10th Week Part 2 - A Bunch of Fives..Roses, that is!

Well, never thought Id be saying this but...two down, one to go. Luckily, through some mildly intelligible forword thinking. I have planned only two more posts. Both will be next week - a quick look at the calender reminds me that its week eleven of the Uni timetable next week, so that means I will hopefully have this complete lot of fourteen posts printed out and handed in for week twelve (I just want to not worry about getting extensions...of the educational kind, you understand!)

I was around 25% complete with this image - thing is, once one rose has been made that I'm happy with, its then a case of cloning its a 'copy' eleven times to make to "dozen red roses", bunching them up, rotating them so that they are nestled snugly, but opposed to each other, then finally spinning them all together so that they will lay on a table in a scene very reminiscent of the day(!)
This image demonstrates how, in order to fully develop my rose head, I needed to adjust the pivot point of each petal in order for it, once cloned, to rotate in the correct position - this laborious process took a while to create..

During that time, I had quite a few rethinks on how to design and re-design the petals. I knew that I would have to adjust their individual vertices to get that 'raggedy' look that real rose petals have, but sometimes the time it would take really put me off doing it.
Ideas included such madcap concepts such as converting a spline into 'NURBS' and then adjusting each separate segment for a slimmer profile to work on, also using the extrude tool after converting to an 'editable poly' and then re-applying the bend a curve modifiers (which, incidentally, was the process used to re-create the leaves of the rose, but that's all explained in my next post!)
As the image shows, I carried on with a layering positioning system, and once one area had been adjusted to my taste, I then used 'CTRL' and 'Left_Mouse_Click' to multi select a group of five petals, cloning them as copies afterwards

As you can see, this little trick does a plenty good impression of how the layering gives the rose head a feeling of depth (multi-facets)
The only trouble that will come from having around five separate "petal layers" is that I will spend probably around half-an-hour making every petal raggedy and misshapen - a technique from which I can then focus on adjusting other aspects of the rose e.g altering dimensions of the leaves, stem and thorns, not forgetting to add materials to each of them in turn, again a process which, although less tiresome, really accounts for the fact that the last step of a multi-clone could well be a time saver!

^The above image shows how I constructed the thorns that are on the stem. Basically, they began as cylinder that were adjusted with the 'skew' and 'taper' modifiers to give them them sharp points. I then moved them onto the stem but the top half of their bases weren't flush to the stem, so I then 'affected the pivot point', rotated the thorn so that its flush and then used the clone tool so that theres a random placement of them all along the stem itself^

^Above shows the intermittent step during which I was recreating the new leaf shapes. Having taken a re-established look at real-life rose leaves, I knew that mine weren't too presentable in a realism authentic sense. I laid out a small plane onto the 'virtual floor' on screen, overlayed a BMP of a rose leaf, which I then used as a template to draw round for the basic wire frame for the leaf as a one-dimensional object ( the same technique I pioneered for use with my Guinness glass a few weeks back!) I then converted it to a 'editable poly', extruded it at a value of 0.05 so that it had some mass as a 3D object and then applied the bend tool yet again on the z axis (values: 45 angle and 75 direction)^


Next week, as I said, will have the last two posts to do with this project
They will be the the final parts to a project which, although went quite quickly, was alot of fun along the way and yes, I have alot, especially since I had a wonderful Lecturer who remained patient throughout my frittering thorough these past weeks..

10th Week - Barely a 1/2 pint left...

This is, crucially, the last week dealing with St Patricks Day - then I can focus on St Valentines because, as I said, I want to leave the 12th week free I think I'm probably going to post two of these updates this week, just so I can upload all the screen dumps that Iv gathered...theres a few dozen more, y'know...

Having given up on attempting to get the textures that I have in the library onto my glasses, I thought I would continue with what I call the 'ambient objects' into the scenes
I decided the most effective way of doing this was to include two beer mats, one with the Irish flag on, and one with the seminal four-leaf clover
Typically, 3DS Max avoided adding the texture on the correct object, and therefore prevented me from adjusting the bitmap to the exact layout which fitted the cylinder best
As the image shows, I had to resort using the UVW Map for it to even appear, used the 'Box' map and then decreased the tiling on the U and the V segments to 0.8 and 1.3 respectively

By now, lighting was needed for me to gain an abject and concise view of how the final image could look, now that Id incorporated an environment map.
As the map had a bar interior consisting of ceiling light fittings and a large opening of natural light filtering in from the bar entrance, I thought to have a set of two 'Omni' lights, set to a direct pattern, with a shadow map assigned to the object.

