# Renders



## TheTomG (Apr 22, 2013)

Rather than post each of my images in a new thread, I will collect them all here. Here we are so far, in reverse chronological order, of what I've made over the last couple of weeks.

Reality:







The Fall of a Small Kingdom:






Of Times Gone By:


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 22, 2013)

Very nice looking - especially like the clocks in the last image. 

Have moved from the Lounge to Art as seems more appropriate.


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## Warren_Paul (Apr 23, 2013)

Yes, good job on the clocks. They look very real.


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## Ursa major (Apr 24, 2013)

Nivce renders.

I'm assuming the clock on the left is actually a radio** (if 'actually' is the correct word to use here).







** - Although the bigger dial looks more like thermometer, given the numbers.


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## TheTomG (Apr 24, 2013)

Yep its a radio - didn't want to copy an image of the dial though, and it was too complicated for me to mock up in a hurry so I just made a simple one  It's an AWA Radiolette as it happens, for anyone who wants to see what the dial ought to look like!


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## Starbeast (Apr 24, 2013)

WOW, excellent stuff. "The Fall of the Small Kingdom" is a little hard to see though. But the rest is great. Nice work Tom.


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## TheTomG (Apr 25, 2013)

Is it too dark Starbeast? I think I have run into that before, I may have a bright monitor so when making an image that is meant to be on the dark side, it ends up really dark on other folks monitors. Or just elements that are too small, or indistinct in some other way?

And thank you for the comments, all! A faster computer is on the way to let me revisit and rework these with more ease  For example, there's no screw thread on my bottle or cap in the "Reality" image, that needs a revisit (along with the radio dial in the last pic!)


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## anivid (Apr 25, 2013)

So-o-o, what's actually your doing, Tom ??

The things in themselves ?
- the photographing ??
- the setting together of exactly those three things to mean something special ??
- or ??

I could also ask in another way: Why are these pics so interesting to you ??

The "reality" bottle - what's that ?,
The dark pic with the gothic windows and some hovering paper in the middle, same question.
The last pic with some Jugend things seems to be a barometer and a clock ??

Again what do they mean, separately and together - and what exactly is your doing ??
Most mystified


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## TheTomG (Apr 26, 2013)

None of them are real anivid, all computer generated. I use a program called Modo for my 3D these days. Modeled them all (except the figure in the middle one, I can't model people, only things) - also came up with the textures and lighting set up and camera angle for them all too. They all do have some meanings hidden in them, I can't make anything that doesn't express some emotion or have some significance for me 

I'll only give one meaning away to show what I mean - the last image is almost meaningless, other than the thought of pining for times past, but the "secret" part to that is the time on the clock, which comes from a Del Amitri song "You've been seeing S.O.S. but it's just your clock reading 5:05" (of course this would refer to a digital clock seen in the dark in the song, but that dichotomy just amuses me).

As for the other meanings, I'm just going to leave those to folks to come up with their own 

As for illustrating what these are, here's the last image without textures, but still with the lighting, and with the wireframes of the objects superimposed to show what the computer model looks like underneath:


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## anivid (Apr 26, 2013)

A-ha 
A program which allows you to choose different forms from a pre-defined stock ??
Then, when having decided which things to enter into your pic, you begin to modify them as for details (size, colour, decoration etc.) ??
I can see some fields outlined in the templates, that’s where you have some degrees of freedom, right ?? – for creating whatever your soul’s finding attractive ??
Am I getting close ??

The first pic is a sad one of a chemical reality, a reality induced from outside (if it's not a development agent for photos ) instead of the inside perception we all are equipped to process. 
The Gothic pic I cannot see properly (too dark for me) – but may be it’s that « living in the dark » which caused the first one to happen ??
The third nostalgia, with the added meaning of your reversed SOS, reminds us that every signal/reality can be interpreted in different ways – also in harmless, funny ones 
Voila !!


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## TheTomG (Apr 27, 2013)

No stock templates here, I have to build everything from scratch - usually everything starts as a cube and away we go from there. That's the modeling stage. Then you have to define how the surface will respond to light, which is the materials and texturing stage. Then you have to place the lights.

So basically, all the worlds are created from thin air  I'll see if I can do a GIF that illustrates this to some degree.


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## nightdreamer (Apr 28, 2013)

Excellent renders there!  Almost can't tell they're not photographs.  I'd never heard of MODO and for a few moments was tempted to check it out, but at this point in my life I have neither the time nor the money for approaching a new tool.

I'm curious, though, how involved the texturing process is for MODO.  In the Max world, there are two main options for rendering: Mental-Ray and VRay.  Mental-Ray comes with 3ds Max and includes a large library of materials that saves a lot of time.  I think VRay gives better (definitely faster) renders, but you have to roll your own materials or buy them.  I might have to buy brass; I can't seem to get it right.  :/  For those of you who don't play with 3D, here are some spaceships where I spent the effort to create good materials, down to reflections on the blades of grass, and here is one where I didn't, though I got better with star fields.  So much to do; so little time.

