Environment: Cerebro WIP

[JDex]

Here is another angle... I hope to have some other modeled elements imported before long. Any thoughts on material setting tweaks?

http://www.endpointmedia.com/PortA/cereb02.jpg

[lonesmurf]

Call me crazy, but i don't remember cerebro being made out of rubber foam.

And 200K polys seems really high for such a simple scene...

[JDex]

What would you reccomend as far as not making it look like rubber foam? It is a reflective metal shader.

As far as the poly count... it really is not high at all considering that each of the panels are individual objects that have enough polys to keep the contour and are beveled.

http://www.endpointmedia.com/PortA/cereb02a.jpg

[Tony Richardson]

I'm curious as to why you bothered to model the sphere that way?

All you needed to do was create a sphere and flip the normals and extrude the edges. You would get the exact same effect with only about 5600 faces and about two minutes work.

[lonesmurf]

As a general rule: detail is the way to go, but you try and get away with faking detail when no-one will notice.

I think that in this case, simple geometry would have been preferable. If you think that the shader is fine, it might be the lighting which is giving everything that plastic feel.

[JDex]

Well, first off... I originally modeled it with a much lower poly count and it was noticeable with the closer shots... The Specular highlights had a boxy appearance because the contour.

Just because I have shown only two angles does not mean that I only will use two angles for the animation.

As far as the material/lighting, rather than stating the obvious that something is wrong, do you have any reccomendations as to how I can improve this... perhaps some settings that I should change... I have experimented for hours with little improvement, I posted it for suggestions. :)

[JDex]

Big Update...

After some good points being made in this and other forums, I came up with this...

http://www.endpointmedia.com/PortA/cereb04.jpg

http://www.endpointmedia.com/PortA/cereb05.jpg

Still have a few more fill ights to play with, but I would really love some crits. Again, there are a few models yet to be imported.

[greekdish]

Maybe render it in Global Illum to make it look more realistic, as well as adding inperfections to the smooth metal all over.....in real life, each cube of the sphere would have its own warping ever so slightly....maybe adding some noise to the bump channel, although I dont know your end result of making each cube of the sphere, whether it was detail modeling or extruded polys. :shrug:

[JDex]

Here's a little more bg...

I created a sphere w/ 192 "u" subdivisions and 180 "v" subdivisions. I inverted the polys and extracted one strip (3 poly "v" wide). I extracted several panels from the strip (3-8 polys "u") and then had an individual piece of the sphere for each panel. I scaled them down (all axis) by 1% and then extruded (region) them. I then beveled the edges ever so slightly. I then created an outer sphere of the same original diameter with the same quant. of subdivisions and inverted the polys. I then instantiated them around the model center (0,0,0).

They definitely have the contour of a sphere and are not square, do you think I need to exaduate (sp?) the warp, and if so, how might I go about this?

As for FG/GI that is turned on and here are the settings (no HDRI).

GI

Accuracy 100
Radius 10
Reflect Depth 3
Max Depth 3

FG

Accuracy 50
Min Radius 2.5
Max Radius 3

Lights Emitting Photons

Key
Energy 0.75
Intensity 25000
GI Emitted Photons 75000

Fill1 (only affecting chrome group)
Energy 0.25
Intensity 25000
GI Emitted Photons 75000

Material Photon Settings

Dome
GI/FG Radiance .063

Chrome
GI/FG Radiance .25


Do you really think that a bump map or imperfections are appropriate... I envision this room as a flawless work of engineering that is kept meticulously clean (Prof. X seems pretty neat and anal). Maybe some finger smudges on the (not finished) control panel, but I dont see the surface of this room being handled or touched much more than that.

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