Carrara Challenge #21: “Video Game - Main Scene” - WIP Thread - Closed

chickenman

Dartanbeck said:

Very cool boat, Phil! Oh, Chickenman, speaking of PhilW, his Advanced Carrara Techniques video course via Infinite Skills is absolutely jam packed with great instructions for modeling within Carrara as well as how to deal with important modeling considerations such as UV Mapping and Unwrapping, making shaders, 3d Paint, and much more. Just an FYI that I wanted to let you know about since I've found the whole series to be an invaluable part of my entire Carrara experience. His Realism Rendering and Basic Training courses are also just packed full of very, very good material no matter how much or how little you may already know. Very good stuff. 

mmoir's Carrara Modeling Tutorials pack is another fantastic way to experience instruction from an absolute pro. Not sure if you've picked up any mmoir products, but one of the first things I did was to look deeply into how he's put his scenes and models together, even inspecting the texture and distribution maps that came with his products - only to discover that this man truly is a master of his craft - and that expertise shows well in his tutorials. 

However, if you want to try a fun little experiment on your own, using the vertex modeler, try this:

Insert > Vertex Object

This will take you into the modeling room with absolutely nothing in it except a grid. It's waiting for a command from you. 

Don't do anyting. Just close that window and then go back to the Assemble Room.

Select "Vertex Object"

In the upper left of the working window, click on the icon that looks like a wrench (hovering over it will say "Edit", I believe)

Now you've transformed the Assemble Room into the model room. All of the Vertex Model room functions have taken over the interface. The cool part about this is that you can still see everything that may already be in your scene, so you can easily model around things - using other things for perspective or other inspiration.

While in Edit mode, go to the menu above:

Construct > Insert 3D > Insert Cube - leave the default and click okay.

If it doesn't show right away, scroll back and forth quickly with your mouse wheel. You'll have a cube in the scene with all sides selected. Click anywhere except on the cube to deselect everything. Now select a single side. Not an edge or point, but a face. Now look at the icons along the top. Towards the center of the tool bar, you'll see a kind of shape that looks sort of like a bowl upside down on top of another bowl just like it. Or metal baking pan or something. Hovering over the tool will reveal it to be the "Dynamic Extrusion" tool. mmoir uses the keyboard shortcut "H", I think, but one of my many plugins has taken over that hotkey from me. I should really fix that under preferences.

With the Dynamic Extrusion tool selected, you may drag your selected polygon out (or in) into a taper. Holding down Ctrl will keep the polygon size the same as you drag. Holding Shift will make the extrusion within the same plane as the original polygon, either larger or smaller, depending on which direction you drag.

This tool can take you places! Here are some more things to know about it:

While anything is selected on the vertext object, you may turn on 'symmetry' in the panel on the right, and then choose which axis of symmetry you want. This can be Super Useful!

You'll also see the options for "Smoothing". This is what's known as Subdivision modeling. Smoothing of '1' will internally split each current polygon into four. '2' will split each of those created from a value of 1 into a further four, and so on. "Convert" will take the current smoothed look of the mesh and convert it to actual polygons to create that shape, and turn smoothing back off. You may now turn smoothing back on for further SubD, if you like. Note: You need to have something selected on the object for these options to become visible for use.

With the Dynamic Extrusion tool selected, the panel on the right will have some tool options for you, which alter how the tool behaves as you drag normally, as well as whether or not multiple selections of polygons will be linked together. If not, each selected polygon will extrude to a new set of polygons.

=========================================================================================

Playing around with polygons like this is excellent experience for modeling. Don't worry about screwing anything up. Just play around building a mesh or meshes to create shapes like clay, or building with paper or wood or stone or....

I have Mike Moirs tutorial as well as all of PhilW's just have to get the time to do it.

i have played around with Hexagon and followed a tutorial or two there as well so we will see what I come up with.

Thanks for the tips now maybe I can get chickenmans neck to look closer to the size the hole in Micheal 6 neck is. then i would not have to be so careful of the angles I utilize in the shots.

Stezza

Great concepts being posted here.... one image posted got me thinking about a brick and what I could do with it..

 

so, I made a brick

then I thought about using replicators and modifiers on the brick

which then got me thinking about karate... go figure... well that got me thinking about the game of cricket.. talk about a hazey brain!! ok, I'll use the text tool as well..

Thanks MD2010 for scrambling my brain ;-)

 

Stezza

Rendered with no postwork apart from sig..

pimpy

Stezza said:

Rendered with no postwork apart from sig..

Hi Stezza

Wow! Your character is amazing. It reminds me the caricature of the actor Ralph Macchio in the movie "The Karate Kid" 

reddotmedia_8092aed472

Hi, have not posted for awhile but saw this and it ALMOST encouraged me to open up C again... thought it may give you a chuckle...this is done in Unity5. As you can see the character controller is "default". Looking at different options for this, Daz too, of course... but vision for the "movie" portion is to do "backgrounds" in Unity and then do the models rendered in C as usual. Seems faster/more intuitive to build the landscapes in Unity. Tons of stuff to learn but fun.. you can play the "game" @ https://s3.amazonaws.com/nepsgame/2.html  or https://apps.facebook.com/nepsthegame/ , there's 5 "levels" but saving/updating scores is something I am working on. But having fun just making the game levels.

