Caustics Test

Renderers need special instructions to create the fancy light patterns you see behind the and around the bottles. This image contains 2 kinds of caustics. First are the Reflected Caustics, those are the ones you see in front of the bottles. They are bounced off the object.  The second type are Refracted Caustics. Those are the ones behind. They are created when light passes through a transparent object. the sharp edges int the pattern are possible because of the "sharp" edges in the model.

Hand Painting Textures

This was an exercise in hand painting textures, then creating Normal and Displace textures from the color map.

The color map was created using some elephant and crocodile skin images. The model was pulled into Photoshop and painting directly onto the color layer.  Additional fine tuning was done on the flat color layer image.

The gray areas are from the Elephant Skin, and the green are from the Crocodile skin.

The Diffuse, Displace and Normal layers were created using a trial version of CrazyBump, then pulling those images into Photoshop and cleaning up the problem areas or removing the texture from the spots where they were not wanted. This took a while as crazy pump treated all the boundaries between color sections as if they were changes in height. The color layer had to be run through CrazyBump as a grayscale image, then much work had to be done to "equalize" the sections into a topographical map of sorts. color map

 Diffuse Layer - this tells the render engine where to increase or decrease shadows. Think of it as adding dirt.

 Displacement Layer - This tells the renderer to physically distort the model. This adds large bumps to the model. It is easier to add features this way rather than modeling them, but they also render faster this way as well.

 Normals Layer - This layer warps the shadow. It tells the renderer to bend the light, giving the illusion of creases and fine detail. This does not physically distort the mesh, but is also a great way to add fine detail without making the image render slower.

Here is the finished project without the displacement map:

And here it is with the displacement:

City Hall and Ruby Hollow Valley in Black and White

This City hall model was made by a classmate of mine for the same production as my mill and bank. The Textures were made by me.

This terrain is a chunk of Monument valley, adjusted to meet our needs for this upcoming production, copied and rotated 90 degrees.

Milling About and Making Bank.

I have been very busy in Pipeline and rendering class. This is a class in which we work through a project or two and learn the way to work as a team to accomplish a 3d project. We are working on a fun project right now that requires an old west town. In black and white even, that's how old west it is. My assignments are rather numerous. I am Technical Director, am in charge of gathering the props and placing them into the town, am building the terrain, am in charge of prop management, am co writing the animatic with Three others, am co team lead for surfacing (textures), am blog coadministrator and am a modeler. This is in a class of 30 people. Most people have one job, some of us more. This is what I get for having a work ethic. Thanks Dad.

Anyway, besides the terrain, here are my 2 buildings from town, the Old Mill and The Bank.

"Watcha got there is a classic right-hand overshot counterclockwise bucketed water mill capable of speeds in excess of 10 RPMs. Yep, she's a buet'."
-Ol' Crusty

The Bank is what we call a "Hero Building", meaning it will be the immediate backdrop in certain shots, and therefore has very high detail.