Fitz Posted February 5, 2009 Report Share Posted February 5, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Heh.... steal away I don't post anything on the internet that I don't want people to use. As long as you're not making money from my work without giving me a cut, I'm fine with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted February 6, 2009 Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Heh.... steal away I don't post anything on the internet that I don't want people to use. As long as you're not making money from my work without giving me a cut, I'm fine with it. Admiral attitude, and also one of my sentiments Speaking of which I've just finished the first floor's floor texture of Wickshine's Last Inn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Heh. Inspired by the Morrach sketch and also by the paper models thread, I decided it was to dust off one of my plans - making a whole bunch of low-poly medieval houses that I can use as background filler for pictures. I've done about half of them at the moment, but I did a test render that I think looks OK - and all those houses render in 2-3 minutes! cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGreenwade Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Heh. Inspired by the Morrach sketch and also by the paper models thread, I decided it was to dust off one of my plans - making a whole bunch of low-poly medieval houses that I can use as background filler for pictures. I've done about half of them at the moment, but I did a test render that I think looks OK - and all those houses render in 2-3 minutes! cheers, Mark This one's very cool. Do you mind if I grab it for my upcoming Haymaker! article? (I need all the art help I can get with that one....) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Heh. Inspired by the Morrach sketch and also by the paper models thread, I decided it was to dust off one of my plans - making a whole bunch of low-poly medieval houses that I can use as background filler for pictures. I've done about half of them at the moment, but I did a test render that I think looks OK - and all those houses render in 2-3 minutes! cheers, Mark Nice I'll be doing a low poly of Wickshine's to make the paper model too, BTW (sorry for repeating the blog there if you've been following progress). Although the textures look a bit iffy around the roof - as though they are abruptly cut off, and the support beams aren't shown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Nice I'll be doing a low poly of Wickshine's to make the paper model too, BTW (sorry for repeating the blog there if you've been following progress). Although the textures look a bit iffy around the roof - as though they are abruptly cut off, and the support beams aren't shown. Oh, they are more than a bit iffy . If you look at Fitz's picture of Morrach, where it says "houses, etc" - these are houses, etc. The "houses" are simple 7 sided polys with a texture slapped on (not a very hi-res tecture either: I limited it to around 500 kB). These are not "hero houses" designed to look very realistic up close - they're designed to fill in the background and as such, I made them as simple as possible so I can render a couple of hundred of the suckers without waiting all evening. Also, they currently lack chimneys. Originally I planned to leave them off, in the interests of keeping the polycount as low as possible, but even at a distance, multiple chimneys add a little something to the skyline, so I am now texturing some chimneys. I have made some nice tower/wall models in the past - with supporting beams for the galleries, and tiled roofs, and textures which look good up close (plus have a bunch of commercial/freebie buildings, some of which are excellent) - but alas then found that 20 or 30 of the things would slow rendering to a crawl (or only a half dozen of the best detailed ones). So they're being seen here much closer than intended - which is why the textures look lame. Still, on the whole I am happy with them, given that I put a dozen together on Sunday and another half dozen this evening. Two more nights and I should have about 30 assorted houses and shops, which should give sufficient variety for townscapes, without overwhelming my computer's memory. I'm also putting together a biggish church, which will also only be useful for distance shots. cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread This one's very cool. Do you mind if I grab it for my upcoming Haymaker! article? (I need all the art help I can get with that one....) Sure, knock yourself out! Cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fitz Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread What you need for impromptu point-of-view rendering is house objects with multiple definitions, so that only the closest to the camera are rendered in high-rez and the models get simpler as they recede from view -- I think most of the big fancy game engines do that these days. It means that you don't have to rebuild the architecture of the scene for optimal definition just because you decide you want to have the camera looking the other way down the street. Now, whether that's even possible with your modeller/renderer (Bryce?) I have no idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Oh, they are more than a bit iffy . If you look at Fitz's picture of Morrach, where it says "houses, etc" - these are houses, etc. The "houses" are simple 7 sided polys with a texture slapped on (not a very hi-res tecture either: I limited it to around 500 kB). These are not "hero houses" designed to look very realistic up close - they're designed to fill in the background and as such, I made them as simple as possible so I can render a couple of hundred of the suckers without waiting all evening. Also, they currently lack chimneys. Originally I planned to leave them off, in the interests of keeping the polycount as low as possible, but even at a distance, multiple chimneys add a little something to the skyline, so I am now texturing some chimneys. I have made some nice tower/wall models in the past - with supporting beams for the galleries, and tiled roofs, and textures which look good up close (plus have a bunch of commercial/freebie buildings, some of which are excellent) - but alas then found that 20 or 30 of the things would slow rendering to a crawl (or only a half dozen of the best detailed ones). So they're being seen here much closer than intended - which is why the textures look lame. Still, on the whole I am happy with them, given that I put a dozen together on Sunday and another half dozen this evening. Two more nights and I should have about 30 assorted houses and shops, which should give sufficient variety for townscapes, without overwhelming my computer's memory. I'm also putting together a biggish church, which will also only be useful for distance shots. cheers, Mark You could also render it in layers with higher poly models, and use them as progressive backdrops. It'd take time, but it wouldn't make your computer fall over from the memory needed for lots of models, as you'd only render a few each time. As long as you progress from the furthest to the nearest and their shadows don't overlap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread What you need for impromptu point-of-view rendering is house objects with multiple definitions, so