I will try to open up C and see what's up before the contest closes.... Cheers

 

 

FifthElement

Good stuff ya all, lots of good ideas floating around...

Always wanted to do a zombie scene, so I decided to give it a whirl 

I have some content now (got zombie in DAZ store for commercial render few years back, but never used it "properly"), so I can speed up my work on this, gonna be some kind of zombie video game, I guess, lol.

Very simple idea:

Female character, shooting zombies in the forest under moonlight, few gravestones and what not to make it look creepy, cheesy, I know, lol ...

Anyways, here is the start, just a gravestone, cube extruded with some displacement painting, quickly modeled and UV unwrapped in Carrara 

FifthElement

I'll be also using this pistol I modeled in Silo, few weeks back 

Headwax

Stezza said:

Great concepts being posted here.... one image posted got me thinking about a brick and what I could do with it..

 

so, I made a brick

then I thought about using replicators and modifiers on the brick

which then got me thinking about karate... go figure... well that got me thinking about the game of cricket.. talk about a hazey brain!! ok, I'll use the text tool as well..

Thanks MD2010 for scrambling my brain ;-)

 

Nice render stezza, was hoping you could slip a few pigeons in there :)

 

 

Headwax

reddotmedia_8092aed472 said:

Hi, have not posted for awhile but saw this and it ALMOST encouraged me to open up C again... thought it may give you a chuckle...this is done in Unity5. As you can see the character controller is "default". Looking at different options for this, Daz too, of course... but vision for the "movie" portion is to do "backgrounds" in Unity and then do the models rendered in C as usual. Seems faster/more intuitive to build the landscapes in Unity. Tons of stuff to learn but fun.. you can play the "game" @ https://s3.amazonaws.com/nepsgame/2.html  or https://apps.facebook.com/nepsthegame/ , there's 5 "levels" but saving/updating scores is something I am working on. But having fun just making the game levels.

I will try to open up C and see what's up before the contest closes.... Cheers

 

 

now that does look like a computer game!

 

Headwax

FifthElement said:

I'll be also using this pistol I modeled in Silo, few weeks back 

terrific looking pistol, love the details in the front part with the little round indents , and I'm not just saying that.

 

FifthElement

Thanks Head Wax, here is a screenshot of the scene i have so far, just a terrain, gravestones and a foreground tree. Tree is a 3D scan from here (Elm Tree with Hollows model): http://www.remnantstudios.com/freebies/previous/3 

I created a path mask in GIMP too ...

FifthElement

Little update, added a lady from a content library, added guns and holsters and posed her ...

There are some sculls laying around the path. Empty placeholder replicators for grass and trees added.

FifthElement

More updates:

Added trees from TreeSketch and grass blades I modeled in Silo some time ago ...

3 zombies added and quickly posed. Off to distribute trees and grass and do the preview render of this monster, lol 

Stezza

head wax said:

Stezza said:

Great concepts being posted here.... one image posted got me thinking about a brick and what I could do with it..

 

so, I made a brick

then I thought about using replicators and modifiers on the brick

which then got me thinking about karate... go figure... well that got me thinking about the game of cricket.. talk about a hazey brain!! ok, I'll use the text tool as well..

Thanks MD2010 for scrambling my brain ;-)

 

Nice render stezza, was hoping you could slip a few pigeons in there :)

 

 

Thankyou HW.. I did have my eyes on one to use... but couldn't thunk of nuffin!

thanks @pimpy ;-)

 

FifthElement

Here is a raw render, I also rendered few multi-pass layers, depth, specular and AO. Off to setup fusion scene for some editing and making it look like night scene 

I also rendered one artistic layer in GIMP from original Carrara render (with awesome G'MIC plugin) to add it (or not) to the scene ...

evilproducer

Great job on the Zombie scene. I can almost see Rick Grimes. He's probably just off-camera.

FifthElement

Thanks Evil, appriciate it, here is some 2d elements added in Fusion, smoke coming out of one gun and muzzle flash from another, blood splatter behind zombies head, distant forest background and deer in mid distance (with bit of DOF) ...

Off to do some post on all this.

FifthElement

Almost there 

Used depth pass for color correction to create illusion of fog and some tone mapping done, mainly to increase contrast and add bluish tint for night scene mood, filter generated in GIMP used to add paint effect ...

Dartanbeck

Very nice, Phil! One thing though...

I keep having him row that boat all over the ocean and it's a real challenge trying to avoid the rocks and other floating debris from where other ships have failed... but I never run into any monsters.

 

PhilW said:

Here's another work in progress which more shows the concept coming together - Orpheus is guiding his boat across a stormy river and must avoid the various hazards in the way, including rocks and monsters of the deep (not yet included!).

