Art of Sammy D

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 render :)

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 this project is nearing a close for me and I have got a lot out of it. I may just re-texture the tree and maybe had some clouds and tweak the lighting some more, but for now, this is what I have.

Crickey!! Another blog update so soon! What is the world coming too. Well actually my friends this is because I am really enjoying my current project and I'm happy to say I've made good progress. I have completed the modelling of the scene!!

I have been experiementing with various renders and also enviroment fog effects, the renders take approx 3 mins each time for a 640 x 480 shot. I assume now because I have a large number of objects such as stones for the path and gravestones that this is effecting the render time. I am sure I can use something like mr proxy to be smarter with lots of objects but I havent look into that just yet.

It is now time to move on to materials and rendering, but i think I am going to pause on the project for a little while and do some tutorials on these topics to get some more solid understanding under my belt.

I also need to mention my source and inspiration for this scene was something I totally stubbled upon on the web via a good old google images search. Denmark artist 'Thomas Meldgaard' has an amazing portfolio here http://www.tinypilot.com/ and my scene is based on his image 'Bye Bye Mr Moon'

Here is the latest render!

So I've been getting stuck into things lately and I'm happy to say i've progressed nicely with a new project. I wanted to experiment with rendering and lighting so this project involves a stylized scene.

I used the mental ray daylight system to setup a moonlight scene, I followed some of the steps found in this great tutorial. http://www.polygonblog.com/3d-water-the-ocean/

I created the models so far the church, tree, fence and terrain. I've also added some mental ray area lights in the church. I've had to turn the multiplier up past 10000 to get the lights to show with the daylight system, I will need to investigate this further to see if its the best way to achieve this result.

I've a got a little bit of modelling left then I will look into the materials side of things.

So here is a shot of the scene so far.

A great example of integrated 3D effects into live action video. Very well done and a great game at that!

POrtal: Terminal Velocity
http://vimeo.com/43800150

Ok so I know my posts are very few and far between, but I can assure you I haven't lost my interest in 3D art. Personal and professional life have sometimes made it hard for me to find the time to work on projects and keep learning. But over the last month or so I'm happy to say I found some solid time to work on a project and I have completed my first full model and render base around a tutorial on the web. I found the process a great learning experience and feel very comfortable with a lot of different modelling techniques in 3DS Max. I realise I have quite a few incomplete projects which I will definitely endeavour to complete in the future, especially my two vehicles projects! For now I’m currently working on a character model and a stylised 'creepy' church scene. Hope to post some WIP soon! For now here are a couple of renders from my latest completed project "Future Bike"

Art of Sammy D

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