Post Your Renders - #5: Yet More Hope

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Comments

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,537
    edited December 1969

    Really like what you've got going on there, EP! Great work!

    And Stezza's using neanderthal textures for a chimp look pretty sweet, too.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    All of these renders are inspirational! I am working on one using a model I picked up from TurboSquid site. Naturally one thing led to another and the file got HUGE. I even tried using the remove unused shader option and I fear the file is just too big. I modeled a NYC Subway station (about 40% done there) and also a few subway cars (each has something like 4k riviets alone!). Does grouping help with managing file size and complexity? My wish is to try and see how close to photoreal I can get. Any ideas on what the limits are on .car files would be a great help. Also is there a limit on the number of lights that can be used. I am using a lot of "Anything Glows" objects. I have renamed them so that there is no confusion. I have a loooong way to go. Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Oh one last thing! Is there any way to control how the graphics card is used? I'm running a GTX 660Ti and it doesn't seem to be used for rendering. Looks like the CPU is doing all of the work.

    That's some pretty impressive work so far!

    The CPU is only used for rendering. There is no GPU rendering with the Carrara native renderer. There is a Luxrender plugin, but I don't know about the GPU implementation. There's also an Octane render plugin in the works from what I understand.

    The trick for any scene is optimization. From what I've observed picking apart other models, is that you don't need a super high poly count to get effective results. Something like a large expanse of wall doesn't really need a high poly count.

    Grouping won't keep the file size down, but duplicating will. When you duplicate an object, it creates an instance. A super simple cribs note example would be if you have a scene and you want 50 pillars, duplicate the pillar 50 times and Carrara only has to keep the geometry of one pillar in memory. It's similar to replicating, but not exactly. I don't understand it all entirely myself. Use grouping to help manage complex groups objects, or to keep the instances tab organized.

    Another thing to conside,r using your rivets as an example, would be the possibility of using displacement maps to generate the rivets. Unlike a bump map which gives the illusion of geometry, a displacement map creates it. You can paint displacement on you objects in the vertex room and export the maps. The other possibility is to create Normal maps. Using the options would help the scene overhead as the displacement is calculated when you render.

    AG lights can be slow. If you want a long fluorescent style light, consider a shape light or string of other lights such as bulbs. There can be some issues with shadow artifacts due to facets in the mesh with AG. It can have it's place, but the more you have and if the light is facet based as opposed to bounding box, it will increase the calculations.

  • BbopBbop Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Looking very cool!
    Yes, grouping and duplicating can really help.
    Grouping helps you to keep the file workability easier to manage in your scene. Select any number of objects and "Cntrl G" to group.
    Duplicating "Cntrl D" (Cmd D Mac) actually saves the file size, too. Instead of actually having another rivet, you have the affect of the same rivet in other part of 3d space - saving on the RAM needed to keep the scene. Duplicating works in the vertex modeler too.

    Thanks much! I grouped all of the steel beams they are all duplicates of the one of the red ones. and all of the track parts were grouped too. Then I tried to render it on a larger scale (1920x1080) and... Carrara crashed with the render about 60% done. oh well... at least I saved everything first!!

    Thanks for tips!

  • BbopBbop Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    All of these renders are inspirational! I am working on one using a model I picked up from TurboSquid site. Naturally one thing led to another and the file got HUGE. I even tried using the remove unused shader option and I fear the file is just too big. I modeled a NYC Subway station (about 40% done there) and also a few subway cars (each has something like 4k riviets alone!). Does grouping help with managing file size and complexity? My wish is to try and see how close to photoreal I can get. Any ideas on what the limits are on .car files would be a great help. Also is there a limit on the number of lights that can be used. I am using a lot of "Anything Glows" objects. I have renamed them so that there is no confusion. I have a loooong way to go. Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Oh one last thing! Is there any way to control how the graphics card is used? I'm running a GTX 660Ti and it doesn't seem to be used for rendering. Looks like the CPU is doing all of the work.

    That's some pretty impressive work so far!

    The CPU is only used for rendering. There is no GPU rendering with the Carrara native renderer. There is a Luxrender plugin, but I don't know about the GPU implementation. There's also an Octane render plugin in the works from what I understand.

    The trick for any scene is optimization. From what I've observed picking apart other models, is that you don't need a super high poly count to get effective results. Something like a large expanse of wall doesn't really need a high poly count.

    Grouping won't keep the file size down, but duplicating will. When you duplicate an object, it creates an instance. A super simple cribs note example would be if you have a scene and you want 50 pillars, duplicate the pillar 50 times and Carrara only has to keep the geometry of one pillar in memory. It's similar to replicating, but not exactly. I don't understand it all entirely myself. Use grouping to help manage complex groups objects, or to keep the instances tab organized.

