January Challenge: Before and After - Perfecto
 

I googled and found this photo. I cropped off part of the sky. Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with it but some possible thoughts I have right now are sign, vehicle, and bench. If I do a vehicle I will look for a free one I can download. If I do bench or sign or other simple objects, I'll just model them.

great mate, get started once you are over the new year of course LOL

Jay

Logo design for covering up the clock. It was inspired by the "R" logo in the Disney CG movie "Meet the Robinsons". In my case it will be for Rothfeldt Industries instead of Robinson Industries. The bottom right design is what I'll be creating.

Cool looking R, nice to see the concepts. I never draw out ideas, it's probably what slows down my creations.

Thanks Rhetoric.

I figured the best way to show my progress was to just record myself. Here's a timelapse of me modeling the Logo. I won't record the texturing mapping though cuz it will just crash my computer.

YouTube - Simply Maya Comp (Jan 2011)_LogoTimeLapse

Does this look ok for color scheme of the logo?

I like the color, although I'll have to admit I was expecting it to be red for some reason.

NIce logo mate...yeh I like the colour...not too sharp and easy on the eye.

Good start man!

cheers bullet

@ Rhetoric: I actually had a red version but my wife and son both liked the blue the best. The red did look pretty sweet too though.

I just finished making a simple sign texture to go by the front door. I'm going to make one of those square signs that has the florescent lights inside. Hard to explain but I'll be modeling it very shortly. I've seen a few around where I live and it was the first thing that came to mind. Here's the texture. I used gimp to create it.

hats off to you for using gimp... i can't even change the brush size.

@ honestdom: haha, I'm too poor to afford photoshop but gimp isn't too bad. I've read it has alot of similarities as photoshop. It gets the job done though, I guess that's all that really matters.

Here's me modeling the sign...and a test render.

YouTube - Simply Maya Comp (Jan 2011) Sign_Time Lapse

Mate that is cool...you are off to a good start LOL

cheers bullet

Copyright question. My wife found me a bench to model but the picture is copyrighted. I will be using that picture as a reference while I'm modeling. If I record myself modeling and the photo appears in the video, is that copyright infringement?

I would imagine so mate...any replication/publication etc would be....just create a vector image and add some slight changes and I would think it then nullifies this??

I figured as much...better safe than sorry right?

Btw, where's eveybody's entries? I hope I'm not going to be the only participant in this challenge.

Modeled a couple of benches and didn't really like the look much so I decided to use the bench I modeled for my Community Project. All I did was uv map and add some textures. Still needs work though but I'll wait and see how it'll look in the composite to know what changes to make...I think. Any suggestions are welcome of course.

hey man, you should build some proxy geometry for the building and a ground plane and set up your camera first.

Thanks honestdom, I'll go ahead and do that then. I have a job interview in a bit but afterwards I'll set up the shot and post an update.

nice, good luck with the interview. :)

Ok, I set up the camera and added the objects I've made so far. I also added two directional lights and lined them up to match the image. Havn't done any tweaking to anything, just set everything up. Here's where I'm at right now.

sweeeeetttt

wow looks like you've finished already :) lol ive only just noticed the new comp and fancy entering. the last one seemed like agggess ago.

Nice work by the way, i too was expecting the R to have some red in it lol.

Thanks. Yeah, this is a pretty simple challenge, not too much to it really. A person could litterally do it in less than a day...easily. I'm surprised there's not alot of people joining this one actually, especially since it doesn't demand much of the artist's time.

Hmmm, two people expecting to see some red eh? I think that justifies me experimenting with red then :)

haha, that is looking good and the ground sign sits quite nicely. but I think you may be under estimating the process a bit. its not that easy to do it properly, but it depends on what you are doing i guess. I agree for an image like this its pretty straight forward tho.

It does look good, I agree with Dom, it can be a real mission to do this type of work. I will be asking for as karge a render as possible for the fianl so I would make sure it all works at a higher res.

You could add more to it, such as some extra plants near the lower sign just to get it to sit in the photo, also perhaps a street lamp or even a vehicle

Jay

Thanks Dom and Jay, it's great to get feedback like that. I really like the sign and plant idea. I spent some time searching for a free vehicle but so far I havn't found anything I like yet. I'm looking for things that have a certain realism to them and so far the free vehicles I've come across look too fake if you know what I mean. But I could model a lamp pretty easily and add it in. I'll try the paint effect bushes/plants to see if I can get something that matches or fits with the image.

