Thanks for the final gather tip THX1138, once I turned it on I got the texture fine :)
It does take a bit longer than just upping the ambience to render though ;)

Heres a (very) quick dirty render as I've been trying to get some of the UV maps done and get some of the texturing out of the way. Still working on the neck hence it being grey.

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/cello/cello15a.jpg

Ok, firstly, thats a good first render.:) Now, for your next render, up your Anti-alaising levels. Tick on your quality presets tab and scrool down to preview Final Gather and select it. That option will give you a default setting for final gather renders.

I'm writing this under the assumption that you don't know much about final gather. If you do kindly dissreguard this reply.

Ok.. this is looking sweet. :beer:

3 things.. I know its in prog.. so u prolly already know this stuff and can tell me to stfu if u like. I just thought I'd give you some feedback.. as your feedback on my project has helped me out greatly ;)

1st:
Nice render.. and nice UV mapping. I like the texture on the wood.. it might be a bit brighter than the original picture is the only thing I can see.

2nd:
The reflection on the wood might be a bit too much.. but it depends.. the shadows look nice.. and nice shadow detail.

3rd:
I agree with thx1138 about the aliasing, which could be easily fixed by upping the quality/samples settings and I would choose the gaussian setting as it is the best(might already be set on this).

All in all.. it looks great :attn:
I'd like to see a high rez render of it...

peace out

mayafreak3

THX1138 - Good assumption :) I have no idea about final gather type stuff. The only thing I did after enabling it was to lower the (photons?) or something so it rendered faster. I was going to up it again when I've got the textures out of the way. Thanks for the pointers, they are much appreciated and I'll give them a try tonight :)

mayafreak3 - not at all, criticise away and the more the better :) I'm still a total noob when it comes to rendering (and more or less to texturing!) so help is greatly appreciated!
1 - Yeah the wood texture has come out a little bright, think I'll darken it in photoshop and see how it comes out.
2 - Good point on the wood. I've been playing with the reflection this morning (when I should have been uving) to drop it a little. It is quite reflective in certain light but not as much as on the render.
3 - Willdo :) any pointers on getting better renders will be helpful

Thanks guys, you're making what seems a (very) complicated area a lot easier to understand :beer:

I've played with some of the settings and tweaked it as suggested by mayafreak3 and THX1138 (cheers guys!) and here is another quickie render:

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/cello/cello16a.jpg

very good!!!!
i like it. i think that it is the right way
:beer: :beer:

Wow man that looks awesome! :beer:

The wood looks perfect.. and the jaggies are gone

Well done!

thanks muteking1 and dave :beer:

Hopefully tomorrow I can get the neck fully laid out and start applying its texture :)

Just for reference I've gone back to my old posts and changed the path to the pictures (so people can see them). This is because for some reason I changed the image path when I set my new website up (d'uh). Thats just in case people wonder why they have an edited message at the bottom.

You know every time I've looked at this tread I couldn't see any of the pics, but today they seem to be working for me this time. So I've gone from seeing very little to this last render of yours . . . . man it looks awesome. The wood look GREAT well done! :beer:

yeah great stuff the wood does look real :D maybe a little darker
i think, its kinda like Mayafreaks his darker version with less colour was better too.
Hope this helps :D

Looking great tick135 !! THX1138 poses hand like a martal arts master and says "soon you will be ready".

Cheers BMS :) I changed my host and yesterday added all the images back up (that the previous posts were pointing to) it looks like its done the trick

Thanks magicsy :) I agree it could do with the darkness playing with a bit. I'll post an outdoor shot of the cello up soon to show that it is really quite light and the original photos I took seemed to darken the wood.

lol THX1138, the paduin doesnt feel ready for the trials just yet though ;)

Just uv mapped the head/neck and have started on some texturing:


http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/cello/cello17a.jpg

Finished the texturing this morning. Here's a couple of renders with all the bits in (ignore the stretching in the first). Basically all that is left is to play with is the shaders, find a good angle and render some large versions.
A lack of time over the holidays might mean that a variant of this will be the final entry though. Not quite photorealistic but I'm well happy with the outcome :)

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/cello/cello18b.jpg
http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/cello/cello18d.jpg

Truly beautiful, dude!

I'm very pleased with the outcome.:beer:

Nice renders!

thanks dave, THX1138 and mayafreak3 :)
much appreciated :beer:

no progress and probably none to report unless I can get a quick few hours in before the new year. Hope everyone is having a great holiday and are looking forward to a very merry new year!

speak to you all soon :)
Si

Awesome! And happy new year too!

yo just seen ure final entry n i swear i had to look twice to see if it was real. truly outstanding.:beer:

Indeed. I just checked your final entry too and it is amazing. The composite shot is outstanding. It integrates almost perfectly. Congratulations :beer:

thanks guys and a BIG thanks to everyone who helped with comments & criticism over the competition period, it was greatly needed and received! :)
here's hoping we all do well and more importantly have learned loads of new things in the process

Now where are those new year beers? :beer:

This is such a cool model ..well done tick on a superb job.
Goodluck mate with your entry..oh and Happy New Year :)

Just checked out your final entry. Great stuff, love the render, well done man :beer:

I believe this is the most outstanding work I have seen for the competition. The composite piece you did was jaw dropping. My projector pails in comparison. Man, I really hope you win this! THX1138 raises hand in martal arts pose again ( David Carradine impression ); " My son, you are ready".

Just seen this - thanks THX1138, it was down to your help that the render came out well :)
The composite was a 15minute quicky, simply clone-tooled out the original, resized the render, added a semi-transparent grey/blueish layer over the render and smoothed a couple of edges. The render actually missed the top of the cello hence the cropped composite ;)

Hope you're in for the new challenge!

I might enter the Jan/Feb challenge as it' only deals with the head and not a whole body. I'm looking up tutorials on Maya fur righ know. I have a subject allready picked out to model, but I need a good understanding of Maya fur before I go any further.

yeah I know what you mean, think I'll be learning paintFX for this one as I dont have fur (quite literally ;) )