Hi all, I need some advise about my T-55 Tank. Im not sure about the textures and the lighting need some attention, but it's these extra touches that are so hard to learn. some advisse would be great. Hope you all had a good xmas.
steve


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sorry about the size folks i forgot to change it

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It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion

hi, nice to see you doing a tank as well. My main concern with it is that it isnt even slightly dirty. It's coat of paint is perfect thus it doesnt look like it's been used. Dirty up those texture maps and make it look used (Take a look at my latest render and hopefully you will see what I mean). You may also want to increase the res of your textures cause I can see the antialiasing on the maps even at this distance and that isnt a good thing.

Try adding some new ligts to the scene. At the moment you have very hard and dark shadows which dont really look right. You can either blur the ones you've got at the moment in post or you can download a GI rig and use that to get some soft shadows.

Add some reflections in the glass on the spotlight etc. That would really help the general overall look of the tank.

I really like the spec hits that you are getting on the metal, what shader did you use to get that? was it just a blinn?



Alan

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Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

IMDB

HI mate thanks for your coments, I'll put them to use, where can I download a GI rig?
cheers
steve

emmm pixho.com has the GI.JOe one I think. Failing that make you own it's just a nurbs circle with a directional light on each CV pointing towards the centre. Lower their intesities (really low) and make them cast shadows (dmap res of 128 will suffice if you have loads of lights). Make the lower half of the lights a slightly different colour to the upper portion of the lights .... tweak it to hel land hey presto you're done

Alan

Edit:

The only thing is though..... EVERYONE here uses GI_Joe to get that same bluey white look (which is fine for test renders and WIP) but I would use that to get your shadows only and light the rest of the scene in a more provocative manner and put the shadows out to a separate pass. Then bring them in in post. I just hate seeing people make no effort in their lighting so it would be a cool excercise for you

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Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

IMDB

What Pure means is: Global Illumination is the lighting you get when light bounces around everywhere, and basically comes from 360 degrees, making shadows very soft, making light very spread out, and realistic looking. The problem with the plugin you get from pixho, is it is set to a VERY bright outdoor (blue sky/blue light) by default. I suggest desaturating the blue (or making it white straight up). This is all very easy to do with the plugins controls. GI (global illumination) is also a funtion of "Mental Ray", and you will see when you install it, it is basically just making the light, come from every part of the sky, like it really would. We suggest also as using it in the background (very low intensity), so it mimicks just the light coming from the sun refracting around in the atmosphere and eventually getting to earth from all directions. All this while still using a Spotlight as you're "sun" or "key light"(high intensity).

Ontop of that, pure was talking about making you're textures dirty. Now this is by far the most important part of realistic texturing, is making things not perfect, but imperfect. You'll find its much easier to make things perfect, and more realistic to make them imperfect, for example: Scratched, rusted, dirty, peeling, fading, cracked, and all that. So think about making the textures look all of those things (where they apply to the surface type) in order to get realistic texturing. Think about all of the things that would have affected the surface (rubbed on it, rained on it, or scratched it). If you'd like to know more, let me know, and i'll do my best, cause i'm ALL ABOUT realistic texturing.

BTW the reason i give you sooo much information, is that you're modeling is VERY NICE and that you sound (to me) kinda lost in texturing/lighting. I hope that you can use all this info to learn more about making things look REAL. Good luck and very nice work on you're tank there.

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"When you are born, you have a resposiblilty to program you're own mind, if you do not accept this responsiblilty, then the world will do it for you"
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couldnt of put it better myself I wouldnt use a spotlight for the sun though I would use a directional light because a spotlight will have a very definate defined area whereas the directional wont.

Vec: If you wnat to help out with realistic texturing C+C swing by my tank thread I'm starting the comp to a background now (THe one posted at the mo is old but I'll be working on it when I get home tonight) I've got a much imporved version done already just forgot to bring it with me today.

Alan

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Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

IMDB

Cheers guys Im working on a new version at the mo so i'll update with new picy next week. some great help here cheers all.

steve

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It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion