A Day at the Museum (Natural History Museum - London)

Fletch · 25 Dec 2010, 19:00

The original scene is well known to many in the CG community for a "lighting challenge". It was created and shared by Alvaro Luna Bautista and Joel Anderson. The conversion took - a lot of work. Please feel free to follow the progress of the scene and learn more details here.

As far as I'm aware, we are the only ones to have successfully converted this file into SketchUp and rendered it natively from within SketchUp using a completely integrated render engine like Twilight Render.

Click image below to see larger image:

shura · 25 Dec 2010, 22:39

Fantastic work Fletch! (:smiley that bows to his master:)

Only one tiny thing: for me the display in the center does not blend into the whole - maybe the black is a bit too black?

best wishes
alex

Fletch · 26 Dec 2010, 14:32

Thanks Alex.
I've updated the post above with a higher resolution image, hopefullythat helps a little.

Perhaps bones are too dark colored, but this is what color dinosaur bones are, somewhat reddish-brown to very dark reddish-brown, almost black.
More lights are perhaps needed.

I will post more images soon.

dale · 26 Dec 2010, 16:00

Wow. Nice work Fletch on what must be a very challenging render.

simon le bon · 26 Dec 2010, 16:55

Hi Dear Fletch,

Nice to see you also Here in SCF
So nice render! Also i can understand the big challenge for you was to translate the model into a decent Skp model.. Am I wrong?
It's a surprise for me to see the subject of your post because I have watched the astonishing pictures of this Natural History Lighting Challenge just 3 or 4 days ago
The reason why was because I had ordered a book on "non-software-specific" knowledge about rendering

a book written by Jeremy Birn witch is rightly the one who have initiated this Lighting Challenges

With my sympathy and my best wishes for 2011
simon

Edson · 26 Dec 2010, 19:57

beautiful, fletch. stunning work.

floric · 26 Dec 2010, 21:50

Wow. Amazing render. I like watching things like this.

Roger · 27 Dec 2010, 04:18

If you filled the interior with tropical plants it would look a bit like Atocha Station in Madrid. I thought about modeling that but rejected the thought after thinking about it for 10 seconds. Is there any direct lighting on the exhibits?

Fletch · 1 Jan 2011, 00:33

Another view I am looking at. DOF with F-number 4... may be too subtle.

This is not an exercise for ultimate realism, but more for play. And it is to prove that this model could be handled in SU and Twilight Render with only 3Gb of RAM.

I do realize this building exists, and as it is an extraordinary building, it is quite well-known... so if you've been inside the real space, you are blessed, but any rendering of the space could not really do it justice without a lot more modeling and texture work.

slimaczysko · 11 Jan 2011, 19:57

Wow nice work...

I've been there several times, is a great museum

Fletch · 13 Jan 2011, 13:04

An update, and a new view.
Click images for full view.
Visit link to forum above to see higher-resolution.
DOF is done with the render engine camera setting - F-number 2.8

artysmedia · 13 Jan 2011, 15:53

I was waiting to see the las image to make a comment
Will you put some dirty on the walls?
Great museum

Fletch · 14 Jan 2011, 08:04

Updated view, and changed the wall material.

sepo · 14 Jan 2011, 18:58

The last one is very convincing.

Fletch · 15 Jan 2011, 14:00

Thanks, Sepo. I was hoping you would like the stone block better. (I do too)
see full high-res image in original thread here.

Fletch · 17 Jan 2011, 23:50

Couldn't resist just one more.

Fletch · 19 Jan 2011, 01:22

Here's my first experiment with a spherical image of this space.

screenshot:

KarinaGM · 19 Jan 2011, 07:49

Impresive Fletch!!!!
Are the skeletons also modeled in SU? Don't tell me they are! I won't believe you
The texturing and detailing is really nice. I haven't been there, but knowing the quality of your work, no doubt it is also accurate

Fletch · 19 Jan 2011, 13:42

Thanks Karina.

Well, this building is actually not originally modelled in SU, it was modelled in Blender and painstakingly converted into a "component-driven" SketchUp model - mostly because it had many reversed face issues due to the conversion process from Blender file to .obj format.

Also, it's not actually that accurate of a model, in the sense that the real museum is so mind-blowingly complex. It has hundreds of fine terra cotta details including monkeys and birds, etc. Check the link at the beginning of this thread to find out more.

I hope to visit the building one day. I unfortunately missed it on my last trip to London.

The brick walls and diamond detail columns are a rough approximate of the "real thing".

Speaker · 19 Jan 2011, 15:35

why do I see bar panorama when I click on the image?

edit: works OK now