Castle Howard

Al Hart · 15 Mar 2010, 18:17

As far as I've been able to see iRender unfortunately doesn't do AO. I'm still hoping ASGVIS will finally come up with a decent patch for their new, incredibly buggy Vray, which has been sitting on my PC unused for over a month now because it crashes every time I try to render this model. I would be very curious to see what VRAY makes of this!

Ambient occlusion is a technique used to "fake" indirect lighting in renderers which do not offer this feature. Typically, engines like Maxwell, Kerkythea, or IRender nXt do not use this because they offer "true" indirect lighting. Some engines offer the choice of indirect lighting or ambient occlusion ( ambient occlusion is faster, but much less correct).

For IRender nXt, you should use the "Gather/Exterior" indirect lighting setting to get a similar result, using actual indirect lighting.

MartinPh · 15 Mar 2010, 19:36

For those of you who are intererested, here are a few examples of the reference material I used. Vitruvius Britannicus is an excellent source, offering complete plans and elevations as well as, in this case, a famous and spectacular birds eye view. Still, modeling the thing soon made it clear that the drawings are not consistent among each other, so at times I had to improvise. There are no lateral views or views of inside courtyards in VB, so for those I relied on a visit, on photographs and even on scenes from the Brideshead Revisited TV-series (excellent!) and movie (awful!).

Jon, I envy you! I have traveled quite extensively but still consider Howard and its environs to be the most beautiful place I've ever been...

ken28875 · 15 Mar 2010, 19:37

Wow, awesome model!

I would suggest you play with the camera/field of view to get some more interesting/dramatic views.

Have a nice one!

_KN

Fletch · 15 Mar 2010, 20:12

hmm... too bad about the component leveraging... as it also makes for much faster model processing and rendering and better RAM usage... maybe keep it in mind for your next monster project.

well, it's a pain, I'm sure, but you can export different sectors of the model, north wing, south wing, etc, then merge them all together in one big model in KT... but it should (KT) handle the polys just fine.

People do this all the time, usually its a matter of separating furniture from architecture... but in your case could be castle "wings".

Glenn at home · 16 Mar 2010, 15:42

This model needs to be the response that people get when they say that SU is not a professional tool! Excellent job.

Sir · 16 Mar 2010, 18:20

amazing

dermotcoll · 17 Mar 2010, 15:27

Absolutely stunning modelling. I am totally blown away by the sheer size of this project. Very very well done

TIG · 17 Mar 2010, 15:57

Fantastic modeling... Hats off !

History lesson; 'Castle Howard' is a wonderful example of an architectural masterpiece that was not designed by an architect - [Sir] John Vanburgh was a dilettante, playwright and stage-set designer etc - who only got the job after the rejection of initial designs by the respected architect William Talman, because Vanburgh's pal, and luckily the client, Charles Howard [3rd Earl of Carlisle] was a member of the his club - the 'Kit-Cat Club' !
[A ''kit-kat / 'club' is now a definitely [one or two] good chocolate-bars to most Brits and probably conjures up a seedy strip-joint to most Yanks... ]
To continue... Vanburgh had some great ideas... but let's not forget that he was 'assisted' by Nicholas Hawksmoor [as he also was at Blenheim Palace]... who knew what he was doing since he had worked with Wren*.........
In Colvin's words, "[Hawksmoor] enabled Vanbrugh's heroic designs to be translated into actuality."
i.e. Hawksmoor got Vanburgh out of the s**t !!!

Additionally, don't forget that Sir Christopher *Wren was actually a mathematician cum surveyor who turned out to be one of England's best 'architects' - although I'm always a bit suspicious of how quickly he came up with the new master-plan for London after it burnt down in the 'Great Fire' of 1666 - even with CAD we'd've been hard pressed to turn that out so quickly... did they search him for matches ???

Fletch · 17 Mar 2010, 17:45

@tig said:

...to turn that out so quickly... did they search him for matches ???

(sorry to go off topic momentarily...) Thanks for the bit of history TIG! I love this stuff.

No, I'm actually positive there were several plans already laid for London before the burning. Most large cities have master plans, even at that time, city planning was a big deal. But that his was chosen over others, there's something to ponder... doubtless much politics involved... same deal now... just look at politics around 1 World Trade today

IdahoJ · 17 Mar 2010, 18:51

An amazing piece of work. A wonderful example of what can be achieved with research, diligence and just plain "work a bit at it every day" kind of work. Very nice!

Cheers!

jamalito · 18 Mar 2010, 20:24

By the way
I do not have any comment until I would say my comment
This design is wonderful
I have two questions
How many years you had worked on this design?
What is the program that you used in Render?

Fletch · 19 Mar 2010, 00:43

your questions are answered in his first post.

Al Hart · 19 Mar 2010, 02:29

@jamalito said:

What is the program that you used in Render?

IRender nXt and nXtRender are two versions of the nXt rendering engine integrated into SketchUp. take a look at: IRender nXt

MartinPh · 21 Mar 2010, 13:06

I've been experimenting a bit with field of view, and played around in Photoshop with the result. I need to do something about the glass material, it doesn't look very good...

notareal · 21 Mar 2010, 13:13

A grand project! Last render needs environmental reflections for windows and a perspective control lens (shift). Also perhaps instanced grass and displaced gravel. DOF feels a bit unnatural, is that post pro?

broomstick · 9 Apr 2010, 10:00

Just.. Awesome. I hadn't seen this thread!!

Cyberdactyl · 10 Apr 2010, 00:27

Very impressive. Awesome attention to detail!

I was just curious about those textures on the walls to the left in the last pic?

Does iRender have turbidity as a variable? It would really give your work a feel of distance.

MartinPh · 10 Apr 2010, 19:54

Hi Cyberdactyl, no, unfortunately iRender doesn't do turbidity (yet?). Their image editor offers haze as a post-render processing option, but that didn't do much for this model. And the texture, well, it's a lame attempt at dirtmapping done in Photoshop... I would need procedurals to do it inside the render application, another option iRender doesn't have. I am so hoping some day the Vray people will finally fix their awful latest release, which is unable to render a model this size, and which has been sitting around uselessly on my PC ever since I, misguidedly, bought it...

solo · 10 Apr 2010, 20:29

This great model needs Vue, well done mate.

nektares · 10 Apr 2010, 21:18

wow that´s so amazing. i Love it the model is so well done
even without shaders it looks amazing, excellent job.
a bit of work with the landscape would be the cherry on the cake.
Congratulations!!!