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

shura

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

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

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

simon le bon

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

beautiful, fletch. stunning work.

floric

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

Roger

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

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

Wow nice work...

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

Fletch

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

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

Fletch

Updated view, and changed the wall material.

sepo

The last one is very convincing.

Fletch

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

Couldn't resist just one more.

Fletch

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

screenshot:

KarinaGM

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

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".