Mechanical/Setting: Ferion Advanced Ore Refinery

[NanoGator]

Hi All,

Been working on a new Ferion project: The Advanced Ore Refinery. (Or is it mining station? Hehe I needta chat with Johan about it.)

Here's the concept drawing I made:

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/avanced_ore_mine_inked.gif

And here's a current work-in progress of one of the domes at the base of the station:

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/dome_test_render_c.jpg

Enjoy!

[NanoGator]

Hi All,

I have a couple of small updates to show you. I've finished building and mapping the dome. Here you can see the top of the dome, plus a sample texture was applied. Please don't beat me up too much about it, I just wanted to see what it looked like.

Not the final textures!
http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/dome_test_render_d.jpg

Also, I've generated a looped animation if you'd care to see:

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/dome_texture_study_b.avi

You'll need this codec (http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/codecs/XviD_Install.exe) in order to view it. It's XVid (http://www.xvid.org/). I apologize for not using a more standardized codec, but DivX's quantizer kept destroying the texture data. Sadly, it's that texture's interaction with light that I was testing with that video, so I had to use a more obscure codec that preserved the detail. (You might as well install it, there's a strong possibility that future videos I do will use this codec unless I can figure out how to make DivX sing...)


I'm going to level with you all. Though I'm rather competant with Photoshop, and I know my way around Lightwave's surfaces, I'm not quite sure how to go about texturing this thing. I need help. If any of you has suggestions about how to a.) Find/Generate the Imagery and b.) apply it in Lightwave, I am all ears. I've got some ideas I'm pursuing, but I'd really like to hear from those of you who've worked on something sorta like this.

Enjoy!

P.S. Yes I willl revise the structure to be a little more sound. I hope nobody feels I blew them off, just wasn't focused on that part yet.

[Bo Degn]

nice model ( as usual form you ) :-)

I would keep the black textured bits and then go for a rusty lightbrownish texture for the shell parts.

Since its a place where heat is generated you could also consider some chinmeys.

I dont know anything about lightwave so cant comment on that part.

Im sure you will get some good ideas


btw. I use XVid to, but your compression seem to have gone wrong.

::bodegn

[NanoGator]

Hi All,

Well Thursday night was a bust. Started to build a piece of it, and just blew it. I think I exhausted myself a bit. And Friday Night, well I just needed it off.

Tonight I have something to show, though. As I mentioned before I got stuck on the model. (No biggie, just, got a little worried about how things will hook up together. I think I have it solved now.) So tonight, instead, I worked on the Layout Construction and the lighting of the beast. One thing I intended was for this facility to be visible even when it's pitch black outside. This is a likely scenario for this palce, so I imagine they'd build it with a lot of lights.

A few of things occured to me while rigging these lights.

1.) I'd need to be able to clone them, so heirarchy needed to be organized. (Note: Clone All Items LW plugin is VERY well done.)

2.) Shadow mapping = faster rendering, plus the shadows can be cached.

3.) The end result of this project could reach 2 million polygons. In that situation, radiosity is probably not an option. So the lights have to 'bounce' manually.

4.) Real lights are rarely a perfect solid color, so texturing them should be considered.

So, I added a bunch of lights to this scene. Made them easy to clone, textured them, and set them to 'cache shadows'. The result worked, I cut the render time of the second frame by half. Woo! I then added ''bounce lights' in order to simulate the effect of light reflecting off the edges of its target. To my surprised, it worked pretty darn well. Take a look:

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/dome_test_render_e.jpg

This image is the same as the first, only I got rid of the 'bounce lights' so you can see the difference.

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/dome_test_render_e_nospill.jpg

Render time? 1:09 at 1280 by 1024 enhanced low after the shadows were cached. Pretty cool, eh?

Got questions? Fire them off to me.

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/images/smilies/cool018.gif

[Stonepilot]

Cool model. I guess the only thing that I would comment about is the scale I'm assuming that this is a pretty big object if it was real life. If that's the case the texture on the ground is throwing the scale off. Another thing that may help is using more lights but with a way smaller cone angle. I'm used to maya so I'm not sure how that would transfer to ligtwave. What the hell do I know I just push point around. Its cool model.

[NanoGator]

THanks Bo Degn!

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by Stonepilot
Cool model. I guess the only thing that I would comment about is the scale I'm assuming that this is a pretty big object if it was real life. If that's the case the texture on the ground is throwing the scale off. Another thing that may help is using more lights but with a way smaller cone angle. I'm used to maya so I'm not sure how that would transfer to ligtwave. What the hell do I know I just push point around. Its cool model.

Oh yeah, you're right, the ground texture is mucking that up. Sorry, I tend to make presentation mistakes like that when I'm in 'test mode'. I'll keep that in mind for the next round of test renders.

I understand what you mean about more lights + smaller cone angle. (What you said, so far, translates to LW.) Could ya be a little more specific? Are you spotting the spill trick I did?

[saturnfive]

Nice work. I like the modelling and texturing. Would be nice if you could see a little more in the last render IMO.

