[]Aratex[]

Well, it's done... I'm not entirely happy with it and I may someday return to tweaking it, but I'm just tired of looking at it for the moment... I took the weekend off (not by choice, things came up) and just couldn't get back into it, but enough babble... Without further adieu, *Fanfare* the final version of my crappy, er, really cool 3D rendition of the courtyard from Disney's The Sword in the Stone!

Crits appreciated, of course.. and I may even fix things in a day or two, but at the moment I just don't feel like it.

[StormVermin]

Glad to see you worked on it some more...
I dunno tho...

Something is missing - maybe not enough emphasisym on the whole "sword in the stone" aspect of the picture.

Good job on your texture job though.

[]Aratex[]

Yeah, I know... It's missing something... I added a weak attempt at a dead branch and bush, but it's still missing something... and I can NOT put my finger on what.. So until I figure out what it is (or someone else figures it out and tells me), it's just stuck like that.... Who knows, maybe some day I'll be a talented 3D guy and I'll be able to actually add a character (Gasp!) in there and that will make it all better..

[Tinusch]

It's the brick texture. It's too small and squished. Make the bricks bigger and give them a little more color. It should add a lot to the atmosphere.

[]Aratex[]

Tinusch, you have NO idea how much I've messed with the brick texture... I tried probably tried 15 different textures, I tried resizing that texture, I tried making it look like the bricks were more 3 dimensional..... I've probably spent >5 hours on just that one texture... (Which is a major contributing factor to why I'm just sick of working on this thing...) I can NOT make it look good.... I've tried and tried and tried..... It refuses to look very realistic... After ALL the work and experimenting I've done, THAT setting is the most realistic of all.... Trust me...
</rant>

<Edit: Typo.>

[This message has been edited by ]Aratex[ (edited November 01, 2000).]

[Tittle]

Hmm I highly doubt that that is the most realistic seting for stone that you can achieve. I spent about 5 minutes and came up with this
Try using a stone map that more closely resembles your reference pic like this one. And there is ALWAYS a way to make something look more realistic in max.

[]Aratex[]

Hey... Where'd you get that texture?! I've been looking for almost that exact image for days.... That's not fair!

Then again, I'm still not sure I'd like it because I'm used to the tanish/brownish colors of my current stone texture... Still, I'd love to slap your texture on and see how it does, it'd only take a minute or five to see how it'd look... (Slow comp => big render time...)

[]Aratex[]

You all hate me, don't you?

[Delucubus]

Yes, WE DO! jk, but i can't seem to load up the page with the pic on it. Maybe i'll try back later, or my internet is justed F***ed.

[Jezebel]

Here's what I think your main problem is - The sword doesn't look powerful enough. You can barely even see it... not only that but it's directly centered in the middle of the page. And because it's not very large, all the open snow space tends to distract from the focal point of your composition.

I think that either cutting out some of the excess environment or making the sword/stone larger would really help. The suggestion with the textures would help tremendously as well. With the bricks as small as they are, it's making the wall look too far away.

You also might try making the snow more blue. Just a tad, so it looks more cold and icy.
I really like the fence in the back... and all the little stars. Cute

[Jezebel]

One more suggestion!

You might want to make the light coming down on the sword more blue as well. If you look at your reference picture it uses a lot of blue. I think because the color tends to carry a magical quality with it. It looks very ethereal and serene, yet it demonstrates power and strength.

Right now it almost looks as though a helicopter flew overhead and is shining a spotlight down on it.

[YourMum]

Hey, Aratex! I like that one! It's quite nice. I saw the first picture you posted some time ago and I think that this is much better.

Your composition is good but I think that you could get more better picture of this is doing some changes. I give you a tip: try to get rid of those normal white lights. The light is almost never white and if you take a look to the reference picture you see that there is some magical feeling inside. Try to capture it to your own 3d pic. Hmm.. I think that you could use more blue tone lights, for instance.

I see also that you have used opacity systems fot he floating leaves. Why didn't you draw them point by point way? Would look more better.

Your texture is a bit odd on the walls. Maybe you could use some other texture or another scale on it.

Also, you could try to get more effective textures/materials for a metal pedestal and a sword. Sometimes it mess things if you use photographed and drawed textures together on models.

But without these little cents, I really love your snow texture. Where dod you get it? Is it photographed? It's nice. Also a fence looks nice - nice style on it. So, I don't want to judge you. I just want to give tips - hopefully useful tips.

I made a little and very quick 'analyse' about the forms of the models. There are only six parts in my model. I want to show you how to get even more effective surface to the models. Use variable stuff. Especially to show. Umm.. I hope this give some ideas for you though I spent so little time with this. Thanks.



Keep working - modeling!

-Juha-

[]Aratex[]

Woah.. People actually responded to me finally... I wasn't expecting that. Here come my comments....

Jezebel: Good comments, thanks a lot... I have messed a bit with making the sword a bit larger, but I haven't tried making the entire "altar" larger... You may be on to something here. Yeah, I know the brick texture is screwed, I don't think I'll ever be happy with that one, I've messed with it a lot... (See my above rant for proof.) Hmm... Someone asked me to use more blue? This hasn't happened before.. Normally, everything's blue.. I'd be happy to give the blue thing a shot. I love blue.

