A Little Stool in Red Oak

Dave R · 30 Dec 2013, 13:31

I painted them in red for fun.

I'm reasonably happy with the way the texture of the wood shows though the paint. They don't look like plastic that way.

Any suggestions from the rendering gurus on how to give the stools the appearance of weight. It looks like they are floating on the carpet when they should be sunken in. Maybe I could make a mesh and depressions under the feet with sandbox tools? Any other suggestions?

d12dozr · 30 Dec 2013, 14:39

Looking good, Dave

@dave r said:

Any suggestions from the rendering gurus on how to give the stools the appearance of weight. It looks like they are floating on the carpet when they should be sunken in. Maybe I could make a mesh and depressions under the feet with sandbox tools? Any other suggestions?

I'm no rendering guru, but I think adding a light directly above the stools above will add some shadows under the stool to help 'ground' it. Right now it appears like you only have one light in the scene.

Dave R · 30 Dec 2013, 14:45

Thanks Marcus. Actually there are three lights. One above the stools, one to the left of the camera and fairly low in this last render and the third is behind and to the right of the camera.

Maybe if I really float the stools, say 1/32 of an inch above the floor, I'll get enough of a shadow under them to give the effect. In reality, though the carpet texture should deform a little.

d12dozr · 30 Dec 2013, 15:07

Oh yeah, I can see multiple shadows now.

notareal · 30 Dec 2013, 17:30

@dave r said:

Any suggestions from the rendering gurus on how to give the stools the appearance of weight. It looks like they are floating on the carpet when they should be sunken in. Maybe I could make a mesh and depressions under the feet with sandbox tools? Any other suggestions?

Not sure what renderer you used, but if you don't want to go and remodel the carper, you could try to add some AO effect. Also like said, you could try to float chairs a bit...

Dave R · 30 Dec 2013, 17:36

thanks for the suggestion. I'll see if I can sort that out. I used KT for these.

olishea · 30 Dec 2013, 18:16

Yeah they do look a bit floaty. I wouldn't go as far as deforming the floor though. Lifting objects away from the surface can add some shadow underneath but since you have used roundcorner (quite rightly) I don't think the shadow will become obvious. Best off exploring the AO route as notareal suggests. If you want any more critique I have to say the skirting texture looks too low res.

Instead of re-rendering the whole scene, can you export an AO pass and then overlay it in photoshop using the multiply blending mode? I think you can in KT.

Dave R · 30 Dec 2013, 18:20

Thanks Oli. I didn't round over the corners on the bottom of the feet. I only rounded the edges up the outside and in the recess underneath.

I didn't really want that texture on the skirting board to be high res. I didn't really expect it to be the focus of attention. I added a little bump to it, too, to keep it from being so shiny.

olishea · 30 Dec 2013, 18:23

I understand, it's just when there are so few objects in the scene everything stands out. It's easier to notice these things that's all. I was just being a picky bugger.

Dave R · 30 Dec 2013, 18:25

That's alright. Maybe I should reduce the DOF a bit.

notareal · 30 Dec 2013, 18:57

@dave r said:

thanks for the suggestion. I'll see if I can sort that out. I used KT for these.

There is no proper AO in KT, so float or modify mesh to get some recess around the feet. If you used KT biased engine, missing contact shadows is just a feature... for example Thea has different approach in it's biased engine (Field Mapping instead of Photon Mapping) and it can produce good contact shadows ( +there is AO feature if needed). With KT, unbiased engines should produce better contact shadows, but still... floating models a bit will help.

nickchun · 31 Dec 2013, 11:00

I think the floating effect is because the carpet is a flat surface with false 3d relief, your brain wants to tell you it isn't flat but the feet are siting on a flat surface

Dave R · 31 Dec 2013, 11:10

Yeah, I can see that. I guess the trick is to change what the brain thinks it sees. I could take the easy way out and change the flooring to something hard like tile of wood.

Box · 31 Dec 2013, 11:18

It is that damn carpet, I tried everything, bumps, lighting, holding my mouth right, a rabbit, nothing I could do made the carpet work. It's always the way, nobody sees the good stuff just the problems.

Dave R · 31 Dec 2013, 11:21

A whole rabbit? That's really trying!

Hmmm.... I guess I'll tear out the carpet and put down something else.

Nice stool, though.

nickchun · 31 Dec 2013, 11:32

Yes and the original wood textures are great. How do you go about getting even lighting when you take the photos?

Dave R · 31 Dec 2013, 12:09

Nick, I think it's pure luck. It doesn't always work out that way.

Actually it probably isn't very even end to end. It matters most that it's even across the width of the board. My texture images cover 6 to 14 feet of a board so I don't need the material to repeat along the length like the typical square texture images must. Because of the size of the texture and because it is supposed to represent real wood, I have no use for seamless textures. Usually I'll have two or more boards from the same tree and I try to make them as similar in exposure as I can get.

pilou · 31 Dec 2013, 12:51

Four legs are not hyper stability for this sort of thing?

Dave R · 31 Dec 2013, 12:54

@unknownuser said:

Four legs are not hyper stability for this sort of thing?

What difference does that make? It would be stable enough. If I'd made it with 3 legs it wouldn't have been true to the original design.

Box · 31 Dec 2013, 12:56

Is there a stool plugin? Hmm the idea of pluging a stool in makes my eyes water.