As far as the animation goes, I'd have preferred it if you'd spun the camera around the model instead of rotating the model, that way you wouldn't get the shadow moving around, which looks odd (unless you designed the building to rotate)

[sparky | emily]

I like this. You seem to post on all the same boards as me - this thing is everywhere! :)

those bounce lights look like they work really well. I'll have to try that some time.

[enigma]

just wow....ya wanna teach me how to do that?:D

[azjohnl]

the building is looking good, i think you need a better ground texture though, it pulls away from the detail on the rest of your work.

[NanoGator]

S'happenin dudes? Well, I spent most of the week working on this. I think it's ready to show now. I hope you all like the modifications I made to the base, it should address some of the comments I recieved on it.


http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/advanced_ore_refinery_drawing_fb.jpg

There'll probably be more mesh updates by Monday evening.

[NanoGator]

@saturnfive: Hmm yeah. I didn't set up that animation very well. I just wanted to get it rendered quickly. As for the spinning... hmm yeah I should have just spun the lights. I was trying to show how the textures interact with the light. Fortunately, I took some time to reasearch the presentation of details like that, and have made some improvements. (I.e. I got my DivX problems corrected.) So next time around should be good. :)

@sparky | emily: Yeah I'm fairly active all over the place. I'll be fishing for a new job soon so I'm trying to be relatively visible. Hope it's not too obnoxious. :) I hope you have success with the light trick. I'll warn ya, though, when I finished cloning all the lights for all four domes, it took 15 minutes to process all the maps. DOH! (Frame 2 would have rendered REALLY fast tho...)

@enigma: Which part of it? heh


@azjohnl: Yep, you're right. Fortunately, I have some texture reference for the ground now. No promises as to when I'll get it in, though.

[NanoGator]

Bummer, I thought that drawing'd be more popular here! heh

[sparky | emily]

I forgot about this board. heh.

I like that sketch. I can't wait to see it modelled.

I don't mind seeing it all over. :) I usually do the same thing when I'm working on a big project - you get a lot more feedback that way.

[NanoGator]

Greetings all. I've taken another stab at texturing. Whatcha all think?

{Edit: oops. I overwrote the image that was here with the new one, so when I posted the new update, this post looked like a dupe. Sorry! Unintentional?}

[Hunger_Artist]

the second texture makes it look more worn... they are both very cool.

the final building will be pretty impressive!

[NanoGator]

Greets all,

I've come farther along on my dome texturing project. I still have one more chunk to do, but I thought you all would like to see the progress.

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/advanced_ore_refinery_wip_g.jpg

This is darn near complete, but I still have to do the doorway part, it's a seperate map.

I've done a rotation animation of it so you can see how the surfaces interact with light. There are two versions. One is at 1024 by 768 (I recommend at least 1.6 ghz for it...) the other is at 640 by 480. The codec is DivX 5.05, you can download it here (http://download.divx.com/divx/DivX511Bundle.exe).

Here is the 1024 by 768 version (4 megs):
http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/ore_refinery_texture_test_1024.avi

And here is the 640 by 480 version (2.5 megs):

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/ore_refinery_texture_test_640.avi

Enjoy!

[NanoGator]

Hmm.. my last update get missed?

Anyhoo, I'm hoping to have my next update sat evening. :)

[NanoGator]

Hi All,

Well I'm sorry, I thought I'd have something by Saturday. Sadly, I've run into trouble. I'm trying to make an environment for the dome. It's tough. It's really tough. I've put together a texture for the ground, but getting the ground to look 3 dimensional on it has been challenging. Tried starting simple:

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/advanced_ore_refinery_ground_study_2.jpg

I like it on some levels, it's not so great in others. Part of it is that I need a higher resolution texture, but that's not what's bugging me so much. It's the relatively easy part to fix. It's that the ground's so... flat. No interesting shadows being cast.

So, I looked at the texture, and I thought "What if I build some geometry for that". Well I did that.

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/advanced_ore_refinery/advanced_ore_refinery_ground_study_3.jpg

It looks better, a heck of a lot better. (Please forgive the blurriness of the textures, I haven't finished tweaking them.) I think I've got a direction to go here. Unfortunately, I haven't done a big enough land area for this to be effective yet. (Believe me, the test renders with the dome are comic.) So yeah, I'm still plucking away at it.

I'm open to ideas and suggestions. Terrain's a new ... pardon the expression.. frontier for me.

Enjoy!

[azjohnl]

wow! looking very nice, good job, the new ground and lighting is working much better! :)

[WoodenWorkhorse]

nanogator!
your work is simply fabulous. from the original drawings to the final textures, i'm pretty blown away.

i thought i might have an idea for your problem of the boring ground area?

i was looking at your dome model and thinking of an old game called "outpost" where you set up a base on other planets. and one of the interesting things about that game wast that before you could place any of your pre-fab buildings, you had to bulldoze some ground to place it on. you might want to suggest something similar here (especially since you've got an essentially (sp?) flat-bottomed building.

if you wanted to flatten out the area under the base, it could give you an excuse to add some mounds of dirt or unearthed rocks that could spice up your environment.

you also might consider some distant cliffs or mountains.

anyway, your model is pretty flawless to my eyes, and i like your designs.
-cheers

[davi]

A+

i really like the final outcome