nice i would also like to see the raw render and iff possible the geometry of the model, if not its ok, is the flow actually modeled like cloth with a see through texture or is that all post production?

As you can see here I wanted the ground to be reflective but when I have shadows turned on I get a big shadow on the ground below even when i uncheck the box to say I dont want shadows on the ground or faces, however when I light the scene using the sun there are no ground shadows? Wonder if its a glitch or im going around it the wrong way. Anyway another model another render.

trying to play around with podium and get the lighting sorted out

Hi im trying to light a part of my model in podium but its quite working out like I had planned and was wondering if somebody could point me in the right direction. Check out the images of my current set up.
Basically I want the windows to be transparent and a small reflection property. I also want the bridge well lit so its visible from the outside and the computer panels in green to give off there own glow and reflection.
As you can see on my image (A Image) the only way I can get light into the bridge room is having the back wall illuminated which looks crap. I tried positioning lights on the ceiling but the windows come out opaque (B image).
Ive enclosed the model file if anybody has enough time to look at it and see whats going wrong. Ive also enclosed a shot of the model so far to get a sense of perspective.
Thanks Liam

Bridge file

I think i understand what you are talking about. From following your advice ive managed to drastically reduce the poly count thanks all

@olishea said:

nice work, great modeling. for the podium renders....turn off your sky and use a very pale grey background colour. (podium doesnt like pure white backgrounds or faces).
otherwise you get a blue and pink render!!!

thanks ill give it a go next time round, I have some questions about podium especially about lights. Know where I can get any tuts?

@stefanq said:

Liam, awesome works, congrats! I think you should post them in gallery section.

thanks but I thought this was the gallery section?

@unknownuser said:

Awesome stuff Liam, as usual. Too bad some of the pics are cropped.

I wonder how that Mech can walk though.

Yeah I cropeed the pics to show off specific areas of detail I wanted people to see and im working (on hold for now) on an animation off the mechs fighting and walking etc. The legs do work technically as they are just reverse jointed as found in birds and stuff. It just allows them to support a heavier load. This is prob a famous example http://www.vegatransports.com.au/2001/atst.jpg

Anyway did some work re-doing my old halo models for Uni and my thread at SFM, for my next set of renders ill take olishea's advice on the sky into consideration. Just working out how to make lights for windows woth no sucess lol

I have the exact same problem and haven't found a solution so far. My problem is when I export my models to 3ds or obj the amount of polys increases so much SU cant cope and crashes, hence some of my best models have never been rendered. My only option is to assemble them bit by bit to max but that takes so long. Here is an example of a typical SU model ill make and assembling something this complicated in another program takes an eternity. If you do find a way to export using a third party app or similar please let me know it will be a lifesaver.
Thanks Liam

Here is something I did last year, part of my halo thread over on scifimeshes.com, never finished as I had a massive HD crash and lost a lot of work but pretty detailed with nearly fifty completed and textured models.

Phew! I think ive had enough fun doing random renders or old models ill concentrate on my original plan of trying to texture. Here is a model I was entering into a competition but couldnt finish it in time. It was an asteroid miner and refinery but as usual my texturing was crap and it was left bare.

I was just browsing through your website and your transformers model is incredible, id love to see a larger image of it if you get round to posting one here!

s this all rendered with vue or have you done some post pro work in photoshop aswell? I would also be interested to know how long a render like that takes. Nice shot anyway and that bent palm tree is quality in the background lol.

Well never mind podium vray is awesome lol! Even a simple clay render at 20001600px took only 3 mins. In podium at 500500px it was taking sometimes up to 30 mins? Plus podium was running on my MAC but vray is running on windows 'on my mac lol'. I still love podium and will still purchase that as its so cheap with my student discount but I think im going to have to learn vray now its got lots of potential. Anyway heres my first ever render with Vray at over 2000px scaled down for posting here however:

I just press o on the keyboard. Im using my wacom mouse on a tablet and I cant get it to work either even with all drivers installed, I use keyboard shortcuts anyway much more helpful overall.

cockpit & finished model (untextured) not bad for two hours work!
My modeling is good its just my renders that let me down, if any of you have seen my work before you might have seen I just paint a fake render in photoshop but I would like to have some proper renders. Im expecting podium tomorrow (the full version, not this trial im using now) but i was thinking of buying vray also. I think its pretty expensive and is it really worth it? My models can get pretty hectic and detailed and I believe vray is powerful enough to capture all the little bits it also has a good lighting engine I imagine, I just hope podium doesn't fall short of my expectations. Anyway if somebody has any ideas or points or just some friendly advice, please feel free to just put them in this thread.
Thanks
Liam

And another 1

Big Robots and other stuff...
As ive lost a bit of my transformers work and its slow work building them again took a little break to model some other stuff. Sorry about the small renders still using a trial version of podium but have emailed them my student credentials today so should be getting the real version in full tomorrow. Anyway here is some stuff for you all to look at, C&C would be helpful thanks!

no never heard of it?

oh its just 3ds format, sketchup pro already exports as that anyway. I thought you where using SU formats, yeah 3ds is industry standard pretty much for games mods.

lol you must be lazy then all you have to do is download the plugin to the plugin folder and it works, some people hey lol

looks good but like somebody also pointed out the tunnel just looks like a box and it takes all the details away from the train. There should probably also be snow on top of the tunnel?
Train looks really good tho!