Twilight Render - Challenge
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Box, a double DUH! from me as I slam my head on the desk repeatedly !
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@box said:
An added tip there pbacot, you don't need to paste the circles into the groups.
Use one circle, select it, get the follow me tool, right click on your profile group to open for edit and click the profile. Shape made within the group and circle still available for the next group.DOH! I always thought it was dumb I could NOT do FM on a grouped face-- and always had to deal with the path being in the same conext. I was the dumb one!
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First of all, thanks for all of your feedback. I have found it very valuable and I have learned some neat tricks (like drawing one circle and applying it to 2 groups) and some other subtle things.
Now, I want to show some things that are happening and get your feedback as to why.
First I will show you the rendered version and then the SU file followed by some questions I need for you to answer for me (tell me what I am doing wrong).
Produced from this SU model
Now here are my questions comments:
- Ignore the lines in glasses 2 & 3. I did not bump up the number of sides in the circle I used for the Follow Me path. Also on glasses 2 & 3, I did not add the wine because it would be a distraction from the problem I am seeing and I wanted to eliminate and issues with that Intersect Faces my add.
- The 1st glass on the left was developed using the techniques several of you described. It was from a previous file and I could not get back to the profile that I used for the Follow Me tool but it pointed out some of the missing faces that occur once I apply the twilight template to the model. Illustrated more drastically in glasses 2 & 3.
- The second glass was a more simplified version without any curved lines because I was thinking that when I tried to make the glass fancier that some lines were not connected properly. Notice on the rendered version that some lines are missing after I applied the Twilight template (Glass::Common)
- The third glass is a copy of the 2nd glass but with a different material and no Twilight template applied to it.
- The fourth glass is the profile that was used for the Follow Me tool for glasses 2 & 3.
In particular, why do faces disappear when I apply the Twilight template (i.e. Glass::Common)? BTW: I saw the same thing happen with the wine.
I have also attached the SU file so you can look at it and see what I am talking about in better detail.
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Dave, Much better. Downloaded and took a look. There was only a few minor issues. Biggest was glass on the left had the wine and glass in separate groups. If you had tried a render you'd have got weird look to the wine. Exploded both groups and then regrouped and everything was fine. What happens is the inside faces of the glass are in the same physical space as the outside of the wine . It will drive SU & TW crazy as 2 faces can't occupy the same space. Easiest way to recognize it is when you rotate the model you will see weird flashing effects on the faces that are flat against each other. You had a few edges that needed soft/smooth and there were 2 unwanted cylinders inside the stems on the center and right side glass. A left over from the follow me. Sometimes that happens depending on the shape your making.
Scaled the glasses down , checked the TW settings and ran a quick render that I've posted. The big plug in the back is one of the left over pieces of geometry from a glass stem , I didn't scale it down
.The only things I changed in your TW settings were as follows.You had 2 different color set ups for your glass. Deleted on and repainted one glass so they both have matching materials. Changed the channels from " sketchup" to "color" and set the alpha to 3 . Set your red color to channel also and set the alpha to 4.Ran the render on easy-medium, took 17 sec. Not bad. The funky look in the bottom of the center glass is my fault. I soft/smooth'ed the bottom edge inside and out. I was curious what would happen. If those edges were unsoftened the bottom of the glass would probably look better. So much for experiments! Keep it up your making good progress.
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Thanks for the feedback @tuna1957 - I really appreciate it.
Now I have to embarrass myself. When I thought some faces had been deleted, I did not take the time to find out that they are really there and that I was seeing all of the green colors because I was seeing the back side of the inside face of the transparent glass. DUH
Yes, I knew there were some different colors schemes so that I could show what I was seeing in SU. Yes, I also knew that I should have softened some edges but my real concern was the DUH moment of not realizing that my green faces was because of the transparency.
I was thinking that I had some missing lines etc. Sure was not the case.I went back to my model and exploded that first glass and it rendered like it should have. I need to mess around with some settings a little more and learn how to set things a little better but I think all of this has been a good lesson for me. When I get a little more time, I think I might try a couple of glasses and maybe even a bottle.
Next thing I need to learn is how to generate reflections on the glasses, etc. Although I am making some pretty silly mistakes, I think I am learning and need to keep exploring some other types of renders to learn how to use the tool more fully.
Again, THANKS for your feedback and patience.
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Dave, Don't hate me. Was a little distracted when I posted earlier. Your glass is still way to thick. Went back into model and looked again. The thickness needs to be reduced by easily 2/3 s it's current thickness. The reflections in glass are a result of good models good light set up and good materials. If you provide the "right stuff" Twilight will give you all the reflections you'll ever want. I've got a scene set up now that I've been pulling test shots off of. Have it about ready to let it run overnight. I'll post some images when I get it done. Regards, Chuck.
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@tuna1957 - I certainly am not mad. I appreciate all of the tips and assistance you have given me.
