Well, the fact is, even if its based on physically accurate stuff, its still CG and it still isn't real. Maybe Maxwell ends up making the user put just a bit too much faith in the renderer and not nearly enough faith in perception and artistry.
It is of course possible to simulate reality, virtually. The "reality" of the virtual images depends on how much of nature you replicate. Like fluid dynamics, which keep getting better - the more they replicate, the more accurate the simulation. And of course, Maxwell doesn't force you do to anything, you can absolutely build a standard material, and not use .ior, but you make a great point, which is that perception can be relative.
But the physics of light, material, and optics are not voodoo, they're well-understood, and replicating this is just Maxwell's philosophy - to recreate the photographic reality as close as possible. With these materials, this is a physically-accurate result. It's what it would look like if actually photographed in the real world. And then, you have your point, which is what if it doesn't look right anyway? I think it quickly becomes a slippery slope of choices - probably fueled partially by the fact that we are becoming used to seeing hyper-real/unrealistic images all the time. And we all can still use tons of other renderers to acheive whatever non-real imagery we want. Like I said, the point at which people can't recognize physically accurate as real anymore, is an interesting distortion!
wow..so you can't even tweek reflection in Maxwell?...wow, that's what i can limited. no way could i work with a soft that as those limitation seriously.
HAHAHA..... yeah, that's it, you can't tweak reflection in Maxwell.
Of course you can.. what I was saying is that it's not a "fake" reflection, in Maxwell.. you reflect whatever's in the scene... you can't put some random "environment" map on every object, because that would yield impossible results. Although it's true that in fact, there isn't a "reflection" control in Maxwell, because in the real world, reflections are a function of surface roughness. So that's how you control reflection as well. There are only 5 controls to simulate virtually any material you can think of. You can use an overall environment map for all objects in the scene, of course, but the idea of using a separate reflection environment for each object isn't physically possible, so it's not Maxwell's style. That's for every other renderer.
ok..this might be a langage barrier..but what do you do when you need a relfection on an object to reflect a video file for exemple what will be comped later?
Couple of ways to do that - just standard approaches, like either loading it into the global environment, or maybe loaded onto some geometry visible in the reflective objects... Maxwell does let you cheat, in that an object can be invisible (like the environment) and still illuminate, show up in reflections, etc.
[quote=mverta;135490
This is obviously just the first few, but the advantage of using .ior materials is that they are physically accurate, and unobtainable by conventional methods. The drawback is that you can't alter the profiles - aluminum is aluminum. They also calculate a touch slower because their spectral qualities are orders of magnitude more complex. Again, another interesting example of how even when something is behaving as it would in real life, it can look fake to some eyes. I love that stuff...
_Mike[/quote]
Bit like the new materials in LW. Geeze they take an age to render but they do look sweet, though.
I just did a couple of tests - I was told about the slower rendering of .ior materials awhile ago; hadn't checked on it recently - and I only got a couple of seconds difference, so it's possible that's been optimized. In any case, I think they're primarily used for true scientific simulations and renderings; we have a couple of guys who are always doing light propagation validation with stuff like prisms and beam splitters or whatever. 99% of the time, I'm happy with standard materials, but aluminum and metals just have that funky range of things they do with light that requires actual .ior data....
I just did a couple of tests - I was told about the slower rendering of .ior materials awhile ago; hadn't checked on it recently - and I only got a couple of seconds difference, so it's possible that's been optimized. In any case, I think they're primarily used for true scientific simulations and renderings; we have a couple of guys who are always doing light propagation validation with stuff like prisms and beam splitters or whatever. 99% of the time, I'm happy with standard materials, but aluminum and metals just have that funky range of things they do with light that requires actual .ior data....
_Mike
I found an online book of optical constants that gives out that kind of data. Very handy
Technically, this R2 is about as "CG" as you can get - it's perfect surfaces, perfect materials... it could never exist like this. If I was actually going to do it for real, then no matter how clean there would still be a ton of little tweaks, pulls, color shifts in the paint, etc.
_Mike
I like the idea of a "clean r2"; lets say a few bumps and scratches, and maybe 10% of the dirt from the "dirty" r2. if you would please post 2 sep pics, identical positioning and lighting, one pic of clean r2, and one of dirty r2, ill try and do a nice photoshop composite. IMO, the clean r2 looks like a plastic kit, no offense. btw, does the dome open up where r2 holds luke's lightsaber? just wondering
And yes, if u wouldnt mind, i ma intrested in seeing a proper "clean r2"
Well, you're never really DONE with one of these things, are you? This R2 has actually been completely re-vamped, material-wise. (We got some new tools and I learned some new things.) It's not night-and-day from the last version, but in truth, it behaves much more realistically. Like last time, I did as much with it as I could think to, and now it'll go back on the shelf again, until something new comes along to make me change it!
Looks pretty sweet, maybe instead of the generic white box to reflect off his shiney bits you could use one of those lighting strips like they have on the death star.
Yeah, I've never done any really "creative" backdrops for him... I like to see if it holds up under the "worst" conditions, just a cyc and a couple of softboxes. If stuff tends to work at all under really abstract circumstances, it seems to have a better chance overall. I've got a Tantive IV corridor all finished I could drop him in, I guess.
That would be AWESOME! Looks great as-is, even better in tantive iv
Just wondering, how would i give a mesh that "real" look, like a tos enterprise for example. I see a lot of those, and most of them look fake, but a few stick out as "OMG! I cant believe its not real!!"??