    Another thing to conside,r using your rivets as an example, would be the possibility of using displacement maps to generate the rivets. Unlike a bump map which gives the illusion of geometry, a displacement map creates it. You can paint displacement on you objects in the vertex room and export the maps. The other possibility is to create Normal maps. Using the options would help the scene overhead as the displacement is calculated when you render.

    AG lights can be slow. If you want a long fluorescent style light, consider a shape light or string of other lights such as bulbs. There can be some issues with shadow artifacts due to facets in the mesh with AG. It can have it's place, but the more you have and if the light is facet based as opposed to bounding box, it will increase the calculations.

    I'm going to look into that Lux thingy maybe that will allow me to do larger renders of these images. It just crashed doing a 1920 x 1080 render *booo hisss* ...I'll pick this up in a.m. have to head to work.

    Thanks for the information! Really appreciate it!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969


    I'm going to look into that Lux thingy maybe that will allow me to do larger renders of these images. It just crashed doing a 1920 x 1080 render *booo hisss* ...I'll pick this up in a.m. have to head to work.

    Thanks for the information! Really appreciate it!

    It should handle the scene. This is a really high geometry model and I added lots of bells and whistles to the scene.

    What are your render settings?

    mealstrom.jpg
    2000 x 1500 - 888K
  • SpacelandSpaceland Posts: 132
    edited December 1969

    Evil,

    i think i am getting older, This Is the ship from the movie The Black Hole.

    i love it, have the movie on dvd.

  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    I modeled a NYC Subway station (about 40% done there)

    My jaw is dropped...I can't wait to see the finished product.

  • IlenaIlena Posts: 283
    edited December 1969

    Another wip. The stone and the staff needs some working in shader room I think.
    EP, didn't watch the movie, but you did very good job with the animation. :)

    t.jpg
    640 x 480 - 45K
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Spaceland said:
    Evil,

    i think i am getting older, This Is the ship from the movie The Black Hole.

    i love it, have the movie on dvd.

    I wish I could say I made the model. I didn't, but the textures that came with it didn't work that well, so I've changed maybe 95% of them and used Carrara's procedural shaders instead.

    Now here's something to consider for lighting: The illuminated part of the superstructure is actually a translucent shader. I've placed long tube lights inside the ship to light it from within. The only glow I use is the strings of running lights and the beacons on the ends of the antennas.

  • SpacelandSpaceland Posts: 132
    edited November 2013

    Spaceland said:
    Evil,

    i think i am getting older, This Is the ship from the movie The Black Hole.

    i love it, have the movie on dvd.

    I wish I could say I made the model. I didn't, but the textures that came with it didn't work that well, so I've changed maybe 95% of them and used Carrara's procedural shaders instead.

    Now here's something to consider for lighting: The illuminated part of the superstructure is actually a translucent shader. I've placed long tube lights inside the ship to light it from within. The only glow I use is the strings of running lights and the beacons on the ends of the antennas.

    you still did a great job on it, because of that, i will have to look at the movie again. :P

    Post edited by Spaceland on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Ilena52 said:
    Another wip. The stone and the staff needs some working in shader room I think.
    EP, didn't watch the movie, but you did very good job with the animation. :)

    Your scene is really coming along nicely! It has a lot of life to it. I can't see the staff well enough to see why you don't like the texture. What don't you like?

    For the stone, if it's image map based, you can use Carrara's functions such as Add, Multiply, Mixer, etc. to combine the image maps with procedural noise functions to enhance the look. That is, if you haven't done so already.

  • IlenaIlena Posts: 283
    edited December 1969

    The texture is fine. At higher resolution it just has the look of a plastic stick.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Ilena52 said:
    The texture is fine. At higher resolution it just has the look of a plastic stick.

    Highlight and Shininess then. Try copying the bump map (if it has one) into the Highlight channel, and turn the brightness down to 20% to start. In the Shineness channel, use a 1-100 numeric slider and turn it down to around 5%. Adjust the values to suit. A higher value in the Highlight channel increases the brightness and lower value in the shininess channel increases how much the highlight spreads.

    Just a suggestion. If you know this already, then just ignore me. ;-)

  • EyosEyos Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    Playing with Carrara is fun! :-)

    Trex11.png
    1000 x 750 - 474K
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Eyos said:
    Playing with Carrara is fun! :-)

    So true!

    Great image!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited November 2013

    Hey everybody,

    I just wanted to reiterate what a great bunch of renders everybody has been submitting!

    I also wanted to remind everybody that there is a great challenge going on right here in our own forum!

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/31940/

    The theme is Movie Night and it is broadly interpreted to include what a movie night means to you, scenes from your favorite movies, scenes you'd like to see. You could do a character study of people having a movie night, movie posters, still life pictures of things associated with movies. As I said, it's a broad interpretation!

