Ok good info THX1138, I went ahead and killed the GI.
Thanks :)

Thanx t1ck135!


I'll have an update soon.. doing renders now.

Here is one with the completed coin mechanism.. I'm working on shadows still and will have some more renders tonight.


peace,

mayafreak3

Click here for Hi-Rez version:
http://conjuremedia.com/NEWRENDER5.jpg

i dont see any render ......dude all i see is a picture, post the render already.....

sweet work man!!

Man, cmon dont mess with us.. just post the render. LOL j/k. AWESOME. AWESOME. AWESOME. Well anyway, this is by far in first place.

lovely work like the scene ;)
i might suggest taking it in photoshop for sharpening ;)

nice work :)

could do with a little more light reflecting off the lower areas to bring them out a bit

Thanks T1ck135 I agree.


I've noticed some artifacting with FG, you can see it in my last image. The spots apear when I add my object light, As I increase the rays.. you can see them disappear, and also the quality of the render is alot better.
I haven't yet decided which HDRI I'm going to use either.


This is without an HDRI.


Here is a test I've done:

hey MF....awesome job, looks great....thats really a picture you took right???? commmooooon!!!
:bow:

Dude thats so mint, i'm sure your taking a picture and making it look like a 3d image!!!!! So damm good. You should do a tut or somethingon gettin the disp maps as well as making hdri's and rendering, and modeling and...........

Thanks gster123.. all these nice comments.. wow
:beer:

Hehe, thanks man I appreciate the kind words..I'd be happy to do tutorials.... most of this rendering business is recent knowledge for me.. I'm finding Mental Ray can be very tricky. I'll post some of my shader networks and stuff.. in this thread later on.

here is my latest render..
1000 fg rays
hdri
1 object light (cylinder)

mayafreak3

cool...did you have to take snapshots of coins or something?

Some important info about final gather you may or may not know about.

The final Gather option creates very realistic shading effects by bouncing an objects "COLOR" onto other objects, as in real life. When Final Gather is turned on, light rays are cast from the light; then when the light ray hits an object, additional rays are projected from the object used to calculate the amount of energy that is comming from the the surrounding objects, in turn producing the effects of bounced light and color. To a point, Final Gather turns every object into a type of light source.

Here is some additional material with illustrations that demonstrate the process. Linkage

Hope you don't take offence at this, just trying to help out if it pleases.

Thanks for that link THX, excellent information there.

not at all.. awesome link Thanks!!!!

:attn: :beer:

yeah i read that you dont need any light sources using final gather as the object colours use each other to produce light from each object background aswell..
(is that what u just said)
or have i added im not sure.

Ya its true.. the one object light I use is just like any other object in the scene just a regular cylinder with a surface shader that has output color value cranked up to 100, effectively becoming a light source. I'm going to reconsider alot of stuff.. that link had tons of information that I wanted to know. I have to struggle with memory constraints on my computer so all that info will be helpful in optimizing my scene.

mayafreak3

Magicsy, you can use light sources with Final Gather. You just have to learn how to use them properly. My Life force Snake I entered in the Sept/Oct challenge, I used 3 spotlights to light it. I would like to note that you have to use "Ray Traced Shadows" . Final Gather is a raytracing process which enables/requires Mental ray raytracing mode. When Ray tracing is set to off, FG is not active.

Magicsy, dilberts, and Mayafreak3, your very welcome for the link.

I highly reccomend that you guys read everything thats provided in the link. Read it till you can comprehend what it's teaching. The hardest thing for me about Final Gather was understanding how the FG rays worked.

hope simplymaya doesnt mind me mentioning this, but Gnomon have an awesome video on using final gather in combination with other lighting like global illumination...(59 bucks, but worth it). http://thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/mha03.html

unbelievable job!:beer:

how have you recreated the wrinkledness of the wall?have you used a textures or something else only ?

Thanks muteking1. :)

The wall is a colormap and a bumpmap with a phong shader. Just textures.

Here is my latest render:

wallclock 1:38:42.89 for rendering
640/480

cool fabric material, but a bit strenuous on the eyes

Awsome render!:attn: That vintage look really grabs ya.