As far as people, I've had decent luck creating meshes in DAZ studio (last I looked, 4.5 was free) and importing them to Max, though there are some glitches.  I have no idea what the process would be like for MODO, since I know nothing about it.  These gargoyles started out as men in DAZ, got mutated and textured in Mudbox, and finally rendered in Max.  VRay, probably.  You should check out DAZ if you haven't.

Is MODO any good at hair?


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## TheTomG (Apr 28, 2013)

Modo's renderer is very good, I'd say it's easily comparable to V-Ray, and is built in (V-Ray is still an optional extra for Max, right?)

It comes with a good selection of materials, but it's often better to tweak. It uses a shader tree with masks approach (the masks can be objects, or they can be group masks where you can use an image to define where one group shows through another, and you can 3D paint onto the model, either colors etc, or images to use as masks).

Modo comes from Luxology, which was a company that formed when developers split off from Lightwave (of Babylon 5 fame). It has lots in there to commend it - soft and hard body dynamics, Pixar Subdivision Surfaces as well as regular one, the shader tree is enormously flexible and a wonderful tool, rendering regions into an existing image so you can "repair" just one part rather than re-render the whole thing, superb modeling tools, good UV mapping, surface sculpting, particles, volumes, excellent global illumination (I never turn it off any more), hair / fur with paint tools to control length etc, hair / fur and particles can be painted onto a surface, the ability to convert particle paths into polygons (and then back again if you so desire, giving you great control over particles), displacement maps. And so on.

It's a mid-range price tool, cheaper than Max or Maya or a fully optioned Cinema 4D, but still not cheap at $1,500.

The ONE thing that I did not model was the figure, which came in from Daz, just a free one. There are skeletons and rigging in Modo, but, no good selection of characters, and I can't model people 

In "Fall of a small Kingdom" I use Pixar Subdivision Surfaces, volumetrics, global illumination, particles (the sparks from the brazier), volumes (the fire from the torch, smoke from the brazier), soft body dynamics that I froze (the carpet, the tapestry, which I'm redoing totally today, decided it looks too rigid and not clear what it is), a complex layer of shaders (the shield in particular), an imported DAZ figure, and I think that's about it 

Specifically on hair, see what some folks have done with Modo:
http://www.luxology.com/gallery/image/view.aspx?id=18680

http://www.luxology.com/gallery/image/view.aspx?id=18309

http://www.luxology.com/gallery/image/view.aspx?id=16758

PS - I did have some trouble with exporting from DAZ, namely the hair - the transparency maps on it would cause lock ups during rendering when caught in reflections from other objects, a bit weird. But nothing is perfect 

Will post the reworked "Fall" once I'm done - have got my new machine (Intel 3930K with 6 cores, overclocked to 4.2 turbo rather than 3.8 turbo) so I am able to more easily keep tweaking textures and lighting as I can get faster results.


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## nightdreamer (Apr 28, 2013)

Pretty decent hair there.  I personally think Max's built-in hair sucks; you can get get fairly decent results with a LOT of work, and have sometimes gotten better looking hair by mapping hair textures to cloth.  I actually qualify for the student pricing of Hair Farm, and might spring for it soon.  I did try Lightwave, way back when, along with Maya, but found Max the most intuitive for me.  If I ever have money again, I might give MODO a try.


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## TheTomG (Apr 29, 2013)

Intuitive is the key - I find Modo's "philosophy" gels with mine, so it is easy for me to use. Didn't find the same in trials of Max or Maya or Cinema.


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## TheTomG (Apr 29, 2013)

Thanks to useful feedback from here, and a faster machine, here is a rework of "Fall of a Small Kingdom" - let me know if it's still too dark on other folks' monitors. It is large, of course, at 1600 wide, designed for viewing on a desktop.


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## TheTomG (Apr 30, 2013)

Sharing a video showing some of the modeling process, to help shed some light on it. In this instance, it's the use of soft body dynamics to take the tedium out of making the shape for a partially fallen tapestry.

http://youtu.be/mXQZuauM6xs

Music by myself too, as Faol Glas, my electronic music side rather than my country rock music side (I know, I'm a bit of a collection of opposites, what can I say?)


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## TheTomG (May 9, 2013)

I've redone all three images - rather than repost them, I just overwrote the files on my website that the HTML links were pointing at, so if you view the beginning of the thread you will see all three in their new forms.

