I can't see your images yet... wonder why

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"If Less is more then think how much more more would be..."


Winner June 2009 Spaceship Challenge

Cheers magicsy changing shaders, using mental ray etc are all new to me so I dont have high hopes of it looking too realistic for this competition.

As for some people seeing the images and some not, I'm just moving the content over to a new host tonight. Changed the nameservers for the domain as well so things might be a bit funny for a few days.

I've moved it across to a basic template layout site I did a while back so I'll easily be able to create a good looking site in the future (and it should be web accessible - if you do web stuff you'll know what I mean )

Until its all settled I'll add small attachments to these forums.

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

does anyone know why a texture on a blinn shader would not render in mental ray? I've posted a question on the mental ray section in the forums (it shows a pic of the problem too) but thought that somebody here might know

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

You have some replies in the Mental Ray thread.:p

Cheers THX1138

It was a bit cheeky to cross post but I was worried that it was a problem no-one had seen and I wouldn't be able to get it working for the competition

I should have some surface rendering tests tonight

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

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.

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

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

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.

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

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

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:

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

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

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

Wow man that looks awesome!

The wood looks perfect.. and the jaggies are gone

Well done!

thanks muteking1 and dave

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.

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

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!

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