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# 1 05-12-2009 , 07:48 AM
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Enterprise_TMP

Hey guys, I'm working on this scene for my final project for an animation class I'm taking. There aren't any ship lights because she's supposed to be powered down, and the dock isn't totally modeled or textured yet, but I think overall it's coming along nicely. Once I put the sun in, and you get the shadows from the dock, it'll def add to the realism of it all.

any feedback would be great...thanks!

-D

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# 2 05-12-2009 , 08:13 AM
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It is looking really good. I like the texturing. I am assuming all the panel line details are texture painted.

It's a little flat though.


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# 3 05-12-2009 , 08:19 PM
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Yea, it's definitely flat...I've been having some issues with lighting IE I'm not getting the results I want. I've been reluctant to put the sun in because the dock is supposed to be orbiting on the dark side of the planet...any suggestions on how to light this thing? A few wide spots in some strategic places?

Actually, the major part lines, hull panels, and all the rivets are modeled into the main structure. You can see this where the lines break the hull decals. I'm a big fan of modeling as much as I can so fiddling with complex texture maps is kept to a minimum =)

The entire ship is mapped with a single 4K texture map. This, of course, meant that I had to blow up the UVs well past the 0 to 1 UV space to get the kind of detail I was looking for. I've never done it before...I'm hoping there aren't any issues with it later!

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# 4 05-12-2009 , 10:39 PM
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Originally posted by DonnieBrasco2069
The entire ship is mapped with a single 4K texture map. This, of course, meant that I had to blow up the UVs well past the 0 to 1 UV space to get the kind of detail I was looking for. I've never done it before...I'm hoping there aren't any issues with it later!

eh?
you mean you used multiple texture maps?
or did you actually take your UVs and put them off the grid?
can we see a picture of your uv maps?
it sounds like you'd done something really really bad (or maybe yyou just explained it funny)




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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# 5 05-12-2009 , 10:47 PM
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Well yes, I did use multiple textures...but the main hull texture you see in the pics (the light gray paneled text over the entire hull) is a single 4k map. My UVs are properly laid out, but they certainly go over the 0 to 1 UV space. I'd take a snapshot for you, but Maya only snaps in the 0 to 1 and not outside it.

Is this bad? If so, why? I haven't run into any problems so far.

# 6 05-12-2009 , 10:55 PM
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you can take a screen shot (print screen button in windows and paste the image into a paint program, cmd+shift+3 if you're using a mac, appears as a png on your desktop)

if you do a screen shot and you've done something funny then i can explain it better




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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# 7 05-12-2009 , 11:16 PM
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Are you using an ambient light? I'm looking at the dock area and it seems an ambient like is at work there hence the flattening, personally I'd rather a couple dim, non shadow casting area lights but then again area lights just kinda kick ass :p. Also the volumetric effect (is that even plausible given the setting?) from the spots seem to be coming from tiny light sources and don't seem to match the actual light fixtures, you can mess around with decay regions a bit.


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# 8 05-12-2009 , 11:18 PM
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Originally posted by Chirone
you can take a screen shot (print screen button in windows and paste the image into a paint program, cmd+shift+3 if you're using a mac, appears as a png on your desktop)

if you do a screen shot and you've done something funny then i can explain it better

Okay, will do. I'm rendering out an animation right now but when it's done I'll take a snap and post it up. then you can tell me how bad I messed up =)

# 9 05-12-2009 , 11:24 PM
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Originally posted by GecT
Are you using an ambient light? I'm looking at the dock area and it seems an ambient like is at work there hence the flattening, personally I'd rather a couple dim, non shadow casting area lights but then again area lights just kinda kick ass :p. Also the volumetric effect (is that even plausible given the setting?) from the spots seem to be coming from tiny light sources and don't seem to match the actual light fixtures, you can mess around with decay regions a bit.

Yeah the dock isn't modeled or textured yet...I just didn't have time considering my final is due tues and I needed to start rendering the scenes out =)

The main light source is a directional light dome...it really does tend to make everything look flat and nasty, but it really is easy to do. What's the best technique for using the area lights?

Yes, I need to fix the light fixtures. The dock is as basic as it gets =)

# 10 06-12-2009 , 01:58 AM
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I don't really understand what a "directional dome light" is because they are clashing concepts in my mind. And as far as area lights go, the main things I keep in mind are:

*Size affects intensity, the bigger the brighter.
*Size affects shadow softness, the bigger the softer.

Once you've adjusted the postion, color, size, falloff and intensity accordingly, its pretty much all fine tuning the samples to ditch the noise

In this case, you could try plopping one down for the sun and another faint light blue one for the starlight for starters.


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# 11 07-12-2009 , 02:33 AM
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Originally posted by Chirone
you can take a screen shot (print screen button in windows and paste the image into a paint program, cmd+shift+3 if you're using a mac, appears as a png on your desktop)

if you do a screen shot and you've done something funny then i can explain it better

Okay, as promised, here's the screen of my UVs. Crazy =)

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# 12 07-12-2009 , 02:41 AM
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Originally posted by GecT
I don't really understand what a "directional dome light" is because they are clashing concepts in my mind. And as far as area lights go, the main things I keep in mind are:

*Size affects intensity, the bigger the brighter.
*Size affects shadow softness, the bigger the softer.

