Rendering challenge?

steved · 14 Jan 2013, 09:01

Hi all, I have been trying very hard to learn rendering but think I have limited aptitude for it, but am still learning or at least trying to.

I have a particular model of a personnel project: 'conceptual art' that I have been working on for years and would love to see it in "real life") I think it would be quite challenging to get it to look photo-realistic and WAY beyond my rendering abilities as i think it would require a high degree of skill to pull it off well. It involves an unusual light source and is quite a unique concept.

I was thinking of posting the model in the hope that members can have a look at it and take up the challenge of rendering it if they see fit.

Problem is it is 8MB so I can not attach it here.

Can anyone suggest a work around

I am really frustrated to the MAX that I cannot do it myself

Thanks guys

Rich O Brien · 14 Jan 2013, 09:06

The 3DWarwhouse?

solo · 14 Jan 2013, 09:15

Dropbox?

steved · 14 Jan 2013, 09:54

to download at 3d warehouse search 'irony booklight'

Thanks Rich a Duh! moment

The main wood part is ply lofted to create the "Book binder" (lamp base) on top of that are two A4 sized, produced by a 5 axis CNC'd "page shapes" made from solid surface material (See image 2) A number of CCFL lamps will sit in the cavity between them, with no light leakage other than trough the Solid surface. I expect the lamps will diffuse through the surface with very subtle hot spots

Above that is a standard incandescent globe not powered but suspended by 3 ultra fine filaments triangulated like an inverse pyramid to hold it stable in a light breeze.

The Incandescent lamp is lit by the book where you are able to read "I am reading the lamp by the light of the book"

The Piece is called: 'The irony booklight'

I tried to put the text on the face with intersect Faces and extruded text ( as I could not get the text with a transparent background to work, even though I have done that a few times before)

So if anyone is interested in the challenge I will get the unadulterated lamp posted. And the text so it can be projected as a texture

Hope that all made sense

Thanks

jeff hammond · 14 Jan 2013, 14:32

[semi-off-topic]

hey steve.. sketchup models generally compress very well and your model is an example of that.. i can zip it with the default mac compressor and get it down to 2.7MB (which is attachable here).. could probably get it smaller than that with a more powerful archiver..

[/semi-off-topic]

steved · 14 Jan 2013, 15:40

Hey Jeff! whatever you said mate, sounds good with me, appreciated

davids90gt · 14 Jan 2013, 16:11

I can't find it on the 3d warehouse..

steved · 14 Jan 2013, 16:22

Here it is. If there is things wrong with it let me know and I will try to fix the model,

Booklight M 2.zip

Rich O Brien · 14 Jan 2013, 16:42

Fix the reversed faces to start.

steved · 14 Jan 2013, 17:18

Booklight faces fived 2.zipFaces fixed.

andybot · 14 Jan 2013, 19:02

I like your concept, very ironic
This is certainly a good challenge for rendering because getting that translucent material to behave properly is difficult. I took a stab at it with vray for SU, but ran into problems getting the translucent lens material correct. Then popping it into vray for Blender, I was able to make it look like what I think you have in mind...

Also, I had to put a semi-enclosed box around the model so there would be some ambient light reflected back on the table, otherwise, all the surfaces render black.

steved · 15 Jan 2013, 03:21

Hi and thanks Andy! well if I had received a perfect render on the first go I would have been in two minds....would have been extremly happy to see a photo realistic, nuanced rendition that looks like the object was real.....and on the other hand would have doubted my abilities to even judge how difficult something would be to render. And I think I was correct in my estimation of the challenges this object presents

The solid surface is showing a multitude of colour temperatures, daylight to very warm, very unusual for a single light source.(edited) In reality the light may act like that if the solid surface adds a warm attribute (undesirable) to cool light, the cool light may over power the warm solid surface where it is closest to the light source. Hence the different color temperatures

The light seems to be so warm on the ply it looks burnt.

I just put the ply with little regard to its orientation as I made the material myself and thought someone else would have a better ply end material, that would be better for rendering.

Further thoughts: (Art Direction) if the object were to be in an art gallery or in the foyer of a Library there would be, I expect some ambient light, so the light from the Book light would 'hint' at supplying the light to the lamp.
I also think there is potential for the "book light" to reflect interestingly on the spherical glass, experienced (by the viewer) from certain angles when nearing the object to read the text. That is one of the subtle elements of this piece.

If the object were to be visually thoroughly communicated it may take three shots to do it well.(see attached)

The environment in which the object is situated is up to the renderer.

Of course if the piece gets any "airplay" the image will be credited to the producer in all cases.

I thought this would be a challenge

andybot · 15 Jan 2013, 16:12

Steve, the color was actually from the very yellow color of the plywood material. I reduced the intensity of the texture and it comes out much more even. I did another view looking at the lightbulb - indeed, I like how all the reflections/ refractions are happening in the bulb.

steved · 16 Jan 2013, 04:40

Hi Andrew, actually that looks very good indeed. I am thinking that (still got my training wheels on here) That is maybe as far as just rendering can go, and that is what post production is for (Photoshop etc) Is that the case? The glass material and reflections actually look really awesome to me.
Thanks for taking up the challenge Andrew, will PM you with a personal thank you. I am going to take a day to think how to progress this project. And would welcome comments on what potential post processing would have. even if the opinion is just, yes photoshop gimp should take over here

Thanks!

jpalm32 · 17 Jan 2013, 14:25

I expect the lamps will diffuse through the surface with very subtle hot spots
Would be more realistic with hot spots.
Having trouble getting it right though.
Easy to get page top to give light but giving it a translucent look with some hot spots is the key.
Working on it.

andybot · 17 Jan 2013, 15:31

@jpalm32 said:

I expect the lamps will diffuse through the surface with very subtle hot spots
Would be more realistic with hot spots.
Having trouble getting it right though.
Easy to get page top to give light but giving it a translucent look with some hot spots is the key.
Working on it.

Hehe, I faked it with this one, I have one plane light underneath each side. I just wanted to see how well I could get a translucent material to work, and that's where things broke down in vray for SU. I could tweak the blender model to better mimic the individual light strips, but I ran out of time to mess with it more. Just wanted to get the concept to work.
If anyone else wants to play with the Blender model, here is what I have. I can imagine Luxrender would do quite a nice job with this.

@steved: I think the model could still be refined - like I say, the light strips could be shown more accurately than my single light plane, and the translucency of the cover lens material could be adjusted to get the right consistency. I was more interested in showing the concept because I really like what you came up with as an artistic vision

material_testss_bookish2.zip

jpalm32 · 18 Jan 2013, 17:14

Hot spots, Over head bulb picking the hot spots too much.
Book bulbs too large. I was trying to exaggerate them and triy to play with
emitters, opacity and material. I failed.