YourMum: (Or would that be MyMum?) Thank you for the crits also.. and the compliments as well. Yeah, now that it's been mentioned, I really think that a lot of what's missing from this pic is the magical essence that it seems to have in the movie.. and I agree that adding blue tones to it could very possibly help... Yeah, I did use opacity maps for the stars and snowflakes instead of instanced geometry because when I first tried it the geometry way, my computer tried to explode. I'll see if I can make it work by instancing simple 2D shapes instead of 3D shapes, though, maybe that's where I went wrong.. Hrmm... Different textures for the sword and pedestal? I'll look into it... I really like the sword textures, though, and I think that adding snow to the pedestal would help the realism there a lot...

Oh yeah... and I made the snow texture myself... It's just a really shiny plain white with a noise map for the specular level and for the bump map and a light blue for the specular color... I played with the settings on the 2 noise maps a lot before I found something I was happy with, but I like it a lot now that it's done.

One last thing, YourMum, how exactly did you go about putting the snow on the pedestal? The main reason I've been putting it off is that I can't think of a good way to do it...


Well, thank you both for your comments... I'm ready to get back to work on this now!

[YourMum]

Hi again, Aratex!

MyMum/YourMum - all the same. Hmm.. I think that there isn't much credible over my nickname. *grin* I would change it if it could be possible. But.. but..

I have to say that my sample picture was just a quick example.. I would make a new model for you if I had time enough.

Yeah, if I were you I would use some different textures on the sword and pedestal. They are something quite lifeless I think. The pedeslal stone looks quite clean and smooth and regular. It could be more dynamic and rough. My example is a bit off because I used quite smooth edges and surfaces on it. My main idea was show variety of the snow in the scene.

And the sword could be more impressive because it's the main thing in that scene. Because of that you could give it shiny and "valuable" textures instead of those current ones.

At last, you asked me that how I put the snow on the pedestal. I took a box with some segments (about 10 on each side) and moved the vertexes point-by-point. I tried to give quite same form for them as I saw in reference. Then I smoothed them. That's it. I produced them very quickly tho. If I had modeled this for complete, I would have used more segments and modeled that very carefully.

Well, if you have more questions about this or anything else so feel free to ask. I'd be happy to help people. Thanks.

Ps. Nice. The snow texture is very nice.

-Juha-

[]Aratex[]

Ugh.. Sorry I'm slow, school's getting in the way...

Ahh... So that's how you did it.. I sort of thought that you might've used a box and edited some verteces a bit, but I wasn't completely sure....

Yeah, I know I need different/better textures, but I've not had much luck finding them...

The sword is unimpressive because I copied the Disney sword.. I wanted it to be plain, but still fairly nice-looking.. It's just that it (and its textures, honestly) is difficult to pick out because of the visible light shining on it...

Welp, thanks for your answers My/YourMum.. Time to spend some time brainstorming... I have to get to work on a portfolio.. I need like 8 more professional-looking pieces ideally by the end of the week... That's almost 2 per day.. Not counting classes and work and girlfriend time... *Sigh* Hehe... If you've got any ideas on scenes I could/should create, let me know... I'm not real great with coming up with ideas sometimes... (Please don't flame for that, I know I'm bad...)

[YourMum]

Hi, man!

Yep. I really did the basic snow that way but there are many ways to create it. NURMS (MAX3), for instance, or NURBS are quite good stuff to mess with things like the snow on the pic. I still think that editing the vertexes of the box is good, fast and easy enough.

Hmm...well, you can search for the good textures around the net. That's one way. I usually do the textures by myself. I get more satisfaction of that. Sometimes I just edit some photographed textures and materials or something like that. But I think there is one thing you should have to remember. The one is you always have to check that your textures look good together and fit well to the whole picture and scene. If you use photographed textures and painted/drawed textures together so do it well. Paint them as well as you can - of course - and remeber every little pieces of your scene. What kind of lighting you got there? What kind of athmoshpere? Other textures? Things like that... make them fit. Trim them.

Umm.. man, I haven't much ideas roght now but I give my sentences if I'll get something out of my fuzzy mind.

Ps. It's good for you that you spend enough time with your girlfriend, too. Sitting in the front of the computer is numbing.

Ciao! Hear ya!

-Juha-

[]Aratex[]

Yeah, I really like the edited box idea for snow.. The snow I have bunched up at the base of the buildings and stone right now is a lathed and smoothed spline that I just sort of randomly made and lathed about 95 degrees so that it would go from straight up in the air to just below the ground surface.. Unfortunately, it's too pronounced that way because it's so round.. but that's how I did what I did...

I would really love to draw my own textures, but I totally suck as a 2D artist.. I've tried and I just can NOT do anything at the moment... I need to learn Photoshop or something well before I try to make textures with it because right now, I know about as much about 2D art as I know about brain surgery... :-\

Yeah.. Time with the girlfriend is always good. It's just hard to get any art done when I'm with her.. :\