Holy crap on a stick, u do realise now that anyone out there who is modelling R2 stands no chance of following this... Wiz.
Actually, my hope is that someone comes along who puts mine to shame, and then I have to go and try and beat them. That's how this all started; I saw Billy Brooks' CG R2 in Ep. 1 and I couldn't believe how good it was, so I set out to beat it. Once you see what someone is capable of -especially if it exceeds what you believed was possible- you have a clear goal to meet or exceed. And in the end, you get better for trying.
And as it is right now, I still have a ton of things I want to do/am doing to R2. Things I put in my column of "Now if you really wanted to do this right, how far would you go?"
Well, the next level would be things like actual surface displacement for all the nicks, dirt clumps, etc. Plus I could manually tweak all the surface geometry even more for more randomness, and variety of the fillets. Even the renders themselves could go to another level by adding optical distortion and glare/artifcats, both of which I could do now, just didn't. It's not that the list is long, it's that its the really specific stuff, where I believe the last 5% of photoreal exists.
One thing I've learned is that the eye sees incredibly minute detail, even in a render, even at a distance. Our B.S. detectors are insanely accurate, with access to a lifetime's worth of comparative imagery stored up in the brain. The difference between my latest R2 renders and identical renders without all the surface panels bent and misplaced and asymmetrical is almost too significant to believe. But it makes all the difference. There isn't one piece of precision anything on R2. I pulled everything out of place, rotated, misaligned, bent, etc. It's truly a huge part of the process; taking out all the things our precision computers put in by default; precision that doesn't exist in the real world. And there's certainly a whole level or two (or ten) beyond what I've done that it could use.
Very nice... remember this one. The fact that you "displaced" some of the panel faces -really- increases the realism atleast hundred fold... Very nice shaders too. Guess the node tree for those are filled with funky operators
The shader "trees" are about as basic as it gets, actually. Another advantage to Maxwell is its simplicity - these materials are only a fraction of the complexity of their mental ray counterparts, needing only a few controls.
Actually, my hope is that someone comes along who puts mine to shame, and then I have to go and try and beat them. That's how this all started; I saw Billy Brooks' CG R2 in Ep. 1 and I couldn't believe how good it was, so I set out to beat it. Once you see what someone is capable of -especially if it exceeds what you believed was possible- you have a clear goal to meet or exceed. And in the end, you get better for trying.
And as it is right now, I still have a ton of things I want to do/am doing to R2. Things I put in my column of "Now if you really wanted to do this right, how far would you go?"
_Mike
Yeah know what you mean, your work has pushed me to keep improving and learning (albeit at an extremely slow pace), seeing what you have achieved and continuing to achieve keeps me striving to improve my own work and hopefully get better
The thought of that gives me an enormous headache. I don't think I can deal with that just yet. Months of reference collecting aloneOhGOD... that's so depressing.
Posts
yep ... with warp 9
Greets
Chris
I hope you are thoroughly ashamed of youself...
Great renders matey, the detail you are going down to on this fella is awe inspiring, really is cool.
Anymore R2 movies/anim tests planned?
Wiz.
Actually, my hope is that someone comes along who puts mine to shame, and then I have to go and try and beat them. That's how this all started; I saw Billy Brooks' CG R2 in Ep. 1 and I couldn't believe how good it was, so I set out to beat it. Once you see what someone is capable of -especially if it exceeds what you believed was possible- you have a clear goal to meet or exceed. And in the end, you get better for trying.
And as it is right now, I still have a ton of things I want to do/am doing to R2. Things I put in my column of "Now if you really wanted to do this right, how far would you go?"
_Mike
Nick
_Mike
edit---That was not making fun of you, I am just amazed at how much detail you put into it.
Nick
_Mike
Nick
Artoo gets his 3rd leg...
_Mike
looks very real
Greets
Chris
_Mike
Yeah know what you mean, your work has pushed me to keep improving and learning (albeit at an extremely slow pace), seeing what you have achieved and continuing to achieve keeps me striving to improve my own work and hopefully get better
Anyway back to Max and on I go!
Wiz.
Sounds like a good reason to give the ol' Maxwell a try then...
So, maybe one day, yeah.
_Mike
This blue metal looks just perfect
and Congrats on the Header!
--Jeff
So you're using the Maxwell Renderer? Some of the stuff that that spits out is mighty impressive and I must say your R2 is no different
Take care, mate.
P.S.: Now as Nick (aka DarthMaya) said, all R2-D2 needs is his friend C3-PO.
Sorry mike I think I started something......:D
Nick