Great work on the supercar, and congrats on the header - well deserved!!! I've always poked around the LDraw sites as a point of interest, and I'm a big fan of the terrific work that comes out of it. I grew up right smack dab in the middle of the classic space lego line and I've loved everything lego ever since - the terrific lego builds here like this one just get me excited all over again, maybe I'll finally get around to finishing my own lego stuff.
I didn't want to use LDraw stuff because I can't see the point in using other people's work and just assembling something, this is something I wanted to do myself to my own spec. Pre-made parts and Lego editors would render the whole project completely pointless, kind of like saying "hey guys, look at this awesome character I made... in Poser".
Well done on the Header Chris ! .... You get a sense of achievement knowing it's all your work !! :cool: ... Renders & Model look spiffy !! :thumb: ...
I didn't want to use LDraw stuff because I can't see the point in using other people's work and just assembling something, this is something I wanted to do myself to my own spec. Pre-made parts and Lego editors would render the whole project completely pointless, kind of like saying "hey guys, look at this awesome character I made... in Poser".
Of course, I'd happily use a dedicated Lego CAD program to quickly knock together a prototype or just to play with. But you get so much more out of doing it from scratch. I've learned quite a lot about the ratios and sizes of lego pieces (It's worth a read whether you're modelling Lego or not) and the gears - and finally delving into some expressions to try and control the gears properly.
Anyway, the steering column and engine blocks are now completed and it's starting to properly take shape. This will probably be the last shot of the chasis as the rest is just building up the body now.
She's really looking spectacular, Armondikov! Love it so far. There's such an impression of depth and complexity because, well, of the depth and complexity of the model.
She's really looking spectacular, Armondikov! Love it so far. There's such an impression of depth and complexity because, well, of the depth and complexity of the model.
I actually credit the rendering more than the modelling, really I'm just creating what is in the book (well, pdf). The thinking process is thus:
Q: What rendering toys do I have to play with?
A: Lots.
Q: Which ones should I use?
A: All of them!!
So depth-of-field, over exposure, reflections, radiosity, noise reduction, anaglyphs - the works really, and some interesting animation tricks that I'll show-off when they're done. I'm testing out so many things I never really bothered with before because it was all about the model (which I rarely finish) rather than a final image/product. But because this one has a very well defined goal, I think I'll actually get to the end of this one.
Been a bit of a hectic week but I've found some time to get back to the grind with this. With the roll-cage in place it's starting to shape up really well and hint at the final size of the thing much better than with just the chasis components.
So I've broken up the suspension sections and played about with some expressions to animate them down to the position the final Lego model is usually found in. So far it works nicely but it does mean all the wheels are currently linked. There are ways around this, either with more complex expressions or with IK chains instead.
Depends if I enable radiosity or not. Without radiosity it's under 5 minutes per shot, which isn't bad considering that my hardware is a tad out of date, but with decent radiosity settings that goes up to 20-30 minutes and consumes all the RAM in the universe meaning I really can't just stick it on in the background as I usually do. But I'm playing with the lighting and getting happier with the non-radiosity images.
And it's not that clean, it's quite horrendous in places, but I suppose I must hide it well! The tires are a complete hatchet job and are on my "to redo" list and most of the pieces don't have the undersides modelled (something that I'll have to add in when it comes to building the rest of the body because those pieces are more exposed.
A question: it looks like you might be getting some roundness in the shading of the flat pieces due in part to the interpolation of the normals across the faces. Is an additional span is necessary to keep the flat faces flat?
A question: it looks like you might be getting some roundness in the shading of the flat pieces due in part to the interpolation of the normals across the faces. Is an additional span is necessary to keep the flat faces flat?
If that's what I think it means, then yes. It's a much bigger problem in OpenGL that thankfully doesn't transfer to the actual render output.
Looking at the pics in Post #41 again, ... something weird seems to be happening with the wheel mags, (1st pic in post #41) could be just the material that's applied ...
Looks like you also need to up the res on those Chris, as you can see segmentation around the rim ....