^Diagram shows both 'Omni' light positions, as well as the settings used to throw the lighting and creation of the shadows that are currently in the scene (near attenuation selected starting at 0 and ending at 40 points, with a decay starting at 40 points, although unselected at this point)



Now it got a mite bit complex. Having returned to the beer glasses after remaining happy with the lighting arrangement, I thought of an idea to which I could have access to all three textures both glasses would incorporate and be able to edit them all as part of one material
I began the process by highlighting the three varying sections I wanted f the glass itself, numbering each one a separate ID eg. 'head' 1, centre 2, and base 3
Now this was confirmed, I could then select the 'Multi/Sub-Object' layering option and incorporate all three textures that, up until this point, had all been ruthlessly applied and reapplied and, however I admit it, were not going to happen without an in-depth reassessment of my options

Having applied the 'Multi/Sub-Object concoction to the glass at the rear (after having to add the UVW map again - for some reason, I'm sure he computer just didn't have faith in my abilities at pretty much every stage of my Max-usage so far!), I also repeated the process for the forward glass, again changing the IDs for each of the sections and then adding the map on as required (also, by upping the specular levels and glossiness, I could include some believability of the lights above reflecting off the glasses) Of course, this glass hasn't been touched yet, compared to the half-empty glass behind (yes, I could be classes as a pessimist by saying half-empty, but this is the easier to type than full...sorta!) Again, that's the reasoning behind why I increased the size of the head section of the rearward glass and below is how I got the map...

^By finding an image of a half-drunk glass on t'internet, I had the perfect idea for a crop and bitmap-object-orientated texture which could be applied to the head of the glass, with the opacity adjusted so that it has a natural transparency to it^

NOTE: Look away now if you don't want to see a sneak preview of my second finished calender
image...


Ok, you sure you want to see it...



As is clear, the shadows thrown by the dual Omni lights above (one just behind each glass in their respective positions to the table) help the image to appear more integrated to the environment around it.
By raising certain values with the materials placed on each of the surfaces as well, this also encourages greater light sensitivity and adaption to the overall scenes layout adds appeal


Be prepared for another lengthy post on Thursday, and, as you have been prepared before, it will be a two part-er spanning onto next Monday - Valentines Roses will be the name of the game, and I hope you can find it in your heart to appear a little more subdues by my oh-so-effeminate choice of subject matter...its a sensitive side to an otherwise mildly one-dimensional individual, believe me...

Week 9 Part 2 - Half A Pint O' Guinness Please...

I've gotta say first of all, Iv pretty much sorted out the Halloween one now, so be ready for an unveiling of it on next weeks post - you know you can;t wait to see what a travesty Ive created...

Like I said on Monday, this is the second part to the weeks blog update - yeah, I've got some extra images that continue my slow (but steady!) completion of St Patricks Day

What I decided I needed to do was to create a separate 3DS Max file, use a similar method as before to create a spline for the pint glass
This was so that I could edit existing materials and also create a few new ones to apply on this glass - this will then be portrayed as a half-full Guinness pint further back away from the foreground (adds a sense of believability)
By selecting a multi/sub-object layer within the materials library, I could combine my original Guinness bitmap, with my 'beer-head' macro so that each one in ordered precisely

From there, I then went to my initial file, selected 'blend' from the 'file' menu and then brought onto the stage that duplicate pint glass that's going to be half-full (if I can remember what I need to do to create a diverse merge material!)
As the image shows, I attempted a background by adding a custom bitmap onto a plane that's been rotated to stand vertically, a wooden table with a oak/walnut material added and a perspective which allows the table to appear as though its perspective is physically accurate

I was then struck by an idea with which my environment would appear much more encompassing, fitting my table in with greater precision and also providing a much needed natural light source from which I can then adjust my trajectories from where the light source is coming from
As is also displayed, I have added in a beer mat, which I intend to apply a Irish flag texture, again adding to the natural scenery present on screen




The 'Pearl' material has been created specially for the head atop the Guinness within the glass itself, with an emphasis placed on achieving the pearlescent finish - a base material of a preset 'pearl' tone, combined with a shellac material of 'pearl translucency'
This was a two-tone blend which gave a realistic 3-dimensional "roundness" to the texture, a result of the artificial lighting in the scene and the slight decrease in opacity when combined with the shellac material and its relative blend count of between 50 and 75
Once this has been finalized, a process which required a great deal of experimentation with many areas including specular levels and refractive denominations, I was then happy to apply it to the existing glass - signifying a happy reveler in the pub merrily drinking half of the brown ale to celebrate a glorious nationalist day (can you tell that Iv seen much of this happen before!)

