Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Heintje
Nov 10, 2004

I sing a song for you
Join usssss. It's bliiiissssss.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

ErIog
Jul 11, 2001

:nsacloud:
I have a question for anyone using Blender, I'm getting banding on subtle shadows. I've tried futzing with every single light setting I can find, but they always show up the same way. I've also futzed with the shading settings on the material, and they never go away. It's a very small project, just 5 and 10 second logo stingers for a "client" that has lots of strict rules about what can be done with their logo imagery. It's only one scene, and I think I have a workaround.

There is some text in front of a plane, and there's no banding in the shadows from the text. There's only banding from the larger shadow created by the light.

What I might do is get the rest of the light on the plane as even as possible outside the text shadow, and then create a texture for the plane in photoshop that simulates the effect I want. I believe that should get rid of the banding.

If there's some other fix using composite nodes or something, I'd like to know. I tried futzing with those too, but I could never get the shadow pass composite to look right.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

I assume by 'light settings' you're also covering the shadow settings in that? Otherwise is the banding only turning up in the file you're rendering to or on screen as well?

ErIog
Jul 11, 2001

:nsacloud:

SynthOrange posted:

I assume by 'light settings' you're also covering the shadow settings in that? Otherwise is the banding only turning up in the file you're rendering to or on screen as well?

Yeah sorry, the shadow settings are per light and so I counted the shadow settings as lighting settings.

The banding is showing up in all renders even just still frames.

EoinCannon
Aug 29, 2008

Grimey Drawer
A 2 hour speed sculpt practice. 30 mins in MAX, rest in ZBrush
I wanted to do something human but charicatured and warped in some way
This is what came out

brian encino man
Nov 19, 2008

God drat, 2 hours? I really hate you.

sigma 6
Nov 27, 2004

the mirror would do well to reflect further

brian encino man posted:

God drat, 2 hours? I really hate you.

Yeah . . . I echo that compliment. :)
Wanna post a timelapse?

EoinCannon
Aug 29, 2008

Grimey Drawer
I wouldn't mind doing a timelapse.
What kind of recording software would you use to do something like that?
Also my freeform sculpts always go through an embarrassingly bad looking stage while I'm looking for what works so I don't know how useful it would be.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

Doesnt Zbrush have a built in timelapse utility?

edit: Yup, under the Movie menu.

olblue
Nov 9, 2003

...lets go exploring!
Fallen Rib
go get Camtasia from https://www.techsmith.com - theres a free 30 day trial you can use for that - you can set it to record you every 30 seconds or just record the entire process. If you record it all and need a host for the video drop me a pm :)

sigma 6
Nov 27, 2004

the mirror would do well to reflect further

EoinCannon posted:

I wouldn't mind doing a timelapse.
What kind of recording software would you use to do something like that?
Also my freeform sculpts always go through an embarrassingly bad looking stage while I'm looking for what works so I don't know how useful it would be.

How fast does it usually take you to build your base head in Max? Do you ever just use a default head and work from that? Or a sphere or box?

I just had my students spent a class making a quick head out of a sphere in zbrush. They hadn't used it much and I wanted to get them comfortable in the environment. Also, I wanted to demonstrate why it is so important to have proper topology to start with when modeling. Still . . . some people online have sculpted nice heads from spheres and then re-topo'd it. That backwards approach seems harder to me but apparently some people prefer it.

I wonder which takes more time? Or is it just a matter of becoming REALLY efficient in zbrush?

Oh . . . and I agree camtasia is pretty awesome.

EoinCannon
Aug 29, 2008

Grimey Drawer
This basemesh took about half an hour from sratch. Usually I will use a standard one I made a while ago but I want to really get loop and pole placement into my head so I thought I'd see how quick I could sketch one out in MAX this time. It's pretty fugly but the point is that it has loops and resolution in some of the right areas.