Oh... right! Sorry! Great to see that Morphing Changing Fantasy Suit again! Might have to load up some Generation 2 again and have a play! My problem in that department is that, back then, I didn't buy anything. All of my Generation 2 products are from various freebies of that time.

pimpy

FifthElement said:

Almost there 

Used depth pass for color correction to create illusion of fog and some tone mapping done, mainly to increase contrast and add bluish tint for night scene mood, filter generated in GIMP used to add paint effect ...

Very good! I like it Fifth Element, very nice scene 

...filter generated in Gimp? How?

Headwax

Stezza said:

head wax said:

Stezza said:

Great concepts being posted here.... one image posted got me thinking about a brick and what I could do with it..

 

so, I made a brick

then I thought about using replicators and modifiers on the brick

which then got me thinking about karate... go figure... well that got me thinking about the game of cricket.. talk about a hazey brain!! ok, I'll use the text tool as well..

Thanks MD2010 for scrambling my brain ;-)

 

Nice render stezza, was hoping you could slip a few pigeons in there :)

 

 

Thankyou HW.. I did have my eyes on one to use... but couldn't thunk of nuffin!

thanks @pimpy ;-)

 

ha ha, love the dna you must be sourcing :)

 

Headwax

FifthElement said:

Almost there 

Used depth pass for color correction to create illusion of fog and some tone mapping done, mainly to increase contrast and add bluish tint for night scene mood, filter generated in GIMP used to add paint effect ...

 

Amazing work. :) Mujst look at GIMP.! Any hints on that filter?

 

Dartanbeck

Very cool, Fifth! Very cool!

Andrew - Gimp is awesome. Takes some getting used to. I learned mostly by simply exploring menus. Otherwise I search the web. It's an amazing Open Source Photoshop

FifthElement

Thanks, ya all, gimp plugin G'MIC can be found here (this is just one of it's filters/generators): http://gmic.eu/gimp.shtml  (I posted this few days ago here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/6274/free-software-that-makes-life-easier/p9 )

Filter used was: Engrave

I processed final render with it by using it as mask in Fusion.

G'MIC even has one which can generate stereoscopic image out of original render and depth pass, it is very good plugin, just discovered it couple weeks ago 

Dartanbeck

Here is my start.

I'm making a roleplay game in the Shadowrun genre, but not their name or universe.

Rather than build a whole street scene from scratch, I'm starting with Stonemason's Urban Sprawl set. I've gone through and added two spot lights to every street light in the scene. As shown in the WIP image, the upper spot light is positioned above the fixture and is used only as a light cone effect. The lower spot light actually provides the illumination. The light cone has been set for 3d shadows and, since it is positioned above the fixture to keep the peak of the effect hidden within, I've check the Invert button for the 3d Shadows.

To make this setting look more of the style I need, I'll now add some cool Techno Town props by Coflek-Gnorg and place them over some of the existing buildings.

I've also gone through and tweaked all of the shaders. I always consolidate them first so that any item using the same shaders will update and save me from doing the work over and over. This being an urban night scene, I was mostly concerned with materials which need to glow or reflect, but I always put some attention to glass as well. Phil's Realism Rendering video taught me some new habits - and I like them!

You may need to click the image to see details

Diomede

Wow, some truly wonderful posts.  Thanks for describing your lighting, Dart.  That is one of my weakest skills, and is not always described.

 

Well, I just watched some Rankin and Bass claymation Christmas shows.  So, I had to redesign my grumpy old man.  Pretty simple so far.  I just inserted a sphere to start the torso, then used the extrude and symmetry tools to get a toon body.  I start wih an 18 sided sphere so that there is a center line.  The default 16 side does not have one. 

I then used extrude to extend the arms and legs.  Since I know he will be wearing shoes I did not bother with feet and toes.  Also, I reduced the number of fingers for the toon standard.  Once I had a low polygon body, I prepared the neck to join the head. Since the start of the head would be a second 18-sided sphere, and the extrudes had resulted in an 18-sided neck, I merely needed to use dissolve to empty the neck polygon. 

 

I used construct to insert a second sphere in the same mesh and then used the bridge tool to attach to the neck.  Keeping in the Rankin and Bass tradition, the features of the face are exaggerated, and the ears are very simple. 

 

Headwax

FifthElement said:

Thanks, ya all, gimp plugin G'MIC can be found here (this is just one of it's filters/generators): http://gmic.eu/gimp.shtml  (I posted this few days ago here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/6274/free-software-that-makes-life-easier/p9 )

Filter used was: Engrave

I processed final render with it by using it as mask in Fusion.

G'MIC even has one which can generate stereoscopic image out of original render and depth pass, it is very good plugin, just discovered it couple weeks ago 

thanks Fifth and Dart for that :)

 

Headwax

Nice start @Dartanbeck.

That's pretty amazing work diomede, thanks for the tut!

Stezza

head wax said:

Nice start @Dartanbeck.

That's pretty amazing work diomede, thanks for the tut!

I'll ditto that... thanks diomede 

Diomede

A little more progress.  Added some detail for clothes.  I created shading domains and uvmapped Grumpy.  I then added hair, a mustache, and eyebrows.  The shaders are placeholders.