August Challenge - Nataliia - Noobie
 

Well, I'm going to give this a try.

Idea is a medieval style wizard's lab with all the gadgets and gizmos one would have: bits of critters, vials, things that go *ping*.

Inspiration will come from my many years of D&D, so from the book "The College of Wizardry" here is what I'm going for:

Every good lab must have a table of beakers, so...here's my first set of beakers and a couple of hurricane lamps. I will light it better later, of course :)

Goodly!

Nice pair o' beakers you got there Nat ;)

Im thinking the table legs might be a bit thick? Seems a waste of wood to use a whole tree truck :)

looks more like granite or marble...which would also put it under the waste catogery :)

looking good!:thumbsup: Revolved splines for the lamps?

thats just beautiful man...ehhhhr....I mean woman ;)

icky - Point taken on the legs, it was a quick job to have something to put the beakers on, they may be more decorative later, but will definitely put them on a diet.

howard - yeah, after learning the revolve tool, everything but the darn table in that pic is revolved :D made beakers so much easier.

A nice bit of glass there, is that a downloaded shader or somthing you threw together?

Ah, the glass. I have ckyuk to thank for his lovely advice in the Revolve Scene thread (http://forums.simplymaya.com/showthr...&threadid=7209). I just changed the colours when I wanted something other than clear and then fiddled with it. Timely bit of advice there and very welcome :)

OK, between cleaning and packing to get ready to move next week, I've managed to accomplish a little bit more. Lighting, floor & wall are just temp. Still much much to be done :)

Looking good so far

Rearranged some things, added some curly wires (all labs should have curly wires :D ), some books, etc. Wireframe and wip shots below:

And the Wireframe:

Nice, will be even nicer when you add some moody lighting :)

wow! you are just about done! looks very nice.

Yo Nat, you might want to turn on some shadows on the lights of yours. It might look nicer with the apparatus casting shadows.

On the other hand though, the conical flasks with the wire in the back get lost in the shadow on the wall. I didnt even se the wire till I looked at the wire frame.

Yeah, am reading the chapter on lighting now :D and I may have to make that curly wire a bit larger so it doesn't get lost or reposition it somewhere with a kinder background.

I really like it so far, I think the books on the shelvf are looking very cool almost look aged! :)

I'm not 100% on the wall texture. Is that a temporary one? it seems to uniform to be from the medieval times :)

Alan

Yes the wall texture is very temporary, just something other than that icky blue I used before :D

Unfortunately, I'm moving this weekend so this is the last post for about 2 weeks (or until I get internet service at the gaining base). I will keep WIP pics and may make a mass posting when I get back online.

Some changes made last night, but no time to take screenies :( , moved some things around, larger curly wires so they could be seen better, new legs on the table, second table with more stuff, among others.

Thanks for all suggestions.

Neato, I have my own shade of blue :)

That's looking really good. Can't wait to see what you return with...:)

looks really good so far.....
the advice i can give you is that you should mess the place...it looks too clean and orgenized....
but it looks really good!!

:D Great.... ( Scraggy cries into hands..)

Ok...I've been gone a bit with moving and all. Worked some on the lab but due to waiting for internet access, this is the first chance I've had to post a screenie. I'm not sure if I'll add much more, but will continue to play with lighting as that's a pain in the rear. :D

Nice, very nice. Some might say shiney :P

If you get the time, perhaps adding some flame type things to the top of the candles.

very nice indeed! The one thing I notice is the lack of shadows which would add that extra bit of realism by anchoring objects to their surroundings. Thats probably what you were talking about when you spoke of messing with the lights tho' :) very nice bit of work :thumbsup:

what the...... you have talent like Oo.

There is some friggin athmopshere....perfect. The image scares me a bit. :O :O ahhhhhhhhhh....looks like some ghosts live there.

you have enough talent to join as normal next time. :)

I like it, moody. Slightly too dark for my taste. And you could try to make the glass a bit more transparent.
Keep it up! :)

That's very nice! Atmospheric. Agree on the shadows point.

On a side note I do wish that every time someone posted something nice in noobie people didn't start shouting they should compete in normal. It really isn't up to you and it just causes confusion.

LOL!! Funny :) As I've had maya for less than 2 months, I sincerely doubt it, but am flattered you think so.

I think I've solved the shadows problem, now to solve the dark issue. It's only rendering some lights and not all and I'm having a heck of a time figuring out why. :banghead: Ah well, I rearranged a few things yet again, so the problems keep me tinkering with it.

how do you join tournaments?

hey natallia.. this is coming along really nicely. Just yea, it is too dark of a lighting scene.. try to work with some lights that are not too strong... but still show detail :).

zycotik... first off im not sure if you meant challenges.. so i will explain both.

For challenges you have to just start a thread going along the guidelines in the main thread in the challenges section.... the one that tells you the topic and so on. So basically start a thread naming it:

August challenge - Zykotik - Normal/noobie (depending on if you want to join as normal or noobie)

Then simply just work on it and show progress images (following the rules)

For a tournament.. you have to find a signup forum.. usually in the tournament section (battle arena> tournaments)..or in the announcements forum. Just say "i want to join this tournament" and that you understand how long it will run for and thats that. Then you just have to wait for the starting date and it will all you have to do is post your progress images in your thread (you will be matched up against someone)... the winner goes to the next round. anyways.. thorough instructions are all over this site in the battle arena and here in this forum.. so just read and it should all make sence. If your still stuck PM me.

looks really really cool, I did a double take when I saw it! My monitor is pretty dark anyways so it gave it even more atmosphere! But what howard said about shadows is really true, I took the image to photoshop and bumped up the brightness a bit and it does seem to lack some depth without shadows.

Looks really cool though, well done
Alan

Alrighty. I lightened things up a bit, found my shadows, made some fire for the cauldron, added some pillars to hide the ugly bits, and generally did some poking, prodding and tweaking. Things left to do are flames for the candles/lamps (though I'm having no luck in making them at the moment) and anything folks critique :D

This has definitely been a learning experience! hurrah!

One thing I notice is that there are no shadows cast by the fire. The table leg is missing a shadow that comes down to the bottom right. :) Perhaps using am orange point light stuck in the fire might work?

As for flames, you could try revolving the classic candle flame shape and making it incandesant and use that?

Looking lovely it is. Very spooky, yet shiney :)

Very nice indeed! Might make the floorboards a little smaller as they are a bit on the huge side. Could try a glowing ramp thing for the candles. Overall it is looking really jolly.

Made a few changes and here are the current WIP shots:

suggestions always welcome :D

Closer detail on the bookshelf.