Varley, I have seen some of the Gnomon workshop series. Thay are put together really well. I wish I had one on the GI. I think the 60 bucks is a bit steep just for a dvd.

thank you mayafreak3!

good luck for the competition:beer: :beer:

nice render :)
thats definately looking more realistic. Just a quick sharpen in photoshop (not the wall and carpet) and it'll be great

Awesome work man!

Thanks for all these nice comments! :attn: :)

I havent taken this into photoshop yet.. ok t1ck135 I'll post a sharpened version after this one.

Here is my latest render using some new found knowledge.
I really tried to bring out the detail.. I finally managed to get a 1024/768 version rendered without crashing. I converted all my texture maps to .map format and it sped things up a bit. Even so, this took a good while to render.
Some of my displacement maps need adjustment, and still need to tweak some things..

wallclock 2:00:40.22 for rendering

Hi-Rez Version:

http://conjuremedia.com/NewRender12.jpg

sharp version

yeah, man. This looks great - very realistic and true to the ref already :). Well done.

WOW! really something else! great work man. congrats!!!:beer:
cant wait to see it in a small scene. if your not gonna i would suggest the machine be sat against the wall ;)
gonna be hard for mike is this competition so many dam great models.

very nice! I'm impressed!

Thanks man :)

Thanks magicsy. :)
I might take time to model the scene further, it depends. Since the contest was for a single realistic inanimate object.. I'm guessing that, that is all we will be judged on. If I make the slot machine smaller in the image 640X480 then I will really lose alot of the detail. If I can render out some 1024x768 or larger so that I still keep the detail on the slot machine maybe. I might make a scene similar to the reference pic.. or place the machine in a semi-casino setting with a stool and stuff infront of it. But thats alot more textures and polys and I'm really hitting a limit on what my computer can handle memory wise. I'll just have to see how it goes.

Thanks mtmckinley!! :attn: :beer:

dude, i you are desperate about your computers limits u can always add me to your msn id be happy to render your scene one night. and send it back.

Awsome render! :beer:

looks great! :)
The lighting really looks like its sat on the floor in somebody's living room.

I suppose it depends on if a new scene would help or obscure your model as to whether its worth it (as well as your PC's limits). Personally I think the composition is good and it could be good fun/experience just experimenting with different lighting and playing with the final image in photoshop.

Next challenge, photo the original and compose the 3D model over the top ;)
Maybe that could be your final scene?

Thanks for all the nice words guys :)

Magicsy I appreciate the offer but its ok.

Here is another image.. only difference.. is that I adjusted the camera position a tiny bit.. and I fixed some of the displacement maps like the twin jack pot logo.

Hi-Rez Version:

http://conjuremedia.com/NewRender13sharp.jpg

good thoughts man.. yeh I will continue to experiment with different hdri's, compositions and settings.. and select the best render to enter.

:beer:

that last one is perfect mayafreak.
really great stuff.!!!:beer:

Cool model, tho a crit here :

The golden coins, in the photo it looks like they are extruded from the machine, while on your model they look like they are placed seperately.

Ohh, and could you find a more ugly carpet ?? hehe - I know this is just my preference :-p I think it match the age of the object tho :)

I can see you struggle a bit with Final Gathering, and heres a tip:

If your scene size is 100 units, then try these numbers:

Min Radius : 100
Max Radius : 10

the formula is:

Min Radius = Scene Size In Units
Max Radius = Min Radius/10

Then you can use very few Final Gather Rays like 50, 100 or so, result = much lower rendering times.

[B]I usually use this approach:[/I]

Create my Scene
Create a Polycube
Scale my polygon cube so the scene is inside the cube
Look at the size of the of the cube, and read the largest Scale
Enter that scale in the Final Gather Min Radius
Divide Min Radius with 10 and enter the number in Max Raidus.
Delete the Polygon Cube.
Enter 50 FG rays
Render.
Maybe turn up the FG rays in small increments like 50, 75,100 etc.
untill I get a good result.

Good luck and keep up

Defniately keep the min and max values as low as you can on a one tenth scale, the render will get faster. But to get high quality renders, you have to use high settings. You should be using Final Gather With Global Illumination. Final Gather was made to be a complimentary feature for Global Illumination. FG further smooths out the GI photons rays.