FXWars! "Dracula's Castle"!: Jonas Ussing, EXTERIOR

#21

love the look of the final sequence :slight_smile:

#22

POST YOUR ENTRY! FXWARS !Dracula’s Castle Challenge:8 -R

#23

I’m not hosting a picure (and don’t have FTP access right now), so I’ve provided a link for a CGTalk image attachment, I hope that’s OK?

  • Jonas

EDIT: yup, that seemed to work. :slight_smile:

http://kvaalen.com/fxwars/index.php

#24

I voted for yours in every category. Yours may not have been the most real looking but it kept my interest more then any other, the music really got me into it, and it worked. Downloading was quick, easy, and possible. This may not be directly part of the contest but I tend to think in terms of what clients need. I would much rather have someone who can make something pretty and deliver it on time then someone that can make something photorealistic and have troubles being able to use the final product on time.
Good work, keep it up.

:beer:

#25

The other entries have me very impressed, so I bow to your compliments!

Thanks,

  • jonas
#26

Jonas tell us a bit more about your entry…

-R

#27

OK, here’s a little “making of”. :slight_smile:

- Castle modelling

First step was to create a mockup of boxes and cylinders, and make a camera move around that. The music was selected very early in the process, and I knew I wanted to make the gimmick with the torches.

Then, inspired by creating game levels, I created a tileset of walls, corners, tops, windows, etc., and started fleshing out the model.

dracula_bhts_01.jpg517x552

Since there wouldn’t be a total shot of the castle, the design focused on how the structure would be revealed during the camera sweep, rather than the larger design of the whole building.

dracula_bhts_02.jpg559x617

The tower base was of course a cylinder, and the details were made by modelling only a 32th, and instancing that “around the clock” 31 times.

dracula_bhts_03.jpg838x355

All too soon before deadline I used the top tile and some simple extruding and instances to create the bridge in about 5 minutes.

#28

[i][b]- Textures

[/b][/i]Having created the tileset, I started working on the materials. I found a proper rock picture, and made it tileable, using the clone brush in Photoshop.

Then I mapped that onto a 100*100 segment plane in Max, which I modelled to look like the rocks, using displacement maps and a noise modifyer.

Then, using a simple 1*1 segment plane with a projection modifier, I created a normal map for the rock wall.


Having a color map and a normal map, I now had a perfect rock material. :) I also used a level'ed version of the color map as specular.


I repeated this for several different rock patterns, to create a little variation in the structure.

The maps for the windows were hand painted, with bump maps.
#29

[i][b]- Flames

[/b][/i]The fire was created using the classic “fake”… A cylinder with a falloff map in the opacity slot (to make the sides “fade out”, and a white-yellow-orange gradient as a color map, 100% selfillumination, and the top vertices (with a soft selection) modified by a noise controller, moving upwards.

This is very similar to the physical fake torches you can get, where a piece of cloth is blown by a fan, and lit by a lamp.
#30

[i][b]- Environment

[/b][/i]The mountains visible in the horizon is a photo I took in Egypt during sunrise at the top of Mount Moses.

I would like to have had a lot of trees on the cliffs, and clouds in the sky, but time caught up with me, and I dissed the trees, and replaced the clouds with a star-scattered night sky.
#31

[i][b]- Compositing

[/b][/i]I rendered out the following passes, and comped them in After Effects: The renders was created using Max’s default scanline renderer, with simple image motion blur.

[ul]
[li]Ambient (skylight - without bump/normal maps)[/li][li]Fake ambient (omnis - with bump/normal maps) [/li] This pass was multiplied with the ambient pass to add bump detail.
[li]Moonlight (with area shadows, because I like the soft edges)[/li][li]Moon specular[/li][li]Window matte [/li] (to control the reflection and specular bloom specifically in the glass)
[li]Sky reflection (all rock material had a sligh reflection of a gradient, to simulate reflection of the sky)[/li][li]Depth pass[/li][li]Flames (with the castle as a matte object) [/li] I wanted the flames as a seperate pass, so I could control glow.
[li]Flame lights [/li] (omnis placed at the center of the torches, illuminating the otherwise black castle structure)
[li]Sky: Star background[/li][li]Sky: gradient (to simulate the look of a real sky)[/li][li]Sky: moon glow (a huge, soft, round blob on a plane, to use as in-camera moon glow)[/li][li]Sky: The moon (just a flat picture)[/li][/ul]

dracula_bhts_08.jpg639x1630

That’s about it. :slight_smile:

   Cheers,
   - Jonas
#32

Hey all, check the last 5 posts on this page and the previous page for some “making of” pictures. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

  • Jonas
#33

Again, I really enjoy watching you’re work, everything is so well thought out, just great! When I see you’re workflow I realize there is much for me to learn :slight_smile:

#34

You’re too kind, Droidoz! :slight_smile:

Thanks,

  • Jonas
#35

OK folks, I feel this clip isn’t entirely polished (abandoned, not finished, like Trey and that Lucas guy said), and I want to finish it for my reel, and make it entirely kick arse. :wink:

So, what do YOU think the clip needs to be perfect?

Cheers,

  • Jonas
#36

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