Something a little different.........
Yes, glass is still a little big compared to the furniture but am getting the idea
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Dave, Didn't think you were mad. Figure at some point you think " oh good gosh now what" when you see my post
.Several of us have hammered at you about the thickness of the glass in your glass. I thought i show you a side by side comparison . Posting at pic of your glass ( left side of pic ) next to one I cleaned up a little. Want you to see just how much a difference the small stuff makes.I made the following changes to your glass - reduced thickness of glass by 2/3's. Used a 48 segment circle for follow me path. Added a small 3 sided radius to top edge of glass. Added radius to the square corners in the stem. Gave the bottom of of the foot a smoother curve. Probably took about 15 minutes.
Render set up - Put both glasses on a "table" inside a room. The room is a half circle. Already had one set up for some other tests. Used a combination of point lights and one spotlight. Point lights given RGB value of 100 watt light bulb. Spotlight was set to front left of table to aimed to glasses. Gave it RGB of a halogen bulb.
Spent maybe 15 minute doing quick tests to adjust power levels of lights. Rendered on 10 interior plus. Let it run 55 passes. I think the difference is pretty obvious. Check out how distorted the reflections in the thick glass are. Wouldn't matter how long it ran the result wouldn't be so good.
The renders far from perfect even on the thin glass. I do think it shows that time spent on the small details will give good rewards.
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Will keep working on it. My glass is only .1" thick (at least that is what I thought).
At lest I liked the effect of my glass on the table. Sad part of all of this is that it is something I will probably never use. Just trying to learn how to use the tools.
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Dave , don't get discouraged. You are making progress. Heck I never need to do this sort of stuff for my job but learning new stuff is a good thing. You never know when it might come in handy. Just keep swinging at the pitches. chuck.
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In the world of western art paintings, the glass object was a form of showing off your skills. Nice job Tuna! I have the problem of the glass disappearing even when there seems to be nice reflections. Your stem and base show up nicely in these renders.
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Thanks pbacot , it's kind of fun trying new stuff even if your not getting the result you want. Totally understand your comment about artists painting glass objects. Have an art background. I have to tip my hat to the guys that write the render software. When I think about the way light bounces and bends going through bottles and such. I'm guessing calculating the light paths through curved glass is one of the toughest on the software. Makes my head hurt thinking about it.
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Here's a very quick one, I thinned down your profile and SUbD'd it and very quick blobby bottle, also SUbd. Honeydew uneditted for the bottle, whitesmoke uneditted for the glass, both just the default settings for Glass common. Sun turned down to 1, Hemispherical sky, hdr 001 from the studio pack set at 4 for the rest of the light. No background just your glasses and a box to sit mine on.
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Very convincing!
That is magic beverage! -
OK - Much closer to what I want to be able to accomplish.
For me, I think this is a big step forward. Still lots to learn but I think I am headed in the right direction. Very little tweaking to the settings for the various materials.
Now I need to add details to the walls, add a ceiling and then begin learning how to use the lighting tools. At some point I would also like to have a window with stuff showing in the background.
As always, suggestions on how to move forward and learn to use the tools greatly appreciated.
BTW: @Box, I really liked your posts too
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, Each one of your shots gets better than the last. Keep it up -
@tuna1957 said:
:thumb: , Each one of your shots gets better than the last. Keep it up
Thanks - one thing I was just noticing thoug - is there a conflict in the reflection of the glasses on the table versus the shadow of the chairs?
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Dave, What was your light set up ? You can get conflicting, multiple shadow effect if there is multiple light sources. Depends on light placement and power. Curious , what setting did you render at ? chuck.
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@tuna1957 said:
Dave, What was your light set up ? You can get conflicting, multiple shadow effect if there is multiple light sources. Depends on light placement and power. Curious , what setting did you render at ? chuck.
I did not have shadows turned on in SketchUp. Here is the environment setting in Twilight
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Dave, Not sure how you set up your room, guess I should have asked. Being as you use a Hemispherical Sky setting I guessed you used some kind of open box for your "room". Posting a pic of a quick shot to try an emulate what you were trying. Doing an interior this way is totally different than what I'm used to. 98% of the renders I'm doing for job are interior shots. The spaces are fully modeled and lit with light emitting panels. Works well for the crazy stuff I'm doing.
That said I through together 2 walls and a floor , slammed chairs , table and booze in the corner. Used Hemispherical Sky setting. What I did do was turn on shadows in SU and adjust the settings until shadows had very little rake. Did test renders on low and played with sun TW sun settings until I got something reasonable.
The posted pic had Brightness - 0.6 , Haze - 30 , Sun Strength - 2.0 . Also gave the sun the RGB value of a tungsten light bulb.
For me I'd rather set up an enclosed room and use point lights , spot lights, emitters or a combo of the same for doing interiors. F.Y.I. setting up and running the test took maybe 15 - 20 minutes tops.
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