Going Fishing WIP

[neuspadrin]

Just kinda mapping out some areas, and starting to put detail in.

a few todos:
- push the dock down a little
- extend nearby forest (see frame 2)
- make grass ease into path a little more
- more vegetation variety (tree types, grasses, bushes, flowers)
- more interesting scenery of unique items along path of frames 1-3 (tree stumps, fallen trees, etc)
- A few nice rock/boulders perhaps.
- bail water out of the canoe
- Work on background distance scenery

attached:
-Scene after 1st day
-Scene after 2nd day

Hopefully I'll get the time I need to finish this scene and enter it.  It's currently reading day at my college, exams starting tomorrow and going til mid next week.  Then I have to pack and drive home, then I have family vacation starting that saturday for a full week, then come back and have to drive to NC to go back to my coop with IBM.  So... quite busy .

[Oshyan]

That's looking really good already. If you've come this far in such a short time, I'm sure you can finish up by the deadline. I'm glad to see a more unusual entry too, it would make an interesting animation.

- Oshyan

[domdib]

Wow, impressive work! My only caveat thus far is the scene is rather dark. Keep going!

[Zairyn Arsyn]

looks really good to me too,
looks peaceful & pleasant, i like the path/trail.

i look forward to seeing your next iteration

[dandelO]

Fantastic already. Can't wait to see this finished!
Long time - no render, Neuspadrin! Good to see you back and active again!

[MGebhart]

Excellent idea. Looking forward to the finished project.

[Tangled-Universe]

Good start!
Perhaps you could try to add more different trees and also using more size variation.
These models are quite dark by themselves, so I usually increase the diffuse color value in the texture-shaders.
I usually find the default sun strength of 3.5 a bit low and especially in this case, along with increasing camera exposure a bit, it might be useful to increase it to 4-4.5.
This way you'll get enough detail in the shadows. The result might be a bit bland/light but you can always add contrast in post while it is difficult to retrieve detail in shadows in post.
Good luck and looking forward to your next version

Martin

[neuspadrin]

Thanks everyone!

Yeh it is a little dark I have yet to get to playing more with lighting/atmosphere.  Currently was more laying down the basic pathway and general setup.  So far the only thing I've done to the sky is apply a cloud layer (unmodified) just so I remember that clouds cast shadows more .

I will probably be working on this some this weekend whenever I need a break from studying for exams.  Also going to see if my netbook can handle TG2 (*cross fingers*) at least enough to do work but not a lot of renders or anything.  As I will have only my netbook with me while on vacation.  I think screen size is where It might drive me a lil crazy.  Prob test renders too.  

My other idea is to leave my media laptop, set up my desktop to wake on lan, and then make it so i can tell the media laptop to wake up the desktop, then remote desktop in to desktop (as laptop power consumption wayyyyyyyy lower then my desktop ).  Though that would get really iffy and depend on my internet speeds while on vacation how slow the interface could be.

****
just tested tg2 on netbook.  Looks like theres some ui issues when using it at 1024x600.    Though I can tell it to go to 1024x768, which works just has that annoying scrolls the screen as it can only display a portion of it at a time.  The 168 pixels make all the difference, lol.  And doing a render of the default scene (with the terrain generated), takes 26 seconds on my desktop.... 10 minutes 4 seconds on the netbook... Guess there is that downside of atom processors .  Looks like maybe I'll lug my core 2 duo laptop as it can do the default scene in 1 min 26 seconds.  Except the whole reason I bought the netbook was that that laptop has heat issues as its fan is dying and my vacation is on a beach .

[neuspadrin]

Day 3:

The sun came out.  Variety of plants were added, and mixed in some new grasses.  Miracle grow applied to surrounding area increasing the grass and trees heading off to the distance.

todo:
- work on dock model (I suck at modeling, but trying to do it )
- get some better lilac seeds, theres a few tree/lilac collisions (see frame 5)
- cut some pesky grass weeds on the path near the dock.
- better detail on path.
- more work on vegetation/positioning/etc.
- continue making sure background looks ok (still a few spots)

[domdib]

I love the path already, very realistic. And yes, the dock looks weirdly wavy from the side - you could always makes sure that you don't have that side-on shot.

[Tangled-Universe]

Looking good so far. You're at a quite nice pace already, so you'll probably have plenty time with detailing the scene and to focus more on lighting, since that's always a key aspect in having a scene that "works" or not.

[Henry Blewer]

Great looking scene so far. I have the most trouble getting the lighting right on my stuff. What works for the bare landscape doesn't seen right when objects get involved.

[neuspadrin]

Great looking scene so far. I have the most trouble getting the lighting right on my stuff. What works for the bare landscape doesn't seen right when objects get involved.

Yup, I generally try to do lighting the very last, because you never know where a big shadow will pop up from a object or a cloud, or how it will look across another object, etc.

Anyone got any tips for modeling a dock well?

[Tangled-Universe]

Generally I do lighting among the first things.
I create the terrain, POV and then the lighting.
Different lighting conditions often require other colours for surfacing for example.

[neuspadrin]

Generally I do lighting among the first things.
I create the terrain, POV and then the lighting.
Different lighting conditions often require other colours for surfacing for example.

It depends on how big a role the lighting could play on the colors generally when I'll start doing lighting.  For sunset/rise conditions and such, usually I set up lighting beforehand such that I can make sure I get the right look I want with the shaders.  But generally lighting is the last basic thing i do to the scene before going through again to everything with details/tweaks.