I've tried sculpting heads from a box but I prefer to have some kind of topology. You end up using fewer polys and it looks better. If you really don't know anything about topology, then going from a sphere and then retop'ing later can be a good learning experience because you get a new perspective on how the loops describe the muscles.

I figure if you're experienced in MAX/Maya/Whatever and can quickly acheive some kind of topology, you're helping yourself creatively in ZBrush. If you have no technical knowledge and just want to sculpt, worrying about topology is going to hinder you creatively. Having a standard basemesh for what you're trying to acheieve (often a humanoid bust) is the best of both worlds, althought you still have to heed it's topology a bit while sculpting.

International Log
Apr 3, 2007

Fluent in five foreign tongues!
Grimey Drawer

Heintje posted:

<wordy words>

*head explodes*

No but really, that looks challenging indeed. I think i'd lose patience very quickly and would start throwing dinnerplates against the wall, or something like that. maybe I'm a bit more visual type person, I dunno. But i guess trying couldn't hurt...

Sigma-X
Jun 17, 2005

ErIog posted:

I have a question for anyone using Blender, I'm getting banding on subtle shadows. I've tried futzing with every single light setting I can find, but they always show up the same way. I've also futzed with the shading settings on the material, and they never go away. It's a very small project, just 5 and 10 second logo stingers for a "client" that has lots of strict rules about what can be done with their logo imagery. It's only one scene, and I think I have a workaround.

There is some text in front of a plane, and there's no banding in the shadows from the text. There's only banding from the larger shadow created by the light.

What I might do is get the rest of the light on the plane as even as possible outside the text shadow, and then create a texture for the plane in photoshop that simulates the effect I want. I believe that should get rid of the banding.

If there's some other fix using composite nodes or something, I'd like to know. I tried futzing with those too, but I could never get the shadow pass composite to look right.

Did you get this fixed? I don't know poo poo about blender but in general banding can be fixed by adding some slight noise. If you can render out a light/shadow pass (might need to blur it slightly) to use as a mask for an overlaid noise pattern (which should be a static image so you don't get animated noise from frame to frame) it should help smooth that out.

Hazed_blue
May 14, 2002
Aaaand we're off to the races:

I took some good time to convert the in-game, low-poly head model into quads, along with a complete topology revamp so that I can make this hi-rez adventure as painless as possible. Having a blast so far. I'm drawing upon both my original texture and the cinematic face done by Blur for inspiration, but I think I'm gonna try and go out of my way to do it a little bit differently this time. There are things that I couldn't fit into a texture that I'm excited about exploring in actual geometry.

Alan Smithee
Jan 4, 2005


A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms.

Enthusiasms, enthusiasms...
Just wanted to let beginners like me know http://www.sharecg.com is a pretty good resource similar to http://www.highend3d.com

they provide a pretty good cache of files in different package formats, if anyone knows more links please post

Heintje
Nov 10, 2004

I sing a song for you

International Log posted:

*head explodes*

No but really, that looks challenging indeed. I think i'd lose patience very quickly and would start throwing dinnerplates against the wall, or something like that. maybe I'm a bit more visual type person, I dunno. But i guess trying couldn't hurt...

Aaaah I'm melting my brain on a daily basis. I like to think I'm getting smarter but I find myself trying to open doors the wrong way on a more regular basis.

On the other hand when you pull off something mentally challenging and it looks freakin awesome it's fun to yell gently caress YES. (I just did that this afternoon, I'll point you at the renders when they are public).

drunkill
Sep 25, 2007

me @ ur posting
Fallen Rib
Hey all, been a lurker of this topic for awhile now, some pretty neat things going on.

I'm just starting out with 3dsmax as part of my uni course, we've got an assignment to model, texture and light a room. I've gone with a sorta sci-fi theme and Have done the basic model, will be adding details over the next few days.


edit: nevermind, sorted out the question. Might post progress shots of the room later on.

drunkill fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Mar 25, 2009

Edmond Dantes
Sep 12, 2007

Reactor: Online
Sensors: Online
Weapons: Online

ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL
Hello everyone.

