Thanks for the advise Chirone. I could use some tutorial or something so I'll have a better clue what you're talking about ;) (:headbang: :headbang: :headbang: ). I've experimented with fluid emitters and other 3D fluid container stuff and I might just use it in the end, but I need a lot more practice on this...

I did a lot more work on the environment meanwhile:
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/9016/tempso6.th.png
Re-textured everything and added the wire fence...

C&C please,
Benny

Looks good. I like the way you made the fence.

Good luck ;)

haha, oh i actually have no idea what i'm talking about

it's just theory... i haven't actually tried it out

i just know what particle emitters do, and know they only emit particles after you've hit play

and i watched Kurt's free cloth tutorial and he talked about a negative timeline as a runup

Another render (17:03 - new personal record...) :
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4169/templf3.th.jpg
Did some more work on the fence, imported the environment and created some new lights - I'll probably be going with a night shot.

At this point I'm almost ready for the final render I think so any critics, no matter how small will be helpful...

Benny

PS-
Todo:
*Dust
*Fix fence's left side where the rocks and concrete aren't intersecting smoothly
*Add nails for the plywood

Looking at the render i would say you need to add a bump to the shed roof and walls or if you have one already you need to increase the bump depth.
The other thing that stands out for me is the chrome handles/hinges ect, i think there should be at least a little spec of chrome here and there so you could add a chrome shader but also add a spec map and relection map to limit where the chrome appears.

yeah - i agree - also the textures on the ground and shed are just too plain and lack variation / wear.

Arran: I'll see what I can do about it as soon as I go back to modeling...
Jsprogg: Can you (or somebody else) please explain what's a Chrome shader, how do I make one and how do I use it?

Thanks guys,
Benny

Here is a basic chrome shader that you can import into your scene....

Thanks jsprogg, it helped a lot...
Added some Chrome to several objects, increased bump depth(a bit too much, I'll fix it in the next render), fixed some parts of the fence and minor lighting issues.
I also changed the resolution to a 1k square so not that much of the sides will be visible.

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7979/tempmf3.th.png

C&C please,
Benny

i notice that your chain link fence is casting a shadow on the ground. Is the shadow a separate piece of geometry or is it really from the fence? If the fence is an alpha map, how did you get it to project a shadow like that?

I've never done much with alpha maps so I'm clueless.

Or did you model the fence?

The chain's texture has an alpha channel for the transparency... I tried to model it once but my poly count jumped sky high. currently it's a plane with a color, bump and transparency maps.
I haven't done anything special for the shadows... I can cause a problem though because even the zero-transparency areas block some of the light.
Benny

You have really good eyes Pefecto, I had to take the pic into photoshop to see that. :beer:


Anyway, I like the enviorment you added with the fridge; however, I think the shadows are a bit too soft. A yard light would serve as a better lighting atmosphere than the light your using currently. You know those yellow/orange yard lights you see on at night. I think that would look great for this piece.

Done some more work on the textures of the door, handle and logo. Changed resolution again.
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/8127/temptd0.th.jpg

THX1138: I already had such light. I increased the intensity a bit in this render.
Arran: I'm currently working on some grass and landscape, according to your tip.

C&C please
Benny

Much Progress
 

I've been playing around with paint effects all day yesterday (ah, the possibilities, wish I had a stronger computer...)
Added some vegetation and some fog, and spent the whole night rendering.


http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/4463/temphc4.th.jpg

This is relevant more then ever, so C&C please,
Benny

looks pretty sweet as a scene so far

to comment on the fridge itself on the side with the bent panels it looks like the grain is going horizontal but the top looks like the grain goes through a massive direction change

as for the scenery (which i'm sure Mike said isn't part of the competition, but it still looks cool, matches the fridge well) the grain on teh shed looks flat? there's something not quite right about it.

and the ground looks odd, what are those depressed grey spots? maybe you should have a dirt ground with a few pebbles on it

the paintfx looks sweet :)

Thanks
Can you explain more clearly, perhaps with a sketch?
I'm sure it can't hurt to have scenery. The entry probably won't be judged by it but it's still fun to learn, and it adds an old mood to the fridge itself.
again, can you be more specific about the shed? I need to fix the intersection with the ground there, that'll be in the next render.

About that, I need to fix the mid-air-floating-straw. I'm working on it now, plus I reversed the UV's on the ground and scaled it down to the render area(more resolution for the texture and less problems with shadows in the texture image). It should look better in the next render.
Pebbles are problematic to make since I've got small rocks on the texture and it'll just look weird to have real ones as well.

