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August MMC Castle - The Fortress
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These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
August MMC Castle - The Fortress // Work in Progress
Post by Breech Block // Aug 18, 2008, 12:44pm
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Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
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I managed to get a couple of hours over the weekend to knock up a flying police-car - see attached. Intend to have a few of these in the air in the final shot, although they won't be seen close up. Typically, they've ended up at a much higher poly count than needed for the distance, even though they're not that detailed.
Just when you think this thread can't get any more impressive, Nez trumps it yet again by casually "knocking out" a flying police car good enough to win a SMC hands down. You need to slow down mate, as I've completely run out of superlatives. :D |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 18, 2008, 5:27pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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I agree with Breech! Awesome police car.
Agree about the alpha planes for the smoke. Best way to go until we get volume shaders.
Also to Georg's point, downloading 7.6 doesn't mean you have to uninstall or stop using 5.1 ;) |
Post by Nez // Aug 18, 2008, 9:52pm
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Thanks again for all the kind words everyone.
I'll hopefully have a go at the alpha planes today, but it's not something I've tried before, so if anyone's got any examples or seen a tutorial covering that it would be useful.
TomG - thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think multi-pass is available in TS5.1, unless I'm missing something. I can do a depth render with ZRender, but no object mask, although I could possibly try painting all the buildings black and rendering against a white background, or some such....
Georg/Jack - I do hope to try out 7.6 soon (and certainly without uninstalling 5.1) and it's useful to hear Georg that you are coping on a modest pc. I was expecting I'd have problems because not only is the computer old but it's running Win98SE and somebody else on the forum said they couldn't even install 7.6 in that environment... Am going to have no real access to a computer after tomorrow morning for a few days anyway, but hopefully in the next few weeks I'll get downloading and see if I can get anywhere... |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 18, 2008, 10:12pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Ack... Win98....:(
BTW this might help for the technical aspects of doing an alpha plane:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=2510 |
Post by Nez // Aug 19, 2008, 2:03am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Cheers Jack -looks like I was on roughly the right track.... just need to keep tinkering...
Tried a quick laser test - just rendered some laser 'beams' with high luminosity against black and posted them in with some glow for fuzzyness - didn't really work too brilliantly... knew I'd need to add some light sources to cast some light back on structure, but just wanted to see whether to even bother with the laser beams, think I probably won't... |
Post by TomG // Aug 19, 2008, 3:21am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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You can get render to PSD just by downloading tS7.6 - even if you just load your tS5 scene into it and use it as a render engine, you'll get big benefits from tS7.6 :)
HTH!
Tom |
Post by Nez // Aug 19, 2008, 3:30am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Well I can't do that in time for this challenge, but hopefully for the next one I enter... ;) |
Post by TomG // Aug 19, 2008, 4:09am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Can always use shaders that make a depth mask, there's one I made for ShaderLab and I'm sure there are others out there (they color an object from white to black depending on distance, this then lets you use that as a mask / alpha layer to blend in effects like fog).
Painting all objects white then rendering on a black background will give you another mask / alpha channel to separate objects from the background to avoid applying fog to the background.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by Nez // Aug 19, 2008, 4:12am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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I wondered if I might be able to do something like that, but for the moment I've gone with the alpha planes suggestion.
Here's the result - this is probably going to be the last version I can do before the submission as I'm going to be away for a few days. May have overdone the smoke, but I quite like it! |
Post by TomG // Aug 19, 2008, 5:10am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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I like the smoke - I'd be tempted (if you have time) to add a few more alpha planes down low in front of the building, like some sand being whipped up for the ground.
This is an awesome building, been a real treat to watch this one grow and develop! I hope after the contest we can tempt you into trying HDRI in tS7.6 to re-render the scene, I think you'll like the render options that tS7.6 will give :)
I also hope we'll see more of those "quickly knocked together" flying vehicles, I actually really like that kind of thing and can't get enough of such renders, so maybe they'll get re-used sometime. Maybe in some collaborative combatitive piece of work they could go into battle against Weevil's F18 :)
Tom |
Post by Nez // Aug 19, 2008, 7:01am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Well, I've had a shot at your suggestion by adding a few planes near the ground. I've also thinned out a few from the background fog/smoke so it's a bit less over the top, and I reckon it looks a bit better for it.
That's me done for now. I'd definitely like to try out HDRI, and a collaborative scene would be fun.... |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 19, 2008, 7:37am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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The ground smoke makes a big difference. Nice work Nez! I think you can call this one done. :banana: |
Post by Davin // Aug 20, 2008, 12:49pm
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Davin
Total Posts: 59
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Here are some lasers you might want to try, I have used 'em since tS5 but I think tS4 also could do this.
[Laser Texture]
Color Shader: Whatever Laser color
Transparency: Glow; Centre Cov .9
No Bump
Either contant reflectance or full luminence with diffusion on the far left.
Make rounded cilynder shape, or a sphere and stretch it out. Make a really skinny one, then paint it with the laser texture.
Copy it and make a little bigger and change the Centre Cov to 6 and paint the new one.
Copy it and make a little bigger and change the Centre Cov to 4 and paint the new one.
Copy it and make a little bigger and change the Centre Cov to 2 and paint the new one.
Copy it and make a little bigger and change the Centre Cov to 1 and paint the new one.
Group them all together and you got a laser that looks pretty decent from most angles and proximities. |
Post by Davin // Aug 20, 2008, 12:57pm
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Davin
Total Posts: 59
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Here is a screen of the texture. |
Post by W!ZARD // Aug 21, 2008, 6:24pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Cheers W!zard
I thought your type of place might be a bit more curly...
Yep, I commute, crazy though it is - it's about 2 hours each way from door to door, with an hour on the train, plus walking, waiting and buses/tubes etc... I get lots of time to read though which is a valuable commodity to me, so I don't mind too much - most of the time!
Actually, with all you space-y scenes, I could easily imagine you as an astronaut (albeit with a pointy helmet with runes on, of course!)
I thought I remembered you mentioning alpha planes before - could you show just a small grab of what a typical plane might look like and how you tend to arrange them (i.e how many, inclined or vertical....)
Thanks!
Nez, sorry mate, I've been preoccupied and haven't been back to this thread for a while. Looks to me like you got the alpha plane thing sussed out - looks great!
Yeah, time spent reading is always time you've spent well IMO!.
Re Wizard astronauts - it was probably inevitable but here is a frame from one of my ongoing animation projects :D. No runes on the helmet though, but that's a really good idea! :D
I also want to echo the sentiments of others here (Tom, Breech Block etc) to comment on the total coolness of your flying machine - makes my space ships look strictly amateur! |
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