    When the challenge is over, people can vote on their favorite entries. RingoMontfort and DAZ 3D have very generously donated prizes for the top three vote getters, and Ringo will determine an Honorable mention. By the way, when voting opens, anybody can vote for their favorite entries.

    There are a few requirements:

    You must provide two WIPs (Works In Progress) in the challenge WIP thread. It's a great way to get feedback, discuss techniques, share ideas, etc. etc.

    Renders must be done in Carrara or using the Carrara Luxrender plugin (if done using the plugin, the WIP must say this, and have a basic explanation of the process).

    DAZ figures and content are fine,as well as other Poser style content.

    Three items in the scene must be either created in Carrara or significantly enhanced. Not sure what that means? Just ask in the WIP thread!

    One of the three Carrara items must be either a volumetric cloud or a spline object.

    Here's the link to the WIP thread again!
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/31940/

    Please join us! Even if you don't enter, there's some info. about spline objects, and creating scenes in Carrara in general!

    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,050
    edited December 1969

    Eyos said:
    Playing with Carrara is fun! :-)

    sure is.. I nearly bought that giraffe the other day when it was on sale... I think I should of lol

    Great image Eyos.

    Here is the Roulettes from the RAAF .. they buzz around my place a couple times every year..

    roullettes_smoke_trail.jpg
    966 x 813 - 136K
  • EyosEyos Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    Hey, beautiful picture! I love airplanes since I was a kid.
    How did you get this grainy effect? Is it done in post?

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,165
    edited December 1969

    Stezza said:
    Eyos said:
    Playing with Carrara is fun! :-)

    sure is.. I nearly bought that giraffe the other day when it was on sale... I think I should of lol

    Great image Eyos.

    Here is the Roulettes from the RAAF .. they buzz around my place a couple times every year..

    Great job, Stezza. I'm like Eyos. Did you get the grain effect in Carrara or in post?

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,050
    edited December 1969

    thanks,
    the grain I added in postwork

    I create a blank layer fill with colour add noise then gaussian blur then reduce opacity to your liking.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Here's a screen capture of an animation I'm working on. It's two 'toon style retro microphones singing a duet. I made the microphones in the VM and did some simple morph targets for the "mouths" and "brows." I then rigged and weight painted them.

    The main metallic shader uses no reflection. Just Highlight and Shininess.

    Picture_1.png
    724 x 480 - 144K
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    Here's a screen capture of an animation I'm working on. It's two 'toon style retro microphones singing a duet. I made the microphones in the VM and did some simple morph targets for the "mouths" and "brows." I then rigged and weight painted them.

    The main metallic shader uses no reflection. Just Highlight and Shininess.

    Cute idea!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,986
    edited December 1969

    Stezza said:
    Eyos said:
    Playing with Carrara is fun! :-)

    sure is.. I nearly bought that giraffe the other day when it was on sale... I think I should of lol

    Great image Eyos.

    Here is the Roulettes from the RAAF .. they buzz around my place a couple times every year..

    Stezza, I thought this was a photograh! Tally ho hey what? :)

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,986
    edited December 1969

    Here's a screen capture of an animation I'm working on. It's two 'toon style retro microphones singing a duet. I made the microphones in the VM and did some simple morph targets for the "mouths" and "brows." I then rigged and weight painted them.

    The main metallic shader uses no reflection. Just Highlight and Shininess.

    who would have thought evil? :) looking forward to see the end result :0 disney studios here you come!

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,050
    edited December 1969

    head wax said:
    Stezza said:
    Eyos said:
    Playing with Carrara is fun! :-)

    sure is.. I nearly bought that giraffe the other day when it was on sale... I think I should of lol

    Great image Eyos.

    Here is the Roulettes from the RAAF .. they buzz around my place a couple times every year..

    Stezza, I thought this was a photograh! Tally ho hey what? :)

    It took me forever to texture that plane.. a lot easier than the spline modelling though :coolsmirk:

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,050
    edited December 1969

    Playing around ;)

    cyber.jpg
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  • stu sutcliffestu sutcliffe Posts: 274
    edited December 1969

    Here are a couple more homages to Mr Harryhausen.

    CyclopsARage_.png
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    Dragon_V_Cyclops.png
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  • kakmankakman Posts: 225
    edited December 1969

    Here are a couple more homages to Mr Harryhausen.

    These renders are stunning, as is all the work you post here.

    Thank you for sharing.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    Stu - Great images, I used to love Ray Harryhausen's work - come to think of it, I still do!

  • stu sutcliffestu sutcliffe Posts: 274
    edited December 1969

    Thanks !
    I did meet him about 20 years ago....he signed my "Film Fantasy Scrapbook"......now all the binding glue has dried up and all the pages fell out!

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