I'm starting Animation at uni, and even though we don't get 3DCG until next year, I'd like to start poking around on my own.

I currently have a AMD2 5200+ with 2gb of RAM and an Integrated Radeon HD 3200 video card.

Is this going to be enough to start experimenting a little, or should I get a new video card ASAP? I was thinking about getting 2 more gb of ram and a 1gb Radeon HD4850 card, but if I can make do with the onboard one until next year, I can probably get a newer one for the same amount of money.

Unexpected EOF
Dec 8, 2008

I'm a Bro-ny!

Edmond Dantes posted:

Hello everyone.

I'm starting Animation at uni, and even though we don't get 3DCG until next year, I'd like to start poking around on my own.

I currently have a AMD2 5200+ with 2gb of RAM and an Integrated Radeon HD 3200 video card.

Is this going to be enough to start experimenting a little, or should I get a new video card ASAP? I was thinking about getting 2 more gb of ram and a 1gb Radeon HD4850 card, but if I can make do with the onboard one until next year, I can probably get a newer one for the same amount of money.

Honestly, if you're going to be doing any rendering you may want a new CPU as well. Even the previous generation of intel dual-cores beats that in benchmarks by a fair margin.

Veritonsils
Sep 14, 2007

For. Eh. Ver.
Gentlemen, (And ladies of course) I give you:

My first head and ear!(which hasn't been mirrored yet!)


The ear still hasn't been connected to the head either but I think I'm on the right track.

Hinchu
Mar 4, 2004

Please keep a watchful eye out for hinchus. They are very slow and dumb, and make for easy roadkill.

Edmond Dantes posted:

Hello everyone.

I'm starting Animation at uni, and even though we don't get 3DCG until next year, I'd like to start poking around on my own.

I currently have a AMD2 5200+ with 2gb of RAM and an Integrated Radeon HD 3200 video card.

Is this going to be enough to start experimenting a little, or should I get a new video card ASAP? I was thinking about getting 2 more gb of ram and a 1gb Radeon HD4850 card, but if I can make do with the onboard one until next year, I can probably get a newer one for the same amount of money.

It's all in how you set up the scene and work in how much you need in processor and video card. I'm of the school that you don't need fancy hardware to create great scenes and models. It's all in how you use the program.

Having a fast computer always helps, but really, competency in hardware is all I've ever really needed. I've never really worked on the l33t h4x0r machine that's decked out to the max and anytime a scene gets too complex, you know and work around it, and it's not too bad.

Remember, it's the person making the art not the machine. (Although I do tell people that I just wave my magical wacom wand at the screen and rainbows begin shooting out of my rear end.)

Edmond Dantes
Sep 12, 2007

Reactor: Online
Sensors: Online
Weapons: Online

ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL

Hinchu posted:

It's all in how you set up the scene and work in how much you need in processor and video card. I'm of the school that you don't need fancy hardware to create great scenes and models. It's all in how you use the program.

Having a fast computer always helps, but really, competency in hardware is all I've ever really needed. I've never really worked on the l33t h4x0r machine that's decked out to the max and anytime a scene gets too complex, you know and work around it, and it's not too bad.

Remember, it's the person making the art not the machine. (Although I do tell people that I just wave my magical wacom wand at the screen and rainbows begin shooting out of my rear end.)

I know that it depends on me, but I was just wondering, seeing as my laptop can't even run google sketchup at low detail without dying every time I try to turn the model around.

I'm just getting started on this, so I won't be doing any fancy stuff yet, I just wanted to know if I could start trying stuff on this machine until I needed something bigger because my awesome 3d skills required it. (yeah, right).

Thanks for the advice, I'll go wave my brand new wacom wand and see what comes out!