I'm worried about the fog though. You think it looks all right?

Benny

Added nails:
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6876/tempfj2.th.png

I'll start another major render now...
Benny

Thats a shocker ...i would never have thought that the inside of a fridge was made of wood .

LOL, I wonder how much more this is going to come up...
For the third time it's a 20+ year old fridge!
and the "inside" is metal, not wood. only the exterior(frame) is made of wood...

Another render:
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/7028/tempev6.th.jpg
I fixed all the things I mentioned three posts ago and also got rid of the fog since it was out of place.

Render time was 1H 38M(new personal record again) but after I got rid of the fog it took me 2M to re-render that area so rendering time is going to go down now. I hope.

C&C please,
Benny

EDIT: Here's my lighting:
http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/5223/temptx6.th.png

I think the roof of the shed needs a little thickness as it's way too thin and as mentioned aerlier by someone else the bump on the shed wall is not looking great, there seems to be no gaps between the planks because there is no depth between.
I think the reason people question the wood frame is because I for one have never seen a wooden frame on a fridge and can't imagine it to be strong enough to hold the metal interior and weight inside the fridge.
On plus note the render is getting there but you need an evironment dome to make use of the chrome since there is nothing to reflect but the grey background.

The problem with the roof is not the thickness but the lack of it... Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I also increased the spacing between the planks a bit. I'll see how it looks before I do anything with the bump map.
About the last tip (environment dome) : :confused: :confused: :confused: Is it some kind of an image plane? I've seen such stuff being done but I have no idea how to go it. Can you post a tutorial or something please?

:attn: 100 posts mark!
has a challenge thread been this big before or am I just hyperactive?

Edit: New render:
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/6553/tempeh5.th.jpg
Render time is now only 29:39 ! :attn: (F***ING FLUIDS :eek: )
C&C please,
Benny

I've attached what i mean with the wood grain
i hope it makes sense... i just quickly did it in paint

i think jsprogg explained what i meant to say about the shed

and tbh, i didn't actually notice there was fog :confused: you should just render it in a seperate layer and then just composite it on afterwards so all you will be rendering are the objects

and about the sky dome, i haven't got an answer because i never seen it before either... just heard about it, although i think ragecgi has one in his render layers tutorial but it's not the focus of it, so maybe you'll have to google 'sky dome tutorial' or something

I shouldn't.
The plywood is chipped from the top so the grain some-why changes in that area.
I'm not making it up by the way:
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9422/tempyf9.th.jpg
Best pic I could find... It's pretty clear though.
Thanks anyway :bow: .

I've got one month to go and I don't know what else to work on :( ... C&C (especially critics) are highly welcome.
I'm still waiting for a tip about that environment dome ore whatever it is...
Benny

BennyK, are you using the standard maya software renderer or mentalray to render this with?

I'm using Maya software. I tried mentalray but I didn't notice any difference. What is the difference?
Benny

For a render like this, not much, but when you want to incorporate global illumination or HDRI you should use Mental ray

Another render:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/7908/temptu1.th.jpg

I improved the roof's texture and made some other minor improvements. I want to improve the ground's texture a well but I can't seem to find a good way of doing so.

C&C please,
Benny

I did some work on the ground - I decided I need to stop waiting for enlightenment and just do it so I took two more textures and tried different blending modes until I came up with this:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/6048/tempcv8.th.jpg

I also got rid of some plants near the thorns.

Since school year starts tomorrow (1st of September) and I'm starting insane training scions this will probably be the final render. Unless someone has some ideas on how to improve it further? So, C&C please,
Benny

Did you use final gather and HDRI when you tried mental ray?

THX1138: I wasn't using any of those. I read about it in Maya's help files but I have a couple of questions:
*What kind of image should I use for IBL? Or have I misunderstood something?
*When trying to render my scene with final gather I get the following warnings and the render stops.
When I tried to render a simple scene it worked fine. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,
Benny

When trying to render different layers I encountered a problem only on the ground and vegetation. I got the following warnings in addition to the ones mentioned before:
This is probably a problem with the straw because it's geometry is ****ed up, But the render was finished nevertheless. When I try to render everything it doesn't even get to this point apparently and the render is stops without further ado :( .

Could you post a pic of your shading network. I would like to see how your connecting your textures to your material shader. Also, I would like to see how you have your mental ray set up.

I don't know much about exporting... Is there a way I can upload the file together with the file textures? (file size is not an issue), so you can simply look at that instead?

I can't turn on Maya right now since my brother is combining some subtitles for a movie and it might take a while...
Benny

Just do screen captures of your work area concerning the shader network and mental ray set up. No need to upload the project file because I don't use the same version of Maya your using.

