3DS dock scene...wip

[SidewinderX]

Just starting a little dock scene....i'll keep you guys updated. This shot is mainly getting the geometry and the water right...comments?

3DS Max 5.1 with default Scanline renderer

http://www.cw-meltingpoint.com/dock.jpg

[Shuzer]

Looks good so far (I've NEVER posted in this forum, thought I'd stop by and take a look), wish I could model.. is 3DS Max hard to learn? Or can you get some pretty good stuff going by messing around with it for a few hours?

But, back OT, I think the clouds reflection in the water seems a bit.. off, but that's just me

[theGreenBunny]

The water looks... grainy... Hard to define what's wrong with it. Looks better at the top part of the render though.

[Maxi]

Yeah, the part in the center looks...wierd, also as Shuzzer said the reflection seems a bit off too.

[The Dark Elf]

its backwards. the reflection on the water surface wouldn't reflect like that, hold on, i'll do an example.....

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by Fenric1138
its backwards. the reflection on the water surface wouldn't reflect like that, hold on, i'll do an example.....

ok kept getting distracted, sorry, anyway a ball seemed to explain things better

[SidewinderX]

The grainy part is from the sand underneath.
I'm not sure what you mena with the water refelction....

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by SidewinderX143
The grainy part is from the sand underneath.
I'm not sure what you mena with the water refelction....


yeah sorry, sh*tty day today and my heart isn't really in it for doing any actual work so that pic I attached is as useful as a sponge in a sinking boat. Sorry man :(

basically the fresnal effect. If you look at a body of water, the area's closer to a glancing angle will be more reflective, less transparent, brighter. While if you look at it face on, it'll be darker, less reflective and more transparent. So in your pic, the area to the top wants to reflect the sky more but not show much atall under the water, while the area near the bottom should reflect much less but allow more underwater to be seen

[SidewinderX]

hehe, thanks. Do you have any advice on what to change in the material? It's currently a raytrace material.

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by SidewinderX143
hehe, thanks. Do you have any advice on what to change in the material? It's currently a raytrace material.

Depends on the program your using... ok read it, Max. Right letsee.. well the best way I find, would be to use gradients to control the falloff and have them based on an incidence angle. I'm not too up on Max textures and materials. But I'm pretty sure there's gradients available, so I'd probably suggest using those to effect an underlaying reflection, like using it as an alpha channel.. Or better yet, have a hunt around for a fresnal plugin or material as I'm not entirely confident I'd know exactly what to change in Max's material editor to get the right effect. In Lightwave I'd use gradients based on camera incidence angle, in XSI I'd use incidence nodes to control the effect, Maya I think gradient ramp. So Max there must be something similar in there. Gradient, Gradient ramp? it sounds familiar

Edges
-lighter
-much less transparent
-more reflective
-brighter specular effect and pretty glossy (smaller spec appearance)
-bumpier

Center(face on)
-darker
-more transparent
-less reflective
-less glossy and less bright specular effect
-not as noticably bumpy (even though it is it wont stand out as much)

I've got faint memories of there being some edge transparency feature in the materials editor, letting you make the edges less or more transparent than the rest. If thats still in there you could use that and hopefully somehow use it to control the other effects, inverting them if neccesary.


sorry for the bad spelling :)


ok I've tried to get something with it. I really don't use max for anything other than conversion stuff (only reason why I ended up with it a while back grrrr lol) anyway I wasn't realyl sure what I was doing in it.. hmm ok no idea how you save out materials on their own, so yeah included a simple max scene which should work, i hope. just unzip it and hopefully the material will be in there.. It's FAR from perfect, but it looks like it might be sorta working, though you'll have better luck with it than I would as you know Max better than I do.

[SidewinderX]

here's a little update...
Good avice, trying all that, however haven't had any time really... jsut changed the transparency/reflect maps here....

http://www.cw-meltingpoint.com/pond thing 1.jpg

[Pressure]

I think it would look sexier with clear water instead of reflective.

[GhostValkyrie]

I never knew people found docks sexy! :eek:

[EVIL]

Originally posted by Pressure
I think it would look sexier with clear water instead of reflective.

Exactly, I think if you would tone down the reflection a bit so you would be able to see the sand it would have a much better overall contrast. The pic would be better balanced.

[chu]

no fishies?

[tim8604]

Where is the texture on the wood ;). I assume you just haven't gotten to that, but I figured i'd help you out a little. I know these scenes take a lot of work.

http://www.3dcafe.com/textures/wood52.jpg

http://www.3dcafe.com/textures/wood58.jpg

http://www.3dcafe.com/textures/wood01.jpg

also, here is a pretty big collection of free textures
http://www.povray.org/resources/links/3D_Image_and_Texture_Resources/Texture_Resources/

good luck!

[iamironsam]

It's nice, but it could use a lens flare.

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by iamironsam
It's nice, but it could use a lens flare.

I choose to take that as a joke, no way could you be serious :)

sparkle on the water surface where it catches the sun, but not a lens flare

[Mechagodzilla]

I say increase the transparency and put a lobster down there.
But that's just me. :)

[ksimm]

good effort, it seems to me though that the environment you are reflecting looks out of perspective though..

[Maxi]

new pixcscs?

[ksimm]

Just to backup what Fenric1138 said about the water reflection, there is a Fresnel setting in Max when you add a falloff to a material, you can select Fresnal and camera settings from there

[ksimm]

I just threw together a similar scene to show you the falloff effect on the water, the water closer to the camera is a little clearer and you can see the sand below.

http://www.kevins.tv/docks.jpg

Oh yes and the falloff should be applied to the sand, as the water is transparent and wouldnt have the same effect.

Ignore everything else in my scene, my attempt is crap, but its just to give an idea of the falloff.

If you change this on your scene and also fix the sky reflection and add textures, you should end up with a really cool result.

P.S. I would try adding things to the scene, like crates :) or maybe a bit of floating debris, say a coke and crisp packet.

[Triggerhappy41]

Looks like its coming along well. May i ask did you pay for 3DS max or are you using a tutorial version or something?

[SidewinderX]

well, i really haven't had too much time recentl, that's what there haven't been any updates.....

I scraped that water materal and started from scratch.... a few more thoughts?

Also, i didn't quite pay for 3dsmax (but i didn't warez it!) My friend has access to tons of programs through work, and he gave me 3dsmax5.

http://www.cw-meltingpoint.com/pond1.jpg

[ksimm]

Water looks better :) Texture the wood :P

P.S I dloaded 3DS Max 6 demo from www.discreet.com its bloody brilliant ! Even the scanline renderer is greatly improved, and if you can get anywhere with Mentalray you should produce some damn fine renders.

The blobmesh and particle flow stuff is cool as is the new reactor stuff like stuntman! Check it out.

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by SidewinderX143
well, i really haven't had too much time recentl, that's what there haven't been any updates.....

I scraped that water materal and started from scratch.... a few more thoughts?
http://www.cw-meltingpoint.com/pond1.jpg


looks loads better now :)

[SidewinderX]

noe i jsut need to
1) fix lighting
2) added details
3)texture stuff.

[Anwar]

looks nice

[Mechagodzilla]

Good work! The water has gone from "That kinda looks like water," to "That's water."
It's very realistic. I'd say photo quality. Now, do the dock's textures and add a lobster.*

*Or crayfish.

[DigitalAssassin]

I really like the second render of the first one you did. Great work! (Now if only I had $4000 and a 3ds Max 5 manual...)

[destrukt]

Great work.