I like the blue carpaint, but far and away the hardest thing to get right on R2 is the main body/legs material. If you look at the first 2 shots, the body looks very matte, while in the 3rd one, it seems to have a seriously punchy sharp specular. That shows up on the real R2's all the time, and you can never tell if it's dirty or if it's a trick of the light, like in the first two shots. Ultimately, building a shader that does both was... well, it took ME forever, anyway. I have all these reference shots of R2 (the same R2, in the same lighting and in the same conditions) which I've lined up as backplates, and when I do a material test, I render it from all these different cameras. The idea is that it lines up/behaves like all the references. This last pass is far and away the closest I've gotten.
Here is a side-by-side with the R2 I shot at The Ranch on the left, and my CG R2 on the right.
If you look, you can see that while I sourced this R2 for the body and skirt, the legs and feet I actually took from other R2's.
Anyway, seeing Mverta hates George Lucas and everything he stands for (so don't ask me why he wants to restore Lucas's film, and not that it needs restoring, IMO) I doubt old George would be keen to give him any money for his trouble.
Anyway, seeing Mverta hates George Lucas and everything he stands for (so don't ask me why he wants to restore Lucas's film, and not that it needs restoring, IMO) I doubt old George would be keen to give him any money for his trouble.
You can visit his site and see why he's doing it. It's just a personal project.. a lot of color correction stuff, etc. Stuff only experts would notice doing frame-by-frame comparisons. I don't think he has anything against Lucas. He just thought there was some sloppy restoration work done. He has examples stating his case on his site. But it's definitely a pet project. But who knows. It might end up black market or something if he ever finishes it.
Hopefully Lucas will be interested, 'cause there was some stuff there that was fairly obvious. I dont know what kind of compensation he can get, but it would be a shame not to be able to publicly release it.
Posts
But the physics of light, material, and optics are not voodoo, they're well-understood, and replicating this is just Maxwell's philosophy - to recreate the photographic reality as close as possible. With these materials, this is a physically-accurate result. It's what it would look like if actually photographed in the real world. And then, you have your point, which is what if it doesn't look right anyway? I think it quickly becomes a slippery slope of choices - probably fueled partially by the fact that we are becoming used to seeing hyper-real/unrealistic images all the time. And we all can still use tons of other renderers to acheive whatever non-real imagery we want. Like I said, the point at which people can't recognize physically accurate as real anymore, is an interesting distortion!
_Mike
Of course you can.. what I was saying is that it's not a "fake" reflection, in Maxwell.. you reflect whatever's in the scene... you can't put some random "environment" map on every object, because that would yield impossible results. Although it's true that in fact, there isn't a "reflection" control in Maxwell, because in the real world, reflections are a function of surface roughness. So that's how you control reflection as well. There are only 5 controls to simulate virtually any material you can think of. You can use an overall environment map for all objects in the scene, of course, but the idea of using a separate reflection environment for each object isn't physically possible, so it's not Maxwell's style. That's for every other renderer.
_Mike
_Mike
This is obviously just the first few, but the advantage of using .ior materials is that they are physically accurate, and unobtainable by conventional methods. The drawback is that you can't alter the profiles - aluminum is aluminum. They also calculate a touch slower because their spectral qualities are orders of magnitude more complex. Again, another interesting example of how even when something is behaving as it would in real life, it can look fake to some eyes. I love that stuff...
_Mike[/quote]
Bit like the new materials in LW. Geeze they take an age to render but they do look sweet, though.
M
_Mike
I found an online book of optical constants that gives out that kind of data. Very handy
I like the idea of a "clean r2"; lets say a few bumps and scratches, and maybe 10% of the dirt from the "dirty" r2. if you would please post 2 sep pics, identical positioning and lighting, one pic of clean r2, and one of dirty r2, ill try and do a nice photoshop composite. IMO, the clean r2 looks like a plastic kit, no offense. btw, does the dome open up where r2 holds luke's lightsaber? just wondering
And yes, if u wouldnt mind, i ma intrested in seeing a proper "clean r2"
care to post a link to that resource Mattc? thx!
no..:)
_Mike
_Mike
Just wondering, how would i give a mesh that "real" look, like a tos enterprise for example. I see a lot of those, and most of them look fake, but a few stick out as "OMG! I cant believe its not real!!"??
Greets
Chris
You done a great job with him. If I did not know it was CG I would have swean that this is a real photo.
I look forward to seeing R2 in that background.
Very inspiring work Mike.
Can't wait to see you next project. Whats next, maybe a dvd?
I can see it now Gnomon- Modeling to Maxwell, with Mike Verta.
I'd buy it! :thumb:
Here is a side-by-side with the R2 I shot at The Ranch on the left, and my CG R2 on the right.
If you look, you can see that while I sourced this R2 for the body and skirt, the legs and feet I actually took from other R2's.
_Mike
_Mike
Anyway, seeing Mverta hates George Lucas and everything he stands for (so don't ask me why he wants to restore Lucas's film, and not that it needs restoring, IMO) I doubt old George would be keen to give him any money for his trouble.
You can visit his site and see why he's doing it. It's just a personal project.. a lot of color correction stuff, etc. Stuff only experts would notice doing frame-by-frame comparisons. I don't think he has anything against Lucas. He just thought there was some sloppy restoration work done. He has examples stating his case on his site. But it's definitely a pet project. But who knows. It might end up black market or something if he ever finishes it.