The mental ray setup is a default set but if there's any difference here it is:
http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tempdv5.jpg

And here are a few samples of my shading networks:
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/170/temp2az7.th.jpg

If that's not what you asked for just let me know.
Thanks in advance,
Benny

Your shading network appears to be ok.

For your mental ray, I don't recommend the default settings for final gather. For example, Increase your accuracy to say 200, and your point density to 20, and your point interpolation to 40 or 80 or even to 200 if you like. The method behind this is you want your settings within multiples of 10. The more points final gather has to sample the better the quality, but takes longer to render so experiment. As a rule, you want to keep your final gather setting within the dimensions of the the size of the scene, but I often go larger even though it takes longer to render.

About image base lighting. I highly recommend using it. You can find HDRI images off the net pretty easy. I recommend one with alot of blue since your scene is at night. HDRI will dynamically light your scene and make it more realistic. Also using accurate falloff rates for your main light source will give you good realistic results to.

On your anti-aliasing quality; try a higher setting if you notice any jagged edges on any of your renders.

Multi-pixel filtering; Try some different filters. I use the mitchell filter. Seems to give me better quality and over contrast. Some filters may take longer to render.


also, check your geometry, there mabe be a problem some where that may be causing a problem and keeping you from rendering with final gather.

Finially , turn off your "Enable Default Light" in your render options if you haven't done it allready.

I hope this info isn't too much to take in, as I don't know how much you already know about mental ray.

Hope this helps out.

Thanks a lot, THX1138 :bow: , I know just about nothing about mental ray - just what I read in the help files.

I haven't tried it yet since I need to :zzz: now, but I'll try it ASAP(hope it will be soon).

Meanwhile I have a few more things I didn't really understand and I'll appreciate it if someone will help me with those:
*In the help files it says lights in a final gather scene should have illuminate by default off. when it's off though I don't see the light at all... Someone knows what this is about?

*About me being unable to render:
I know the geometry causes some warnings but it doesn't seem to stop the render when I render just that problematic part, so I doubt it is it (I'll try it anyway soon though). I've been having problems with other renders(Maya software) where I got a low memory exception thrown an the render stopped at a dance geometry area(I tried to render the section individually). Could there be a similar problem with mental ray?(with the exception of an exception not being thrown)

*This one is just for interest: Isn't a default light created only when there aren't any lights in the scene?

*About the shading networks: I'm kind of an order/efficiency freak... is it possible/advisable to use identical(or are they) 2D texture placements for several texture files (eg. reflection + specular etc)?

Thanks in advance,
Benny

PS. I should have been asleep 1 hour ago... I got carried away writing this ;)

Mental ray can render in separate passes ( color, shadow, diffuse, and specular) I personally haven't had any issues rendering in separate passes using mental ray. I cant say that you wont have problems. I can only recommend that you try it out. It's definitely better than rendering out one single beauty pass. Much easier on your processor and ram in my opinion.


Yes, so make sure you turn it off when you use mental ray or your lighting for final gather/ Image based lighting will not look good. Also if your going to use Image based lighting you have to use final gather. They were designed to work with each other.


Maya is designed to be able to connect many textures into one material shader, or you can connect one texture into many material shaders. All you have to do is access your texture in the hypershade, right click your texture and select what you want to connect to ( color, specular or whatever ) and drag it over to your material shader. You can use the same texture for other objects but make sure the texture you choose wasn't made or painted for something else. For example you don't use a rock texture for a Hat or Gun. Just use common sense here.

Hope this helps out. :beer:

Thanks, I found out what the problem is... I now noticed that the line next to the script editor's line (the one which offers help for mouse over/the current action of Maya) states before the render is terminated that there's a low memory problem :( .

I'm trying to learn now how to render in layers... hope I can find time for this.
Thanks again,
Benny

Lighting and HDRI question
 

I made a render for the fridge alone while I was gone with HDRI but I don't like the result: http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/7079/tempga6.th.png

I only rendered with HDRI. I didn't understand whether I should combine HDRI with normal lighting or not, and if I do, is there a special way I need too set up the lights?

Here're my render settings: http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tempiu2.jpg
And the IBL settings: http://img142.imageshack.us/my.php?image=temp2sz0.jpg

I might find time for this tutorial I found on Saturday: http://www.simplymaya.com/movie_page...html?tut_id=35
I understood it contains an explanation on rendering in layers...

Can someone tell me what's wrong with the lighting?
Thanks in advance,
Benny