Aslan Bebop
Jul 3, 2008

Hipness is not a state of mind, It's a fact of life!
Here's a short film I made for my Virtual Technology and Design studio class. It had to be 1 minute long and have a message. All the animation part is made in 3D Studio Max.

http://bakerjake.deviantart.com/art/Chaos-116279174

DivX high quality mode is on the left

sigma 6
Nov 27, 2004

the mirror would do well to reflect further

Had my students work on a lighting and rendering assignment. I figured if they are doing one, I should also do the same, so I tackled Jeremy Birn's first lighting challenge.
The fruitbowl challenge is the one which is featured on the cover of his book "Rendering and Lighting 2nd edition".

This is just my first iteration, and haven't done enough with the materials yet. Haven't tried my hand at Sub-Surface-Scattering yet . . . I guess here is my chance.



Maya08 + Mray

EDIT:

Toured Blur studio today in Venice. It was very cool.

EDIT2:

Edmond Dantes: Nvidia cards are generally better than ATI for 3d but a lot of it depends on the age of the card and the drivers.

Got a bunch of new reference for this fruitbowl lighting challenge. Excited about getting SSS to work for the fruit. The fastSSS shader is supposed to be relatively easy to set up.

sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Mar 27, 2009

Puppet
Nov 21, 2007
You can't cry when you're too tough to die.
Hello guys

I've been using modo 302 for a couple months and I can say I'm very satistied with it's modeling tools. They make it much better and faster to model than 3D Max (the only other I used), although it doesn't have all the tools Max has. It's not very famous yet, but I wanted to know: What's your opinion about it?

sigma 6
Nov 27, 2004

the mirror would do well to reflect further

v2.

Still messing around with SSS.


Click here for the full 1024x768 image.

Bloody Wanker
Dec 31, 2008
I love Modo for modeling. It handles highpoly and lowpoly very nicely and i get a much more faster workflow in modo than maya or max, much because of it's easy customizability. I haven't touched the animation-tools yet but from what i've heard, they're not as good as the ones in maya or max. Modo also have a lot of bugs and can crash pretty easily but so can max and maya.

Some of the features in Modo 401 looks really neat as well:

http://www.luxology.com/modo/401.introduction/

Hazed_blue
May 14, 2002

sigma 6 posted:

v2.

Still messing around with SSS.


Click here for the full 1024x768 image.

Looking better, but your shadows appear overly strong. I don't know what the equivalent of light tracing is in Maya, but consider incorporating bounce light in your scene. It'll help your shadows look a little more natural.

How many lights do you have in the scene right now?

Hazed_blue
May 14, 2002

10 minutes here, half an hour there, but I'm finally making some progress on this fella. I'm avoiding the horns because I know they're going to be a huge undertaking, and I'm pondering how exactly I want them to visually grow out of his skull. For now, I'm just finding a lot of joy in working on the left side of his face.

brian encino man
Nov 19, 2008

Might be cool to have his mouth stretch open or slit open on the left side.

EoinCannon
Aug 29, 2008

Grimey Drawer
That's some awesome sculpting so far hazed
I look forward to seeing how it comes out

I've moved the character from a sculpt in ZBrush to a fully topologised model
This was a quick test to see how it would deform for morph targets.
The expression was mocked up in ZBrush and I haven't had time to refine it in MAX.
I'm learning Mental Ray at the moment so I had to try out some shader and lighting stuff.

Eyebrows are badly photoshopped on


TheBigBudgetSequel
Nov 25, 2008

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.

EoinCannon posted:

That's some awesome sculpting so far hazed
I look forward to seeing how it comes out

I've moved the character from a sculpt in ZBrush to a fully topologised model
This was a quick test to see how it would deform for morph targets.
The expression was mocked up in ZBrush and I haven't had time to refine it in MAX.
I'm learning Mental Ray at the moment so I had to try out some shader and lighting stuff.

Eyebrows are badly photoshopped on




Wow, that's awesome. He looks like Kronk from Emperor's New Groove in 3D (as well as the mentioned similarities to Mr. Incredible)

zeldadude
Nov 24, 2004

OH SNAP!
Thought I'd post this here. Just a beginners model, still working on it obviously, a ton is unfinished.


