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# 1 05-01-2004 , 11:14 PM
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snowy village

hey everyone, new work in progress...
spent today modelling terrain, cottages, observatory (on the hill) and doing the snow stuff. any suggestions?

surface on the buildings is just maya default so i need to change that but i'm not sure what direction to take it (wood/clayish/whatever). any comments are appreciated.


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# 2 05-01-2004 , 11:43 PM
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Wow, looking great! I really like the cartoony style of it. Great job and keep up rockin' !

# 3 06-01-2004 , 03:00 PM
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How have you doe you have make the ground? and the roofs the snow how havve you do that?

And at least Very Nice Job user added image!

Thanks,
SERHAT

# 4 06-01-2004 , 03:09 PM
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I don't know where your scene is, but you could try adding some things like some sand and rock ( snow isn't always completely egal you know user added image ) or if that ruins your cartoony view you could also add some grassy / organic substance user added image . Also, you could make the snow variate in height some more? user added image

# 5 06-01-2004 , 04:03 PM
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dirack: yeah i thought about some rocks/trees. rocks wouldn't be such a big deal but i've never made trees before and im' not entirely sure how i'd go about doing it, especially with the snow on the branches and stuff. might try experimenting with that today.

serhat: it's kinda simple, create a blinn shader that is white with an ambient color of dark blue. set the eccentricity at .65 and spec rolloff pretty low. then make a bump map of your choice (i used the cloud texture even though i'm not sure if that's such a good idea, you could use fractal or something also). set the bump really low and play with the settings a little with some test renders. then for the sparkles on the snow, create a new fractal texture (rclick > create > 2d texture > fractal), create a new ramp the same way and make it black and white (my selected position is .235), then connect the fractal to the ramp, and the outAlpha of the ramp to the specular channel of the blinn (because you want to make it sparkle). i had to play around with the settings a lot..but that's how you learn so it's a good thing to do. here's my graph network so maybe that'll make more sense to you.

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# 6 06-01-2004 , 04:16 PM
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If it's good enough quality, you could use some paint effects..

# 7 06-01-2004 , 07:58 PM
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here's an attempt at a tree - i don't think the paint effects would work because i don't want trees with leaves..it's winter, and i'm thinking pine trees. so i modelled this pine tree and i want to have snow on it's outer branches but i have no idea how to blend the two surfaces, right now i just have some faces assigned to teh snow shader and some to the pine shader. does anyone know if there's a way to blend the shading so that it looks natural?

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# 8 06-01-2004 , 08:08 PM
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I like the first image. May be instead of a pitch black sky, you could add some gradient to it. Little lighter on the horizon, then dark blue and eventually black at straight up in the y-axis...


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# 9 06-01-2004 , 09:53 PM
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i think some snow flakes and some fog would give it some mood aswell


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# 10 07-01-2004 , 01:26 PM
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HI, I'm liking the general look of the scene but there's a few things that could be improved on:

Lighting, I think you need to pay a bit more attentino to the detail in the lighting. Remember that snow will reflect and refract a lot of light so you need to try and get this into your render. One way of achieving a better night time look is to tint your lights blue (either in the 3d render or in post it's up to you and what you feel more comfortable with (i'd be tempted to do it in post)).

Perspective: There seems to be a lack of perspective in your scene. The stars dont look like they are off in the distance, rather they look like a plane stuck behind the geometry (which I'm assuming it is). Maybe try adjusting your camera settings to give more of a feeling of depth.

Snow: More specifically the snow on the tree. I just had a chat with one of the CG supervisors here are work and I showed him your tree and we agree that looking at the amount of snow on the other objects you wouldnt see that much detailin the tree. It would be much more conical and simple in shape. Also the branches of a pine tree tend to grow upwards not downwards (think about a christmas tree). So you would see very little of the tree itself, so maybe just make a new tree that gives the general idea of a tree being there but doesnt have such a defined shape.

Footprints: I like the idea of having some footprints in the snow that would be cool. Maybe have them comnig from where the camera is upto one of the houses that would give the scene more feeling.

I hope my comments are helpful to you
Alan


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# 11 07-01-2004 , 01:58 PM
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... :p [pure_morning] :p

# 12 07-01-2004 , 02:03 PM
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huh? i'm confused user added image


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# 13 07-01-2004 , 02:26 PM
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Heh, you should summarize your post and make it a tutorial user added image

# 14 07-01-2004 , 03:08 PM
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lol dont tempt me user added image (It's better than a "really cool" or "good work" post though) I'm on a mission now to provide people with good constructive criticisms rather than the one liners that I tend to see here (which I have been guilty of in the past I admit)

Join the revolution!!!!!!!!!!!! user added image

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# 15 07-01-2004 , 03:10 PM
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rofl, don't listen to them Allen, you're post was very constructive and informative!



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Last edited by Vectorman; 08-01-2004 at 11:39 AM.
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