^ Details of my settings for the Pearlescent Shellac Material^

NOTE: Look away now if you don't want to see a sneak preview of my first finished calender
image...

*This was actually this final screen dump I took of my Halloween image, but its definitely a very important final stage within its development
Clearly, the whole setting of the scene was pretty much there and sorted, however I was bugged by the gravestone/glyph itself having a too harsh-a glow on the stonework itself, giving the surface and unnatural appearance, especially with the moonlight behind it!
Peace was restored luckily by returning to the material editor and reassessing my five textures I had used for the grave and it was looking under the 'maps' section where I found the problem...
Firstly all of them bar one had a Basic Shader Parameter more reserved for a metallic surface selected (examples such as Phong and Orayl-Neyer-Blinn) where there should have been a Strauss Shader) Also, I'd amateurishly selected self-illuminating and specular coloured maps when it wasn't necessary. Once those options had been put right, I saw an immediate difference - no more ethereal glows, just darkened, more weathered looking stonework which looked so much more effective in this scene (which is hopefully evident from my fished piece below!)


Well, next week will probably be another two part-er basically because I'm going to try and get this all done before week twelve - its going to be near my birthday and so I'd rather not be sitting here on the 6th and still hammering away with my oh-so-wonderful images...

Week 9 - Re-Return To The Grave

NOTE: There will be two posts for this week, as I had planned to continue with the route of focusing on one of the three calender items each week in sequence but, the Patrick's Day Guinness glass will also be covered...I explain below why we are wit the Halloween one again! Well, this wasn't planned I know, but...I had a few ideas to make the Halloween grave-thing slightly more believable so I thought Id better get it on here before I forgot/couldn't remember what it was that needed to be done.

This week I found out that to make this scene as realistic and believable as possible, I would need to use the Environment and Effects facility - supposedly a great way to add in the all important ground-fog and perhaps environment image for the background too. I selected the most appropriate effect (volume fog) and I was able to adjust many settings, including density, step size and even down to the noise types and thresholds

I also added in an image of a moonlit sky which I could then use as an environmental effect. By selecting an omni light and turning shadows on, I could then place the light in the position of the crescent moon, thus creating a believable lighting setup

As the image also shows, as well as a shadow cast in front of the gravestone itself, I had also adjusted the fogs positioning so that it looks more realistic and that it could be having a tangible effect on the ground. But, I'm still not happy with that ground texture - its very poorly presented!

^An update of the current image when its rendered - happy about the dying shrub branches and 'stone textures/ not happy about the lack of environmental effects, background or the ground texture.^

And so, due to my negative attitude towards the textures on the surface plane, I decided to do something about it.
So, off to Photoshop I went to construct my own muddy, disheveled and generally unkempt landscape.
I chose two relevant colours - a mossy green and dark umber brown which then were applied using a feathery, randomized almost staccato-in-application brush at 30px size. This took a little while to achieve the desired effect, but it as definitely worth it in the end. After applying the two tones with no real order, I then applied a very dark green, almost black which the same brush, but at around 150px or so for an uneven and disordered appearance

^The finished article, with the tonalities and application techniques as I mentioned above being portrayed here also^

^Evidence of my texture applied, along with my dozen or so other materials in the library, all textures that can be modified in a way that will suit their usage^

Yes, is pretty much complete..now, its a case of finalizing the environment map I have in store for such an occasion and then angling the camera at just the right elevation for a nice dramatic shot..well, that's the plan, anyways

8th Week - Return To The Grave!!

Yes, I know this is being posted at the end of the week, and not I usually do at the very start but...

This is my first and, fingers crossed, final return to the Halloween-themed image I'm doing.



Basically, from the point where I was last time I had been messing this up royally, all I had on screen was the very flamboyant, almost Regal -Crypt-looking gravestone.

This week, I decided that Id had some minor practice in laying textures and editing my own bitmap materials, so I thought I could put it to good use now.
Perusing t'internet for all of 5 minutes, I came across two images that would suit the stone -

a mossy, aged stone texture from a photograph an individual had taken (which I intended to crop in Photoshop), and a surprisingly apt Neo-Classical design that was already present on a dearly deceased individuals stone (why not extend my gratitude to the deceased by including in my work, I thought very pleasantly!)

As is usual with most of these things using 3DS Max, luck and chance played a part in making this image turn out as it is here - in my view, a combination of selecting various values (such and 'bump' and 'opacity') and adding the concrete material from the preset library onto channels such as specular level and filter colour, brings out this very attractive, and importantly, believable textures and realistic tonality that wouldn't have been possible without such chance and luck.
Unless of course it was actually a case of me putting to good use my growing skill with this programme,but..its not likely all in honesty!



I then got to work on the 'protrusions', as I like to call them.
As before, perhaps with an unwitting feeling of 'if it worked before, why not attempt it again', I cobbled together a few of the preset stone textures and upped certain 'map attributes' (bump, specular level and self-illumination being three) to achieve the map seen here.
Although, in order to get a greater sense of a material applying itself to an object, one must apply a UVW Map so that an individual is allowed to adjust not only the material properties, but the very mapping formation itself - choosing a 'planer setting' will stretch out the image as it it was on a flat plane for example and the 'cylindrical' setting for a material to wrap around a hypothetical cylinder. This option allows far greater adjustment to any material, not just custom bitmaps.

As the image portrays, my material editor was becoming rather developed, with a total of five materials all for three true surfaces.
To continue from the paragraph above that talked about UVW Mapping, I decided to go from a 'box map' - which, although wrapping the texture in the correct fashion, the individual bumps and irregularities in the stone were too large for me - and so I chose the 'face map', a map which really toned down the surface, but applied a soft payer of almost self illumination and automatic light adjustment to the object itself (in short, the stone looks weathered and beaten)


From there, I drew out a plane - which had eight segments for extra adjustment - converted to an editable poly, selected its vertices's and began to pull them out in a crude manner at first, to add in natural dips and pitches in the ground.
I added in a temporary grassy texture (all these will be adjusted before hand in, thankyouverymuch!) and the preset foliage that's in the software (originally trees, but iv shrunk them down!)
As so to appear dead/dying, I also found a lava crust tool which means that the shrub has the usual characterisations of, I guess, a dying shrub

Very quickly now, all this image really shows how amateurish I really still am sometimes (READ AS: usually, in actual fact)
While attempting to try and perhaps blend in a combo and grass that's still partly alive and the soil and earth that's under the dying shrubs could be on its last legs, I tried to show that, without too much effect of any sort.

As you can see there still are a fair few areas which will need work over the next two fortnights afore hand-in, but I'm sure I can manage to create somethings that at least fairly viable for a pass..wish me luck!

Week 7 - Roses are red, violets are blue...tbh, im not too sure i like you!!

*Fast Show reference #3 .. - "This week, I'll be mostly eating cranberries"*


Finally, Iv made a start on all three images. Luckily, this Valentines-related object is only really going to cause some problems at the start of its inception...

Having carried out some research beforehand on other such Max users creating many types of flora and fauna, I decided it was best to keep the initial styling simple and to get the key parts of the rose sorted before I adjusted too many things that weren't necessary at that particular moment in time.

As the image shows, the stem is a slimmed-down cylinder, which has had the bend and curve modifiers added onto it, thus creating a fairly realistic looking stem.
The leaf was a spline with about six POR's, which meant I could again use the bend and warp mods to pull in downwards at its head for added realism.

Once i was relatively happy with the shape of
the first leaf, I then went to the hierarchy tab, adjusted the pivot point to the rear of the leaf,
nearest the stem, cloned it as an instance and then
rotated the leaf so that the cloned leaf was at a
ninety degree angle to its parent object.
The next step, the Id planned anyway, was to
begin creating the rose head, but I was inadvertently
putting it off, perhaps because I wasn't too sure
how to even start the origins of its shape, let
alone initiate a believable multi-layered effect
for it.

I thought it might be a sensible idea
to try out creating a series of thorns
that would be part of the stems
of roses in reality.
That was basically a cone, which then had a distort and skew
modifier applied to its x axis, so that
gave it the slanted-slice effect.

It was time to bite the metaphorical bullet, and get on with, admittedly, the most unappetising aspect of this complete design - the rose head.
I knew that I would need to create only, excluding the centre 'stamen' (here created with a spline, which was modded along the y axis to give it that tubular form), three separate petals designs with the spline tool, because having looked at images of roses, it is quite clear that the petals gradually 'fan-out' almost to ninety degrees, with a few leaves underneath the rose head itself.



Having centered the central 'stamen', I moved onto the first set of petals.
Again lathing a almost spherical line with around five POR's, I added the bend tool. As the image shows, it was adjusted to fifty degrees, with a null direction.
The bend axis of y also meant that one side was able to rise upwards along that set axial point, without the other end moving too far downwards.
Also, with the inclusion of this first inner petal now set, it was going to be cloned, as an instance first of all before altering them to a straight copy, with each further alteration affecting them as one.

NOTE: The styling will mistakenly take the rose to look like a tulip for the next week, and that will be the case until all three petals are created, and then its a case of altering each ones vertices...probably!