I bought a new monitor to allow me to rework "Fall of a Small Kingdom" since I was seeing it fine but a lot of others seeing it too dark. I added more details to "Reality" (the missing screw threads on the bottle and inside the cap primarily, but also dirtied up the label, and the grouting, and made the tiles stand out more), and since the radio was mistaken for a clock, I went and copied the style of the original dial though haven't redone the needle for it yet (I can just do the same pasting over the image when I do!) - here's the reference image I used for the dial, posted as a link so as not to annoy their server:

http://www.decophobia.com/prodimg/b...e-art-deco-skyscraper-art-deco-radio_6(1).jpg

Now onto some new renders!


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## Ursa major (May 9, 2013)

I don't wish to seem to be contrary, but I preferred the darker version of "Fall of a Small Kingdom".



Oh, and thanks for showing us that tapestry creation demonstration.


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## TheTomG (May 9, 2013)

Not contrary at all - it all depends on the calibration of the devices people are looking at it on. This current one would appear too bright on my old monitor, and lose all the moodiness of the scene. However on my new monitor, the old one is barely visible, dark in a dull way not a moody way. And on an iPhone in daylight it was invisible (though at night, it was perfect!)

Snag of online art is, unlike an artist who can post their work in an art gallery, I can't control the viewing device and conditions for my audience  I'm thinking on investing in a calibration device for my monitor, so that I know it is accurate - but of course that will only ensure good viewing on monitors where folks have similarly invested $400 on a calibration device :O

Once I revamp my website a bit, I'll probably make different versions available - if I can, I'll add a slider bar that will let the audience select the level of contrast and brightness that looks right to them, should be an interesting approach!

TY for the feedback, all is welcomed, praise or constructive criticism! You're welcome on the tapestry video, I'll likely make more over time, and will post any such creations (and future renders) in this same thread, to save cluttering up the forum and keep it all in one place so those who like it can find it, and those who find it irrelevant to writing (though, I try to set moods or tell stories in my images and I hope it starts all the writers here thinking of what lead up to this, what is happening now, what is happening next; what story is this a snapshot from?) can ignore it.


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## TheTomG (May 10, 2013)

Here in my cell.


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## TheTomG (May 15, 2013)

Escape Tunnel.


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## Starbeast (May 18, 2013)

Ursa major said:


> I don't wish to seem to be contrary, but I preferred the darker version of "Fall of a Small Kingdom".


 
I like the new version. But if you want to get technical, you can darken it a slightly bit more. I love the concept of it.

I like the new images too. Nice going TheTomG.

Are you taking requests?

If you are, how about a broken and rusting robot. A classic nuts and bolts type of bot.

But if not, it's cool. I can imagine it takes a long time to create.


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## TheTomG (May 18, 2013)

TY! Glad you enjoy them. No promises on timescale, but adding rusty robot into my ideas list, I can see slants on that which would fit in with the concepts I am working on at the moment in my images. So now the idea is going into the melting pot in the back of my mind, to marinade and stew in there and see what comes out. There's one image I already know what I want it to look like, and two with ideas that are fermenting already, so this concept is now in there bubbling away with those.


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## TheTomG (May 22, 2013)

Harbinger.


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## TheTomG (Jun 15, 2013)

Got an idea at last for a video for my song "The Amber Dream", simple idea but a fairly simple song too. Only in-development as I have some other ideas for the visuals and will rework it with more in it in coming weeks (still sticking with the theme of the one scene though)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoTO843Clck

It also had a slight reworking to the vocal mix, as did "The Passing of Years" - no rendering in that one, just my photography, but here it is anyway even if slightly out of place in this thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsGifoPXwFk


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## Glisterspeck (Jun 16, 2013)

I can see the detail in the small kingdom render now, and the lighting looks like its daylight outside a very dim interior. Is the escape tunnel a gun barrel? Looks rifled and shiny, and like there is a sight on top. My other guess would be that you enter the tunnel through a front loading washing machine?


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## TheTomG (Jun 16, 2013)

Still leaving the meaning of these images up to interpretation of the viewr - I will say though, it's not a washing machine  Though that does remind me of the Hawkwind spoof "I just took a ride, in a washing machine, and I'm still feeling clean. If you want a wash, it's name is Bosch" - and the rest I mercifully forget.


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## Starbeast (Jun 18, 2013)

TheTomG said:


> TY! Glad you enjoy them. No promises on timescale, but adding rusty robot into my ideas list, I can see slants on that which would fit in with the concepts I am working on at the moment in my images. So now the idea is going into the melting pot in the back of my mind, to marinade and stew in there and see what comes out. There's one image I already know what I want it to look like, and two with ideas that are fermenting already, so this concept is now in there bubbling away with those.


 
(Well, I don't have to ask you, "What's cooking?") Cool. Thanks for putting it on the back burner of your mind.

I'm curious to see what you will produce next.


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