Odd reflections, I think, keep cranking the reflection value up and down and haven't really settled on a particular value yet. That would have been the first shot from the appropriate angle to see it. And yeah, I'll redo the wheels towards the end as they're not particularly accurate to the wheels you get with the real model, a few more segments wouldn't hurt. The tires especially are a mess.
The back end looks really, really scary - it's like an eight-jointed sliding trunk thing - so I skipped ahead a few pages on the instructions and finished the front instead.
So I noticed that the multi-light set up I was using meant that while it was lit nicely, and the shadows were competent enough, it was never particularly convincing where the wheels contacted the ground. Radiosity would mean I'd be waiting until the Rapture for a single render, so I applied an ambient occlusion shader to the ground plane and this seems to have worked quite nicely.
After a little bit of thinking, I've got the engine mostly animated. There's got to be a better way to do it, though, as the cylinders won't stay straight.
EDIT: Solved it with a combination of IK and expressions. Will have more animation once I've assembled the suspension rigs properly. Otherwise it's all done!
After a little bit of thinking, I've got the engine mostly animated. There's got to be a better way to do it, though, as the cylinders won't stay straight.
EDIT: Solved it with a combination of IK and expressions. Will have more animation once I've assembled the suspension rigs properly. Otherwise it's all done!
The original was just using point-at-target things, now I'm getting used to expressions/Lscript now so can combine them with IK more effectively. It's a pain in the arse because all these different control methods don't exactly talk to each other well. But the result is getting pretty good. All the motion is now expression controlled so the wheels track automatically to how far the car moves, and when I sort out the gears those will hook up to it as well.
Some still shots of the model. Getting a little into car advert territory here with the super close ups. I'll move this into completed work soon when I've made a few lighting and rendering tweaks. It's pretty much done and been a lot of fun, if slightly taxing in places.
Posts
Great work, more more more!!!
Jas
Agreed.
Anyway, the steering column and engine blocks are now completed and it's starting to properly take shape. This will probably be the last shot of the chasis as the rest is just building up the body now.
I actually credit the rendering more than the modelling, really I'm just creating what is in the book (well, pdf). The thinking process is thus:
Q: What rendering toys do I have to play with?
A: Lots.
Q: Which ones should I use?
A: All of them!!
So depth-of-field, over exposure, reflections, radiosity, noise reduction, anaglyphs - the works really, and some interesting animation tricks that I'll show-off when they're done. I'm testing out so many things I never really bothered with before because it was all about the model (which I rarely finish) rather than a final image/product. But because this one has a very well defined goal, I think I'll actually get to the end of this one.
So. Many. Null. Objects...
And it's not that clean, it's quite horrendous in places, but I suppose I must hide it well! The tires are a complete hatchet job and are on my "to redo" list and most of the pieces don't have the undersides modelled (something that I'll have to add in when it comes to building the rest of the body because those pieces are more exposed.
Jas
A question: it looks like you might be getting some roundness in the shading of the flat pieces due in part to the interpolation of the normals across the faces. Is an additional span is necessary to keep the flat faces flat?
If that's what I think it means, then yes.
Looks like you also need to up the res on those Chris, as you can see segmentation around the rim ....
Jas
The back end looks really, really scary - it's like an eight-jointed sliding trunk thing - so I skipped ahead a few pages on the instructions and finished the front instead.
[url=ttp://s2.postimage.org/mi935veq/Car_10.jpg]
So I noticed that the multi-light set up I was using meant that while it was lit nicely, and the shadows were competent enough, it was never particularly convincing where the wheels contacted the ground. Radiosity would mean I'd be waiting until the Rapture for a single render, so I applied an ambient occlusion shader to the ground plane and this seems to have worked quite nicely.
EDIT: Solved it with a combination of IK and expressions. Will have more animation once I've assembled the suspension rigs properly. Otherwise it's all done!
The original was just using point-at-target things, now I'm getting used to expressions/Lscript now so can combine them with IK more effectively. It's a pain in the arse because all these different control methods don't exactly talk to each other well. But the result is getting pretty good. All the motion is now expression controlled so the wheels track automatically to how far the car moves, and when I sort out the gears those will hook up to it as well.
Jas