Alamo VR/AR project
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I then took the SU cannon into 3D Coat and added distress. There were three objects, one for each material (wood, bronze cannon, and metal). OBJs were exported and UVs added automatically in 3D Coat.
The model was exported as bake targets for Substance Painter and there materials applied, then exported and rendered in Unity.
Next the model was tweaked in SU to create a low poly version and baked and mapped again in Substance Designer. Here are the two high poly and low poly versions of the cannon side-by-side in Unity.
Then, the model was voxelized and tweaked in 3DC and made an entire solid for 3D printing. Many of the features had to be 'supersized' in order to meet the material thickness threshold requirements. Here's the under 1M poly finished 3D print model in 3D Coat.
Finally, colors needed to be added for 3D printing in Substance Painter. The same bake targets were added and then adjusted for the supersized details. Also, I only used diffuse maps (no normals, metallic, smoothness) as the color Sandstone material would not reflect the other qualities. The model was mapped, exported to MeshLab and converted x3d for final upload to Shapeways.
Here's what it should look like when I receive it.
Here's a video describing some of this process:
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Looking really good, something to keep an eye on.
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A quick set of animation tests with SketchFX Es:
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great stuff
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Some more front detailing. The statues were quite the challenge as they started off as huge Zbrush files. I dropped them into 3D Coat, voxelized them and began to close all gaps I could find. I then converted them to surfaces, and 3D Coat has this cool tool called Object-ify (separate) which separates a mesh into only contiguous pieces. There's always junk lying around, and this lets me clean it up and then save out a very high (1M+ polys) mesh for baking.
I then use 3DC smart decimation to create a very small mesh (all 4 statues are under 900 vertexes each!) and export into SketchUp. I'll bake the original mesh on in Substance later and you can see the result.
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Pretty advanced stuff (and a lot of work). So you turn the image of the detailed mesh into a texture to apply to the simplified model?
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@pbacot said:
Pretty advanced stuff (and a lot of work). So you turn the image of the detailed mesh into a texture to apply to the simplified model?
I actually turn it into a single normal map, which when applied, adds a lot of detail to the model. It also creates texture targets in the low poly model allowing me to quickly add diffuse maps for parts and pieces of the single OBJ. There's a video on the process:
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Working on the texturing. All are Unity renders.
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Finally got the 3D color print back and it looks wonderful.
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Have you thought about making this a card/paper project? Much cheaper and sales could be greater.
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@mike amos said:
Have you thought about making this a card/paper project? Much cheaper and sales could be greater.
That's a great idea! Are there SketchUp plugins/tools that can do this?
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There is an unfold plugin somewhere.
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@mike amos said:
There is an unfold plugin somewhere.
Flattery?
https://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pauthor=Pumpkin%20Pirate
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I so love the 3d print.. how the texture came out is amazng ..Are the colors there right of the 3d print or is it repainted manually.. What kind of printer will give me this detailed output? Very well done...
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@cuttingedge said:
I so love the 3d print.. how the texture came out is amazng ..Are the colors there right of the 3d print or is it repainted manually.. What kind of printer will give me this detailed output? Very well done...
Yes the colors are correct. I added a dirt layer and ambient occlusion layer in Substance Painter. I used Shapeways.com to print it. Cost about $150. You can find out more about the Z-Corp printers half way down this page. They're fairly expensive. I think they start at around $60K.
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Good luck! My VR experiments are still ongoing, on hold a little while I expand my coding skills!
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Some more stuff...
This tambour was located on the South side of the Alamo and used 4lb cannons to defend the South and East.
Gary Zaboly's map of the entire Alamo compound as it existed in 1836
The SketchUp model of the tambour
A quick SU SketchFX video of same:
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@chippwalters said:
Currently, I'm working with my new SketchFX Ex extension to figure out a custom render theme and video workflow for these in progress pictures. Here are a few tests..
I've looked at this extension and considered adding it to my list of plugins-to-buy. (along with Ambient Occlusion). I really like some of the effects and your examples look great.
How have you found it? Are you happy with the output? Is there any performance hit? Does using it without AO severly handicap the avaialble effects? (I use Twilight Render currently)
Oh, and the project overall is very impressive... but having seen some of your previous work (e.g. your Hyperloop presentation) I'm not at all surprised. Great work.
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I actually really do like the SketchFX extension. If I had to get only one, I'd get the AO one as it helps you design by accurately showing you what the object looks like. Both give you the ability to create some really nice and quick renders and animations. I don't see this as a presentation tool to show finished work, I'd prefer something like Thea or Unity or KeyShot for that.
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Thanks for the reply. I imagine I'll probably end up getting both, but I'll likely take your advice and start with AO.
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