that only the closest to the camera are rendered in high-rez and the models get simpler as they recede from view -- I think most of the big fancy game engines do that these days. It means that you don't have to rebuild the architecture of the scene for optimal definition just because you decide you want to have the camera looking the other way down the street. Now, whether that's even possible with your modeller/renderer (Bryce?) I have no idea LOD - Level of detail. I've heard of it. I think the latest DAZ studio offered LOD for the default characters it has. With a game engine, it's handy to have the different polygon total models all as one file, so the engine can choose as need be. But for a proper 3D rendering program, you don't need to do that, and can just have separate models and use as need be. E.g. - if you only have house roofs showing, you don't bother putting in house bodies. If you only have bits showing, just use the low poly model. [edit] - Rather than a new slightly off topic reply, I'll just add to this one. I've been looking into UV mapping in blender (which as you know is free and has a fair few free low poly models - but more importantly is a great program to convert a file format to another format) - and came across a free program for generating seamless wood textures. http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/ww_overview.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tandem Esk Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Wow, more excellent-cool stuff. I love this thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tandem Esk Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Yay, more pix to steal be inspired by! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread What you need for impromptu point-of-view rendering is house objects with multiple definitions, so that only the closest to the camera are rendered in high-rez and the models get simpler as they recede from view -- I think most of the big fancy game engines do that these days. It means that you don't have to rebuild the architecture of the scene for optimal definition just because you decide you want to have the camera looking the other way down the street. Now, whether that's even possible with your modeller/renderer (Bryce?) I have no idea Nope. But since I'm rendering stills, not animations, it's not a problem (except of course, you do need to plan ahead). I have plenty of "hero" buildings and trees for up front: what I have lacked are background fillers. I have been making lots of "flats" - photos of trees on simple planes to fill in forest backgrounds - so the current project is houses. Another alternative would be to buy Vue infinite, which actually does what you suggest above - when you use lots of one object it automagically reduces the render quality expended on those further away from the camera letting you use squillions of them. The feature (called ecosystems) also allows you to say "Program, decorate that hill in houses for me in a tasteful fashion, but not on the bits I have designated as roads" rather than placing them all by hand. Alas, this feature is only available on the high end versions of Vue and I balk a bit at coughing up about 1500 NZD for what's basically an occasional hobby. Cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread You could also render it in layers with higher poly models, and use them as progressive backdrops. It'd take time, but it wouldn't make your computer fall over from the memory needed for lots of models, as you'd only render a few each time. As long as you progress from the furthest to the nearest and their shadows don't overlap. I've done this in the past, but .... tedious Especially tedious if you don't like the final composition and want to go back and redo it cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korvar Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Heh. Inspired by the Morrach sketch and also by the paper models thread, I decided it was to dust off one of my plans - making a whole bunch of low-poly medieval houses that I can use as background filler for pictures. I've done about half of them at the moment, but I did a test render that I think looks OK - and all those houses render in 2-3 minutes! cheers, Mark They look good - definitely enough for background filler! About the only criticism is that they look a bit samey - the roof angles all look very similar. I don't know if your software supports it, but a simple morph that changes the roof height (literally the two points right at the top) allowing lots of little random variations in roof height and thus roof pitch would add a lot of realism. Having said that, if they're just background "extras" it might not be even noticeable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread On a related note, just came across my random map generator for a boardgame I was making - http://www.curufea.com/games/buildings/map.php Although isomorphic, the building images would be worth using for making maps. I got them from the Dundjinni website. Which is well worth looking at for mapping (although I prefer using photoshop to their software). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread They look good - definitely enough for background filler! About the only criticism is that they look a bit samey - the roof angles all look very similar. I don't know if your software supports it, but a simple morph that changes the roof height (literally the two points right at the top) allowing lots of little random variations in roof height and thus roof pitch would add a lot of realism. This is a good point - I've fixed it simply by going back and tweaking the buildings relative width, depth and height, which I can do simply by stretching: it costs nothing extra in terms of computer resources. Thanks for the feedback! cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storn Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread I didn't update last week, but a page of Catspaw DID go up. In fact, first page of Chapter 2! Catspaw continues as Talene awakes from a dream that seems to come from the Philospher's Spike itself. Danger lurks, kick in the door, send in the ninjas. Is Talene up to the task of keeping ahold of this strange mystic artifact? http://www.webcomicsnation.com/storn/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misteradam Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread heres something i did recently Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BNakagawa Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread that rocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted February 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread that rocks. I concur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korvar Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Impressive! Repped! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Mechanon v. 0.1? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kroh Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread Fantastic image. Regards, Walt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGreenwade Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 Re: Fantasy Art Thread heres something i did recently that rocks. I concurMe too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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