@bigstick said:

The latest version of ArtLantis is easy to create animation with. It is also very fast if fantastic quality isn't what you are after.
I used it for years before Podium.

Please note quick to render and set animation but any time savings there are quickly lost in material set up! This can be best noted by possibly their best artist Nic Riviera who spends days or even weeks on setting up for a single image! Most would hope for minutes or at least hours!

@kwistenbiebel said:

For exterior animation, unbiased works quite well.(Indigo, Fry).
For interiors, rendering animation using unbiased indeed is an impossible quest.

Sorry mate i was hinting more at the this being a limitation of his computing power!!!

I've certainly seen you prove the abilities of Indigo to produce animation - but eight cores v's one! Thats more what I meant!!

@plot-paris said:

sounds pretty advanced, the stuff you are producing there (even if I can barely see the effect you are trying to create - may be my badly calibrated monitor though )

and now I fully understand why you prefer maxwell's external material management to indigo's "all saved in SketchUp" approach. to set up this multilayered material in in indigo would be near impossible.

Richard, I am truely impressed how detailed your knowledge of material-compositing is.
I would love to see some more of your tests!

Thanks plot (again!!)

Mate I'm not so good with complex materials though have some idea how to use the editor long hand to get the result I'm after.

Yes regarding Indigo's approach! This material has 4 layers to achieve the effect I'm after (the one you can't see!!;) );

Layer 1. Colour Map / Clip Map 1 / Bump Map - Diffuse.
Layer 2. Colour Map / Clip Map 1 / Bump Map - Reflective.
Layer 3. Colour Map / Clip Map 2 / Bump Map - Reflectance.
Layer 4. Colour Map / Clip Map 3 / Bump Map - Reflectance.

All said if Maxwell wasn't an unbiased Physically based renderer then nearly all of this could be done via one simple layer. So its a bit of a catch 22 - you can create amazing materials though sometimes like here you need to go to a lot of trouble to create alternatives to produce an otherwise rather simple effect.

In response to a thread on the Maxwell forums regarding tests to achieve Sub Surface Scattering (SSS) materials for vegetation I decided to do some testing of my own in an attempt to fake it.

The problem till now has been that the use of simple transparency to to single plane leaves produces rather weird results as the single plane geometry produces refraction and with no thickness the effect goes spastic!!!

Using SSS has the drawback that all meshes must have thickness. The other issue is that the material is also then homogenious and the leaf structure (the skeleton) transmits the same amount of light as the surrounding leaf area and then this skeleton is visually lost when light passes through the leaf volume.

My solution which looks to be working applies a B & W noise map to 2 additional BSDF layers each map is the inverse of each other so to in effect pass light through tiny holes (white areas clipped) over the whole single plane. Obviously then the leaf skeleton can be left black on the map and the effect there is to ensure no light passes through these areas.

The results so far seem promising though I have obviously over weighted the transparency layers for this quick test.

@remus said:

@unknownuser said:

@ steelers: Richard and Kwisten are right, for unbiased rendering, you'll need serious computing power.

I woulnt say thats necessarily true, but if you havent got a lot of computing power you do need a lot of time and patience.

Seriously he'll need more than patience - he'll go crazy!!

Mate if your thinking 3d animation i think forget about unbiased options altogether. You have to remember each frame needs to be rendered. Kwist's recent {nude} animation remember was done over 7 more cores than you have available. You could be looking at 10-20 hours or more per frame so nearly two weeks for one second of video.

Hopefully Podium 2 offers up some better animation tools!

Mate I'm a strong believer that to make a good image keep verticals vertical unless you are going for something very dramatic. IMHO this lets down your last few images.

Richard

Thanks mate appreciate your support!

I love using the wire trees, I'd love to make some other types of model scale trees though find it hard to note any other good examples!

I'd suggest remus makes the best point relative to your choices! Computing power - I think this will cause you to rip hairs with any unbiased option. You need grunt!!!!!

That said I have a feeling as computing power grows as even quad core machines are cheaper and cheaper by the day and 8 core machines likely to be more common place, 64 bit is proving faster with maxwell for example. I think you need to consider this and future proof yourself!!! Are you going to buy a new machine in the future???

One other thing to consider is that if you are exporting from SU think about the poly count limits that currently dog SU as an exporter for rendering and look at apps that enable instancing and if possible external referencing of components!!!

I know maxwell aims to shortly enable the option to replace low poly components upon export with high poly MXS files (maxwell geometry) meaning trees and plants as an example created in apps such as Onyx or xfrog can be bought into maxwell studio and material edited and saved. This file can then be later referenced to a low poly proxy in SU!!! This will mean a great increase in realism in any output and a much smoother workflow in SU.

Think also about the available materials libraries and what is available! Vray has been around for a long time and there is tons of materials available, maxwell's material gallery now has thousands of materials available, Fry has really just kicked off so not so much available there.

