Not the real Abbey

[DocCharly65]

Another old dream... A little tribute to the TV show Downton Abbey

[attach=1]

This is only a quickie as WIP start.

The castle is 4x a Residential building in the Gothic style by Viktor Kovbunov found on archive3d.net
Oldtimer HrgSports1948 by Kazuki Matoba on CGTrader
The car is my first self-converted  Autodesk_Maya object (30days trial)
Trees by xFrog
Grass is my first time usage of the procedural grass of the TG preset package

Three options for me to go on:
1.) Keeping the residence used in the render and declare it as "an interpretation but not the real Abbey"
2.) Rebuild the original Abbey on my own (the hardest way to go because I am just not an experienced modeller and it would need many months)
3.) Buy this one http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/c4d-downton-abbey-castle/989096(still much work to do with texturing and conversion...)

[Dune]

Nice start. Depends on how detailed and shortlived this part will be. Almost 200 bucks is quite something for say 5 seconds, though it's an awesome building. The main problem with this one are the windows, there are no 'divisions', I mean the windows are large and plain. Though with a little modeling or masking that can be overcome.

[bobbystahr]

$200.00 is a lotta outlay for a short sequence, I'd tweak the model you have and go with option one, Ulco's suggestion re: the windows would help and a brick bump on the walls maybe. Nice building...never noticed that there....

[DocCharly65]

you're both right... so I played with the original model and did what I could do...


This is what I want (the intro scene of the TV show):

[attach=1]


This is the complete castle:

[attach=2]


here is what I had as basis and on the right, how I modified it... I think that works better now 

[attach=3]   [attach=4]

[bobbystahr]

Y'all must be working from Max as the .3ds converts to .obj missing many parts I found...just binned the bugger here.

[DocCharly65]

A compromise ...
This is what I could do with my knowledge, my tools and the material.
Not really THE abbey but a bit closer than at the beginning and 200 bugs cheaper then buying the UNTEXTURED version 

Focus on the robots (on the right side the stereoscopic 3D version for red blue glasses)

[attach=1]   [attach=2]


Focus on the car (on the right side the 3D version again)

[attach=3]   [attach=4]

[Dune]

Nice. One thing might be nice; a little dirt/variation on the stone work of the abbey. Very simple, and it would make it more weathered.

[DocCharly65]

I'll try, Ulco 

I already thought about that but didn't get it to work so far because the walls are textured with such small tiles that I even couldn't use others than these simple colored bricks.

One thing I still have much to learn... texturing in chaotic models with even more chaotic surfaces...

[DocCharly65]

...on the way, Ulco.

Poseray seems to be a good help.

I will need some time and patience.
This will be something for next year

[Dune]

It's very simple; just add a pf to the color input of the default shader handling the brick texture. Put a transform between the two nodes and set that to world position. That'll diversify the color of the brick. You may have to raise the default color though as it will be multiplied by the pf. And you can alter the sizes of the pf of course to get decent dirt/weathering. Sometimes vertically stretched ridges do nicely, but beware of the dark color, it soon turns black there, so you can raise the dark color somewhat or offset slightly to the right.

[Kadri]

I like the DOF.

[DocCharly65]

Thanks for your suggestion Ulco, unfortunately the UV mapping of the castles fassade was divided into too small rectangled sections so that I got too regular patterns.

But I played around with the model and I could remap it so that I could use a big 10000x333 px texture. I found an almost seamless texture that does not look too much repeating. In the next step I will try to paint some darker areas on it for the look of a wet weathered masonry.

This is how it looks so far:

[attach=1]

[attach=2]

[Dune]

The way I described it with the transform shader, the UV's are not important, it'll be world scale anyway. You can also add a surface layer under the default and mask that by a world position PF and get some colors onto the walls, like dripping birdshit, or huge cracks 

[luvsmuzik]

So that's how you do that dripping bs trick! Very interesting secrets being revealed here.
Amazing so far Doc!

[DocCharly65]

Sometimes it needs years untill I really understand something ...    It finally sunk in! 
Thanks, Ulco 

I always made a mistake in my basic thoughts. I didn't think that an added surface shader in a part of an object effects the objects surface without tiled look!

So now I reworked the tgd and also added some missing window crosses at the windows of the tower in the middle.
I've reached now 99.99 % of the look I imagined: In former times the castle had once plastered and washed walls. Now the mortar has crumbled at many places...

[attach=1]

I am not sure if I add some ivy or not... we will see...