I have started work on a new project. In this project I wanted to get some practice with ZBrush. Initial impressions of the application are good and I can straight away see how powerful it is and how easy it is to create some detailed models.
It definitely is a very different way of working in comparison to 3DS Max, the controls are quite different so its taking a while to adapt moving from one application to the next.
It has also opened up so [.....]
I have been using trial products of Autodesk to do most of my work and until recently I had not looked into the pricing of the products I was using.
I could not believe that the Autodesk 3DS Max 2013 product is over 3K USD!
I understand it is a professional package used by large companies but sure Autodesk can come up with a better price for private users.
I do not profit from any of my work it is purely a hobby interest for me and this price is just way above what I am prepared to pay at this stage. Crazy! [.....]
I have completed the 'Scary Fairytale' scene and overall I'm pretty happy with the result. I learnt so much on this project, in particular a lot about rendering and lighting systems. My final render was done with mental ray. 2200 x 1700 resolution with very high final gather and 64/64 sampling. It took approx 5 hours on my laptop to output :)
Here are some render process shots.
Here is a clay render done using the Quicksilver renderer.
And lastly, the final [.....]
I went searching for some tips and techniques for creating clouds. There are a few tutorials out there on the web for clouds in 3ds Max, some using atmospheric effects like 'volume fog' and others using particle systems and materials. I originally was planning to have some clouds in my 'creepy fairytale' scene but decided against it because I didn't get the look I was after. However here is the best tutorial I found.
http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/max/clouds2/clouds2.html [.....]
I have spent a couple of sessions setting up materials for the 'Creepy Fairytale' scene. I did a few tutorials on materials and textures which definitely helped. But the process of adding materials is difficult and one that I still need a lot of practice doing!
I also learnt that I need to plan better during the modelling stage so I can separate geometry easily to make adding materials easier.
So below is a higher quality render. 16/16 sampling, high level final gather and 1024x768 size.
I think [.....]