Once you've adjusted the postion, color, size, falloff and intensity accordingly, its pretty much all fine tuning the samples to ditch the noise

In this case, you could try plopping one down for the sun and another faint light blue one for the starlight for starters.

Lol sorry about that--a directional dome light is simple a bunch of directional lights arranged in a dome to provide an ambient illumination to the scene. I like it because you can individually tweak certain lights to brighten one or more sides of the scene.

I'll def try using an area light since I'm not getting what i want out of directional lights for the sun.

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# 13 07-12-2009 , 07:57 AM
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and you're using the same texture map for just the one model? surely not... not if you haven't had any problems with repeated textures


the way i was taught is that a texture coordinate is always between [0, 1] and a texture will only ever exist in that region

so a coordinate that is at (1.5, 1.5) is actually refering to the coordinate (0.5, 0.5)

so for example... if you have a plane and it goes outside the [0, 1] bound then the points that are on that will be translated back to inside the bounds.
so.. if a portion of that plane is a square where the 'corners' exist in (-0.5, 0.5) (-0.5, 0) (0, 0) (0, 0.5) then that gets converted back to (0.5, 0.5) (0.5, 0) (1, 0) (1, 0.5)

as shown in the attached picture you see a plane that does that and what it looks like when rendered

the lesson is... you can have your UV coordinates outside the UV space [0,1] but if you have a single texture map applied to the entire model that does that then the texture will repeat itself on that same model.

also, it doesn't matter how much you 'explode' your UVs they still point to the same coordinate as if you didn't do it at all.
if you find that your texture is getting blurry or pixelated and you've turned off the filtering in the file node then you should just give different parts of the model seperate textures

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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Last edited by Chirone; 07-12-2009 at 08:00 AM.
# 14 07-12-2009 , 11:30 PM
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Originally posted by Chirone
and you're using the same texture map for just the one model? surely not... not if you haven't had any problems with repeated textures


the way i was taught is that a texture coordinate is always between [0, 1] and a texture will only ever exist in that region

so a coordinate that is at (1.5, 1.5) is actually refering to the coordinate (0.5, 0.5)

so for example... if you have a plane and it goes outside the [0, 1] bound then the points that are on that will be translated back to inside the bounds.
so.. if a portion of that plane is a square where the 'corners' exist in (-0.5, 0.5) (-0.5, 0) (0, 0) (0, 0.5) then that gets converted back to (0.5, 0.5) (0.5, 0) (1, 0) (1, 0.5)

as shown in the attached picture you see a plane that does that and what it looks like when rendered

the lesson is... you can have your UV coordinates outside the UV space [0,1] but if you have a single texture map applied to the entire model that does that then the texture will repeat itself on that same model.

also, it doesn't matter how much you 'explode' your UVs they still point to the same coordinate as if you didn't do it at all.
if you find that your texture is getting blurry or pixelated and you've turned off the filtering in the file node then you should just give different parts of the model seperate textures

Oh the main hull texture definitely repeats itself over the surface, but the texture isn’t specific to any one piece of geometry. It’s a texture of panels and part lines that uniform enough that you can’t really see the repeating patterns. I have 3 major textures: one for the light paneled hull, one of the dark paneled hull, and one more for the darkest paneled hull. Three 4k maps plus their accompanying bump and spec maps.

I’ve found this is the only way to get the detail I want without either using twice to thrice as many 4k textures or a few 8k or 10k textures (which tend to crash my Maya!). When I want a fine hull detail like lettering or numbering or decals, I either make a new piece of geometry with it’s own texture map, or (for hull decals) I’ll either duplicate or extract the section I want and give it its own texture map. If I duplicate, I’ll make an alpha map of whatever I’m adding and then put a transparency on it and turn off Casts Shadows and Double Sided so the underlying hull texture shows through in the right places. This lets me get HIGHLY detailed and crisp markings that would be impossible with a huge texture map.

The only issue I have run into with this method of texturing is that you can’t bake anything (amb_occlusion, for instance) to your material. But since there are other ways of getting an amb_occ pass, I haven’t counted that as a huge negative. Again, I still don’t know if this is the ‘right’ way (if there is such a thing), but I’m getting great results thus far and haven’t run into any real issues that would negate the benefits. Check out my most recent render.

Do you know of any other issues besides repeating textures with the method I’m using?

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# 15 08-12-2009 , 05:42 AM
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the only other issue i can think of is one that you won't run into for this particular project.

if it's working for you this way then by all means go ahead. i just thought it odd to have overlapping UVs on the same model reading off the same texture map when the islands are spread across different [0,1] squares and they don't look like each other.
just looks like you should be getting the wrong textures coming up where you don't want it to be. but i guess if everything is where it should be then you've done something right.
it sounds like what you've done has given you fewer nodes in the hypershade and a project directory that doesn't take up much hard disk space since a lot of the textures are repeated as you said.
user added image

what does your colour map look like?




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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Last edited by Chirone; 08-12-2009 at 05:44 AM.
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