I don't think these choices are easy as the workflows and resources are so varied! but mate if you find you can get any output fromm vray you are far more up the ladder than me as I couldn't understand one quarter of the options available to get good output.

@unknownuser said:

Very interesting thread!!! I have some physical models I need to build for an exhibition, so this would be very useful but I can't get the unfold script to work on Vista, any ideas?

mate youi could do a search on the net for paper arch models. I know once there was a thread on the PPB about these and there was a link to an application that could output a flat plan unfold to produce a paper model from digital models....

Hey Richard

Mate nice job on the materials. Like the others not sure at all why you have rotated the camera! I think a closer view with a wider angle lens would also improve the image!

Look forward to seeing any updates you might grant us!

By the way re the design - I think the eaves could be deeper to give a more dramatic roof form!

Richard

Yeah mike what a fun project!!!

I'd love to do something like that - the planning for such a small space, the ability to be playful with materials - great stuff!!!!

@mateo soletic said:

Richard,
Yes it is a shame , I agree with You.
Well at least You got a courteous reply.
The reason I asked this in the first place was that in fact I anticipated that kind of reaction.I will never understand this kind of indifference.
I mean they can only gain from this or maybe I am not seeing the bigger picture, well anyway

Yes I'm not at all sure why they package SU with such low quality content really - I know they would like to keep it fairly basic though I think it is likely one of the reasons it might be considered a toy modeller! I think it would be interesting to understand how many users actually use the content that is native to SU.

@frederik said:

@bigstick said:

When they bought @Last, we all expected big progress. What did we get? LayOut, Sandbox and support for Google Earth.

I started using SU Pro v5... Back then it was still @Last and as far as I remember, the Sandbox was already part of the package, so I wouldn't say that we got this when Google acquired @Last...

Correct!!!!

@mateo soletic said:

@unknownuser said:

Still waiting for a response!

Richard,
Sorry to butt in like this but did You get any response from Google so far, at least that they will be looking into it or something like that.

Yes and by the way Nice model and great car collection.

Mate I got a response that they were looking at it but no news for a while which is a shame!!!

I have to agree with kwistenbiebel that correct shadows are an essential and that possibly there are far better options now available for walk throughs. I have to strongly suggest there are a number of things that also need attention opoly count issues being my biggest gripe for now!

I reckon for now all users keeping fingers crossed for improvements to V7 is the way to go! I'll even let my thinning hair get matted for months to add to my ten fingers and toes!!

@unknownuser said:

Thanks Richard I think you have me mixed up with someone else on the woodworking. I have not done any woodworking since high school, other than model making.

I do hope your cars are included in SU out of the box.

Oh??? I figured it was you phil!! So who was it that years ago had a great section on tips to efficient modelling on their website?

Yes I hope one day Google take up the option as I think much of their included components just add to the toy feel of SU!!

@chavinskee said:

ey richard! care to share the car models?

Mate I've actually invited Google to look at the option of including them in the package of SU in lieu of the existing crappy block ones! Still waiting for a response! They are seriously good if I can say that myself!

Thanks again guys!!

Marked001:

Mate I tried for a bit of DOF but obviously didn't set the Fstop low enough I think I had it around 5! I just started the two renders and when to bed! May not have scaled the model down enough from actual size to scaled size too.

Phil:

Mate that looks nice. I know what you mean about making a scale model. I once gave it a shot but didn't get any further than making the trees - which I admit came out very nice! Found just the right species of twigs for them and then scraped areas of bark back to give them a nice mottled bark look and had lots of fun then applying the foliage and trimming it back to get it looking real.

If my memory serves well I remember looking at some of your wood work images (I could be mistaken there as said it was years ago) and remember you were quite a craftsman? If I am correct I've actually still got one or two of your images here on my HD somewhere as a few pieces really stood out!

@plot-paris said:

I love the idea of rendering a model at that stadium - that it has the character of an actually built small scale model (great wire trees).

and your super-low poly cars look rather high poly - are you still working on them? they seem to work really well.

what I always like about your renders, is the idea of placing metallic people and cars instead of failing with photorealistic ones. adds to the physical model character, as well as the fact that you created the terrain out of wood...

the architecture itself is very interesting too. all these boxes, protuding out of the main building give the fassade a lot of depth and make it lively.

well done Richard and thanks for sharing. can we hope to see more?

Thanks very much Plot!!!

Yes I much say I love doing these renders as they are really fast to set up as minimal texturing and detail required and great when you haven't finished the design details, window placements, colours and materials! Plus it just makes me feel like a kid really!!!

Mate the cars aren't those I've been working on lately but those I developed some years ago! All modelled direct in SU by hand (no poly cruching). They are really light with most coming in at 45 - 55kb file size, because all the wheels, wheel arches and seats are common components when there are even hundreds in scene it still weighs in at nearly nothing. The models are made a little heavier as a lot of the linework is as a separate group added over a smoothed base so they preform in sketchy form. in fact for sketchy type SU works they actually look at their best.