Archive for September 2009

Motorbike II

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Just a few more shots of the bike so far. I'm not too keen on the materials for the brakes currently but I'm just testing out lights and materials while I go do each step. Aiming to get started on the engine over the weekend and if I can put it on the bike for Monday.




Modelling Practise II

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Currently still working on the car as well as some traditional digital art.
Something that I've always been keen on trying is a motorbike and I'm going to be modelling one (not this tutorial one) for my showreel (for motionmatching).

So far here is the frame I've done;



Just did a quick render with some blinns and FG using a similar lighting rig to my old FYP setup. Basically using grids with lamberts on and FG instead of using lights then having image based lighting on (without actually using it for lighting, just reflections).

I came across a big problem after trying out the Approximation editor (Window>Rendering Editors>Mental Ray> Approximation Editor). Basically used to show your geometry as smoothed out (as if you are pressing 3) without the need to convert to a subd or smooth deformer.

DBN 0.4 error 561001: invalid topology, object will not be tessellated
GAPM 0.4 warn 092001: tessellation empty for object "polySurfaceShape5"

This made the selected geometry (in this case the frame itself) invisible to any Mental Ray renders (but not with Maya Software)

After trying everything franticly (thinking I had not set up my materials correctly or Mental Ray itself) I had a search on some forums and found a fix that worked for me.

Mesh>Cleanup> Select Nonmanifold Geometry

This solved the issue and work resumed as normal. Before I finish my bike I'm going to check the geometry of each piece and make sure this doesn't happen for future renders. I'm glad I found the error now instead of when the end product even though it was quite frustrating and I hope if anyone has this issue themselves it will help them.

Roses

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Still working on 3d modelling currently but while I had some nice flowers I thought I'd take some photos of them before my lack of gardening skills kills them quickly.

They are really silky roses (don't know if that is normal, but it is certainly cool!)







Finally I am starting a course from CGSociety for Lighting and Rendering on the 21st. I can't wait to start!