I modeled a lamp for the scene. After I texture it I'm going to model a trash can like the ones I see around alot of office buildings right before you walk into their front door.

Edit: Looks like I forgot to add the bolts around the mid section.

Wow you guys have fancy lights!!! nice work so far

cheers bullet

Nah, we don't have lights like that around here, it's based on a reference I found on google. Here's a trash can I modeled for the scene. I'm going to put it by the front door. Alot of the offices around here are like that.

I've placed the lamp and trash can in the scene. Still thinking of what else I can do to the scene before I start rendering out in passes and making adjustments and such.

Edit: Just to let you know, I am aware that the trash can's reflection is going across the paper. Just some of the adjustments I need to make still. Like making the concrete supports of the bench slightly wider and making the back of the sign solid, etc. :)

Looks good mate...the only thing I will say...and of course it might not apply where you live..(depends on your realism in this pic?) the lightpole would be in the garden behind the path (this is just typical setout)...and it would be twice the height...so people cant smash the lights. Again this is just the normal setout point and height, typically they are approx 3.0m from ground level to the luminaire. The reason I would put it behind the path...typically they are setback well from the road so cars dont run them over. Again mate this is just a typical situation in construction in Australia...

cheers bullet

Might just be optical illusion then as far as height goes. Right now the bottom of the bulb cover (White Part) is 8.5 feet high. When I placed it in my scene, I googled Lamp Post Height and only went to the first website which said standard size is 6 to 8 feet. But it seemed a little small in the scene so I made mine 8.5 feet. The lamps that I've seen around my area are usually on the sidewalks on the edge closest to the road but I've also seen some that are in the grass so I figured either way was ok.

I based my scene object sizes from assuming the front door of the building is 7.5 feet tall. The internet sites I checked suggested that typical commercial door opening heights were 7 to 8 feet. So I picked the middle, 7.5 feet. All my object sizes are based on that assumption. I did however make the back of the bench slightly lower than park bench standards cuz it just kept looking awkward. Right now the back of the bench is almost 2 inches shorter than some of the standards I saw.

However, I want the scene to "Look Good" if you know what I mean. If you still think I should change it, I'll do it. I'm not sure what you mean by behind the path in the garden...could you mark it in one of the pictures for me so I know for sure?

LOL no it was just an observation mate...if you are happy with it cool. In Survey (new construction) all lights are a minimum of 1.0m behind the back of the kerb...where you have it if I put it where I would in reality it would end up in the middle of the path...so we would move it into the garden so you didnt walk into it whilst perving at the sheila across the road..

As for heights..yeh in general minimum height is 3.0...like I said mate thats in Oz...things are different wherever you go...LOL...and you have that on the bulb...must be an optical delusion.

Haha, that reminds me of a friend of mine who's always looking at the sheila's. I was with him once when he rear ended a car because he can't keep his eyes of them. Luckily nobody was injured.

Yeah, I have to agree that pole placement makes more sense on your side of the world. I get tired of drunks smacking into poles around here and knocking everyone's power out, haha.

bahahah I hear you...though all of our power is underground now (newer stuff) so now they just take out the light..he he he he

Yes I have had the sheila stare happening and walked straight into a pole...gave me brain damage and shattered my manly ego when she burst out laughing....sshhhhaaaammmeeeeee.

this is lookin really good perfecto. :) My only crit would be the top part of the lampost seems a bit darker than the lower part. apart from that, its looking great.

what camera lens did you decide on?

Thanks speedy, I noticed that too but not quite sure the best way to deal with it. I was guessing adding a light that is only linked to the lampost and have it shining hopefully in a way that it won't wash out the bottom part of the lamp but yet light up the top more. Right now everything is just being lit up by two directional lights. One pointing in the direction of the photo's shadows and bright enough to match the photo the best I could. The other directional light is pointing almost the complete opposite but much much dimmer just to lighten up the dark areas of my objects.


Using the default settings. I know a little about some of the camera attributes but not a whole lot. All I've done was change the near and far clip planes as well as the environment color.

Created a light for the Logo. Just gotta figure out how many to use and where to place them.

Havn't posted any uv's yet so I figured I'd post it for the Logo Light. Now to look for textures for it..not like it will really been seen though as far away as it will be hehe.