Stonemason's Aquatic Containment Facility
MJ007
Posts: 1,683
Hello all,
I am kinda confused on exactly what Stonemason's Aquatic Containment Facility is, so if you have it and used it, I would love to see renders of how YOU used it.
Im considering purchasing it, but could use a little inspiration as to how.
Thanks in advance!
-MJ
PS: Stonemason, if you happen to see this, I would love to know exactly what you had in mind when you made this set.
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Comments
I haven't used it, but it looks like there are large square areas with water so you can put critters in there, or dock underwater vehicles (like they would exit from underneath the building.)
There's a thought...
-MJ
I've used in a couple of storyboards as indoor holding pens for sharks, dolphins and aliens.
Deep Blue Sea definitely comes to mind when i think of this set... but aliens?
-MJ
Deep Blue Sea definitely comes to mind when i think of this set... but aliens?
-MJ
It was a proposal that never came to much but we did some early story boards. Also the Aquatics from the second season of Enterprise.
The only problem I had with it (out of the box) is there is no floor to the tanks, so you can't look down into them. Multiple ways around this of course. Approx 30 feet deep, straight down then nothing..
I used to use the high res cloth prop or one sided square prop in Poser and apply the tank wall texture to it. Plane primitive enlarged to fit the bottom of the tank would work as well.
Here is a render with the false bottom, (DAZ 3.1 on an old mac)
interesting. I thought I'd seen all of stonemason's catalog, but not this.
The water is difficult to discern but this looks like many of his early works like Level 19. I wish there were close ups of the tanks.
I wouldn't recommend this one..it's about to be retired, a very old model that probably doesn't work properly in recent versions of DAZ Studio or Poser
yes, grab them all, before there gone for ever (there's a joke in that somewhere I hope).
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44429/
there's the list of stuff about to fall off the face of the earth.
Only managed to grab the "skyline-hall" before my wallet ran and hid, lol.
Slight reflection on the floor in place of the gloss, and found a set for outside, rendering the skyline-hall now. Stonemason calls them old, there still good in my opinion.
Aquatic animal holding facility.
Undersea base 'airlock'.
Water treatment plant interior.
Futuristic diver training.
Accidentally flooded industrial building.
Mixing area for a food/drink-making factory (add some additional lighting for this and adding certain liquid shaders to the water would assist with it).
Nuclear power station or a spaceship reactor, along the lines of this: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
I recently used in Pro 2014 without any problems. It loads fine. The water needed a few tweaks and I tweaked the light set. No biggie.
I have made a quick render of it in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro and I like it. Great set, but like all of Stonemason's, so it is not the surprise ;)
Yeah, the potential uses double or triple when you realise the water is optional. :)
Oops, is that any better...
Daz Studio 4.6 Pro render.
More fun to come ...
'Mason.... ur so hard on urself... these look pretty damn good to me. Im actually considering it because its being retired. And even though I run an older version of DS anyway, it still seems the newer versions load it just fine.
Im sold. Thanks everyone for your renders and suggestions!
-MJ
sometimes all that is needed to make an old set look awesome is a few tweaks to the material settings. Using Poser Pro 2014 i have found many ways to make older models look amazingly new. Your geometry has always been solid, not hard for those that know anything about texturing to repaint these older sets to make them look awesome
I don't know guys..not really seeing anything here that makes me think it should stay in the store, it just looks messy and very unrefined.the geometry looks too simple, the textures look grungy in all the wrong ways.the water looks nothing at all like water, I could go on...I would approach it all differently if done today.
I know I can do better so here's a tease of my next sci-fi release.....
how did you manage to model my apartment?
Maybe not your intent, but those are EXACTLY the reasons i like this set along with Level 19, and Sci-Fi Corridor. Its fits perfectly for a not-so-clean-and-perfect ship.
I kinda compare it to the Star Trek series of ships variance from a "clean" Enterprise like ship vs. a grungy Klingon Bird of Prey. For example if I had a older freight ship, this is the type of interior I would expect to see in it.
The picture you posted, I could see something like that on the Enterprise. The set in question, looks perfect for something like the Millennium Falcon.
-MJ
Still IMHO looks pretty good, actually (dusted it off and tried it the other day in D|S4.6 with Area Lights on the two light materials); the only thing it really could do with is something I'm pretty terrible at — tweaking the materials settings for D|S. I'd try it in Luxus, but I'm even worse at guesstimating settings for a halfway decent water surface in LuxRender.
I'll say this much though, an artists worst critic is themself. We're always trying to get better at what we do, so we continually critique our work to find ways to improve it. I look back on my old stuff and think 'ugh, did I really do that' while others think it's some of my best work. So, I won't say your old stuff is bad, particularly, but it's obvious that it's not a patch on your recent releases.
Your new items are polished gems, but your oldies are still rough diamonds.
That is what has happened, when I have opened the included P5 scene in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro and clicked "Send to Bryce".
Rendered in Bryce 7 Pro. Rendering time: 28 seconds
Looks promising, just need to make more experiments with it.
Maybe not your intent, but those are EXACTLY the reasons i like this set along with Level 19, and Sci-Fi Corridor. Its fits perfectly for a not-so-clean-and-perfect ship.
I kinda compare it to the Star Trek series of ships variance from a "clean" Enterprise like ship vs. a grungy Klingon Bird of Prey. For example if I had a older freight ship, this is the type of interior I would expect to see in it.
The picture you posted, I could see something like that on the Enterprise. The set in question, looks perfect for something like the Millennium Falcon.
-MJI will so second that. So I messed with the surface settings a bit. There simple, so I can. And yes, like the Nostromo from Alien, or other working environments, there not 'Clean' and picturesque. It works, and it dose not take bloody ages to render on mediocre settings.
If anything, I wish there was more to complement the Skyline hall, sector 19, and this Containment Facility. I'm not saying your current project doesn't already look excellent. I would love to add to the skyline-hall to make a ship set, I just lack the tools and skills you have mastered.
Ok, my MFA may rear it's head here but in certain types of scenes a background elements that are simple (what you call simple geometry) doesn't fight with more complex mid and foreground elements. I'm not much of a modeller but I don't find anything messy or unrefined about the mesh. I only do textures for my own use these days (got out of the business back in the early days of P5), the base textures are excellent. Granted, both Poser and DS have come a long way in how they handle lights and material settings but those are easily overcome with a little work.
Grungy the wrong way? Is there a right way? Sorry, just kidding there. We've been up all night trying to make deadline and my sense of humor is a bit off right now.
The original water material has issues but that's to be expected and easily remedied.
Every artist I know as they gain experience and their perspective changes almost always look at an early work and think how much different their approach would be. That doesn't make the early work any less...
Well I can't really be the judge of the quality of an item, if stonemason feels it does a disservice to his reputation, then that's how it is. I understand his concern about how certain older items may not represent his skills and his store's quality as they are today and if he wants to remove them that is a reasonable decision.
As a customer, though, I may have a different perspective on this. If I need an Aquatic containment Facility for a render, I have a choice between this item and stitching together primitives and random textures. For me, personally, I'd rather use this item and try to hide it's flaws in the render or fix what I can fix. So I'm glad we got a warning ahead of time and a last chance at a purchase. Thankies for that.
Two more renders made in Bryce 7 Pro, with different materials of the water.
I recently used in Pro 2014 without any problems. It loads fine. The water needed a few tweaks and I tweaked the light set. No biggie.
I use a bunch of old Stonemason items still. As you say, the lights need to be adjusted, and the materials (for gamma correction, mostly). The quality of the modelling has held up very well.
To be sure, the later stuff outshines the early creations brilliantly. But Stonemason's early models could still easily compete with most other vendors today.