground was one of the hardest parts, I'm still not quite sure what to do with it. If I tile it enough to look alright close up, it looks like an icky patterned mess from farther away. Another dilemma. The texture is made up of pieces from several very high-res photos, mixed with nested noise maps to break them up... I fiddle with it endlessly, yet it never looks right. :annoyed:

[BiTMAP]

try brush and particle work (stuff i my self don't know how to do but have seen)

[Edgemaster]

Hey your renderings looks pretty good. But one thing is that the shadows feel like there not really casting a shadow..Your using omnis for your lighting? Maybe put like one raytrace light in your scene to make those shadows more define...It will make your rendering time even longer with the ray trace light..But do not use a omni for a ray trace light.use like a spot or something just no omni..I think fixing your lighting can make your rendering better ..

[gnarlycranium]

BiTMAP : I have no idea what you're talking about?

edgemaster6661 : I have 5 omnis for ambient lighting, and 1 Direct light that is casting shadows. Raytracing the shadows slaughters my rendering time, so I was really hoping to avoid that, but I guess I could try it.

[Jimzip]

Cool model, would have taken quite a while I'm guessing.
The texturing on the ground, perhaps you should just find another texture for the grass, 'cause it looks like that one isn't being to co-operative.
This would be a great model for a game though!:D

[e338]

hi,
nice database. big work.
for the lighting of such a scene, you should try to create a very light dome (16-32 or more spots, with rough shadowmaps, converging in the center of your scene) , it gives results "close" to Global Illumination and it's not too long to render if you optimise it. it melts objetcs together, and add details to junctions.

then, you add a direct spot, with a big shadowmap (4096x4096), a sharp bias (0.1), that will give you the main lightsource of the scene. If you can avoid Raytrace shadows, it's a good thing, considerating the time you have to compute the movie.
you can increase the shadowmap size to amazing values to get sharper shadows on big scenes, most of the time it's faster than raytrace.
may be you will have to boost the multiplier of the shadow, because of the effect of the dome.
am i clear... arg

now, regarding the animation, try to create a logical approach of the scene. Play with perspectives, translations.
As if you were visiting the place with someone who never saw it.
Have a walk- stop- move your camera target to see different parts, details-walk again to a different side, facade. etc

it's a bit frustrating to return on your steps when you only have 2min to visit a place.
try to determine the hot points of the scene and create a logical walk between them.
you're free, it's CG,
you can move like a bird if you want :)

hang on

[gnarlycranium]

Jimzip: It did take a while, especially considering the extra two weeks for putting in the rocks again after the file got corrupted! As for the ground... I've switched textures so many times, in so many different scenes, I'm about ready to tear my hair out. This was the best I could do-- I need to find some other way!

e338: 16 or 32 spots? Wouldn't that take forever?! How is it that you 'optimize' something like that so it doesn't turn into a monster? I am very curious and interested to know, since you seem to know what you're talking about...

4096x4096, you say? Wow... okay, I guess now I know why I thought the map size setting didn't really DO anything, I've never tried changing it that much!

I'm not too worried about the composition of the flyaround right now, it was important to keep it short. Later on, though I will be making longer, more detailed shots, including the interior... I'm not so much worried about making it look good as getting the camera to DO what I want it to, instead of flipping all around and looking behind itself or at the ceiling, or going jerkily along the path. That little loop around the carport post was the fanciest thing I could do without it messing up horribly, and there's still a jerk as the camera sweeps back out to its circular path. Acck!

[e338]

hi,

16, 32, sometime 64! you don't have to be scared.
Max will only compute the shadows at the first frame. If there are no objects moving in the scene, it keeps shadows from previous frame.

Now, for the spots.
bias, 0.1 to 0.3
closer to zero, it gives accurate shadows but takes longer to compute. Don't mind, for the dome, use what i've said.

Shadowmap size, gives a more detailed shadow when you increase the size of the map.
try to create a verticale grid, or a chair (macintosh or shtg).
Create a spot with a map size of 128
watch the result

now, turn on raytrace shadows
compute
you might see what you want, a sharp shadow
now, turn it on shadowmap again, and increase the value to a beautiful 2048
compute
Yeah! Fonky!

generally, you'll only need raytrace shadows for glass shadows and stuff like that.

for the sahdows of the dome, you have to use low values, like 64 or 128
they melt together to create a "fake radiosity"
see the pict to have an idea of the orientation. The one i joined is under Maya, but it works the same way.

try it, experiment

and you should create a simple scene, with few objetcs, only one spot, and make X tests to see all the parameters of a single spot, what it creates, changes, and if it's time consuming.

hang on

[gnarlycranium]

e338: This is AWESOME! I don't know exactly how you arrange your 16 or 32 or whatever, my brain is farting on the arrangement for some reason... but I've put in 24, and despite some weird bands of darkness... it's just plain spifftastic! I guess I should take it to the WIP forum for a bit to get some advice on these weird shadow-patches, and how to set up the right arrangement of lights to keep it from happening...

[e338]

well
a dome is a group of light that creates something close to a sphere ( or at least half a sphere ), with targets converging in the center of the sphere. This is where you have to put the scene you want to enlight.
hope it'll help
cheers

[gnarlycranium]

Yeah, I got that... what I'm doing right now is putting the lights on the 4 corners of 8 splines, arranged at right and 45 degree angles to each other. Looks like this.

[gnarlycranium]

Might help if I actually attach the pic I mean. :rolleyes:

[e338]

considerating the size of your scene, you should create a biger dome, with more spots, with a shorter cone angle.
Play a bit with the attenuation, to have smoothed transitions between your spots.
And one more thing,
separate your dome in, at least, 2 groups of instanced lights.
You will have separated controls for the sky and the ground.

What i call "sky" is the light from the top till the ground, that you can colorise a bit to warm up your scene.

The "ground" light is supposed to light up objets like under the roof, (see attached pict).
You can also colorise it, with subbtle values like green or blue, which gives good results.

if you start groovin" hi with such a dome, then, may be you will want to separate the sky part in 4 parts, uh??? mmm! better control again... yeah!

all of this sounds like "WIP" advices, isn't it?


enjoy

[gnarlycranium]

I was actually thinkin about that ground vs sky thing as soon as I figured out what you were on about-- I usually color my omni fill lights a bit different from each other. I won't start changing stuff like that in the dome though until I have the thing set up properly.

And this IS kinda WIP stuff... so I've gone and made a thread for just that over here (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27414)!

[JBruckner]

Its really nice, I dont see anything wrong with it. Its not like there are going to be pro grafix designers coming to your site examing your lights, but hey its your time! I am sure this si going to be great, it pretty damn hootin now!

[gnarlycranium]

Thanks!! :D And yeah, it's my time alright... not as if I'm getting paid for this extra tweaking, I just wanna figure out how to do this thing, it makes stuff look so much cooler!

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.