Click here for the full 1280x600 image.

brian encino man
Nov 19, 2008

Looks nice but a little out of proportion. The grass looks way too big. Nice render though.

International Log
Apr 3, 2007

Fluent in five foreign tongues!
Grimey Drawer

zeldadude posted:

Thought I'd post this here. Just a beginners model, still working on it obviously, a ton is unfinished.


Click here for the full 1280x600 image.


Looks okay, could use a little :sun:. Windows need stills. Also, materials?

Don't stop working on it though.

le capitan
Dec 29, 2006
When the boat goes down, I'll be driving

zeldadude posted:

Thought I'd post this here. Just a beginners model, still working on it obviously, a ton is unfinished.


Click here for the full 1280x600 image.


Don't know if you're looking for a critique or not, but here goes:
textures on the road and sidewalk look stretched/repeating.
Should have some indication of where the fencing comes out of the sidewalk like dirt or something.
A light coming from the door would add a nice ambience, but i'm guessing you haven't messed with lights yet.

Another assignment from class. Doing a high poly model then making it into a low poly. Not too happy with this; bit of a rush job, but I learned from it.

le capitan fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Apr 2, 2009

zeldadude
Nov 24, 2004

OH SNAP!

le capitan posted:

Don't know if you're looking for a critique or not, but here goes:
textures on the road and sidewalk look stretched/repeating.
Should have some indication of where the fencing comes out of the sidewalk like dirt or something.
A light coming from the door would add a nice ambience, but i'm guessing you haven't messed with lights yet.

Yeah, critique is awesome since I'm just starting out with this. Really enjoying it. Thanks for the comments. I'm working on some skyscrapers right now, maybe I'll post them when I'm confident they don't look like poo poo :shobon:

Also, it's pretty difficult to google a question like this so I hope it's ok: What would be the best college degree for architectural visualization?

zeldadude fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Apr 2, 2009

ErIog
Jul 11, 2001

:nsacloud:

zeldadude posted:

Also, it's pretty difficult to google a question like this so I hope it's ok: What would be the best college degree for architectural visualization?

Architecture. My roommate is graduating this year with an architecture degree, and they learn the most common 3d modeling packages. To work in that industry you need to be trained to read the plans and in the details that go into designing a building. The most direct way to get that experience is to be trained in architecture. Since most of the people entering the industry now are trained in designing the buildings on the computer first, there probably isn't a lot of room for people without architecture training that just do graphics work. There might be, though. I know all of this second and third hand from people who've only done internships.

For an analogue to the real world, the people that build scale models for architecture firms are most commonly trained in architecture. I know a guy graduating this year that only ever wants to do that piece of the process.

ErIog fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Apr 3, 2009

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
90% of 3d courses that focus on architecture are so poo poo it's not even worth it. None i've seen do it to any high standard.

Architecture is the way to go. Try and find the most art/viz based one - if you look up a few you'll pick up on how important each sees it.

I had a lot of free time when I was learning and just did the first 2 years which was like an intro into construction - reading drawings, calculating beam loads, calculating light bounces (both of those were p. cool) surveying, siteworks, foundations etc. You need to know at least the basics of this sort of stuff so that when someone gives you lovely unfinished drawings (nearly every job) you know where to fill in the gaps.
The way we do it in the uk is that your first 2 years are a seperate qualification, and thats basically 'you can now go do ANY course relating to construction and buildings', but I just went and got a job making pictures.

3 of the most important things in being good at arch viz:
Dont neglect poly modeling, get used to heavy editing.
Get chris nichols' gnomon exterior global illumination dvd.
(this may not come into play for a few more months) but completley ignore cgarchitect, a lot of work they celebrate isn't very good.

Seem like odd choices, but it's true.

cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Apr 3, 2009

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply