3D
Noise modifiers and particles for 3D nature scenes
Sun Apr 4th - 1:45pm
Since last writing about my efforts to learn 3D Studio Max I've got fairly competent at it, and have even started writing tutorials for 3D Artist magazine. My first tutorial, about the RayFire plugin, is due to appear in next month's issue. Following that, there's a tutorial about using photographic lighting techniques in 3D scenes.
I'm now working on a tutorial about using noise modifiers and particles to produce semi-random geometry, a technique that is especially useful for creating scenes of nature. Last night I worked on a simple test image, in preparation for a more complicated image that will be the subject of the tutorial. Click to enlarge:
In that scene, the fence and wind turbines were created manually, the hills were shaped using noise modifiers, the rocks around the fence were also shaped using noise modifiers, and then the rocks and blades of grass were positioned as particles.
Here's how the scene looked in 3DS:
And here's the particle system:
The image that I'm intending to produce for the tutorial will be similar to this one, but will feature a country lane with a drystone wall to better illustrate the usefulness of noise modifiers to produce semi-random geometry. The wall will be built from a small set of differently-sized blocks, but noise modifiers will make them all look unique and randomly shaped.
3D visualisation: Perfume bottle on satin sheet
Wed Feb 3rd - 7:42pm
My second project for learning 3DS Max was to design a fairly simple object with non-standard, non-symmetrical geometry, and build it exactly how I envisaged it, ie: working out how to create a specific structure in 3D, not just pulling a shape in random directions until I eventually found something that was nearly right. I'm going to want to do this commercially one day, and sooner rather than later, so I need to be able to work to a designer's exact specifications.
I decided to create a perfume bottle, as this would involve a few other challenges to keep things interesting, such as making a semi-opaque glass material, and putting a logo on the bottle. And I made it a bit harder for myself by displaying the perfume bottle on a satin sheet, draped over a block, which involved learning about 'cloth' materials in Max. So quite a tricky project for a beginner, but I'd say the result is fairly good. Click to enlarge:
Here's how the scene looked in Max:
Note that the logo isn't simply 'typed' in to the scene. It had to be created separately as a texture and added to a plane, which was then meticulously manipulated to fit the shape of the bottle. There may be an easier way to achieve the same effect, but here's what I did:
The litte ridges at the bottom of the bottle were produced using a displacement map. But if I had applied that map to the whole of the glass material then it would have created weird ridges all over the top and bottom of the bottle, so I only added it to a 'ring' of faces around the bottom of the bottle. That introduced a new challenge: Manually editing the texture co-ordinates (UVs) for those faces. That was a lot easier than I expected.
Designing the satin sheet was fun as Max includes material simulation, so I only needed to create the flat sheet and then tell Max to drape it over the box. I'm not 100% happy with the satin material I created as it looks a little too much like plastic to me, but the intricacies of material design aren't the priority at this stage.
First steps in 3D visualisation
Mon Feb 1st - 4:25am
I've always been interested in 3D visualisation, and I've dabbled with several design packages over the years, but it's only recently that I've committed some serious time to learning the skills needed in this fascinating area of creativity.
Over the last few weeks I've started to get competent with basic geometry creation and manipulation in 3DS Max, and I'm even scratching the surface of material creation which turns out to be a lot harder than I expected.
I'd say it's about time that I unleashed my first render for the world to see. This is the result of a self-assigned challenge to produce a vaguely realistic diamond and light it appropriately. I took it a step further and rendered a scene with several diamonds, some basic coloured objects, all on a reflective surface with bump and displacement maps. The render was produced in mental ray.
Click to view a larger version:
Here's how the raw scene looked in 3DS:
The goal of this project was primarily to learn about creating the different materials and then light the scene using traditional photographic lighting. The scene has three key lights, all behind the objects, including two hard spotlights at either side. This was because glassy materials look better with light coming through them, rather than bouncing off them. There's one fill light in front of the objects.
Here's exactly the same scene, but with more dramatic lighting, simply by bringing the main backlight down to just above the objects. (And no lens flare! Yay!)
Same scene with the original lighting, but with the coloured shapes replaced by wooden blocks and a less-than-perfect chrome ball:
Next I want to produce something with more complicated geometry.
