Carrara Monthly Challenge: Fabulous Prizes! VOTING NOW OPEN!

Garstor

booksbydavid said:

I had too much free time last night and decided to experiment a bit. This is the above image after going through my usual postwork routine in Paintshop Pro and then over to Postworkshop. This isn't necessarily how my finished image will look postwork wise. I was just having a play, and I really liked how it turned out.

Jaw is dropped...

booksbydavid

Garstor said:

booksbydavid said:

I had too much free time last night and decided to experiment a bit. This is the above image after going through my usual postwork routine in Paintshop Pro and then over to Postworkshop. This isn't necessarily how my finished image will look postwork wise. I was just having a play, and I really liked how it turned out.

Jaw is dropped...

(Bends down and picks up jaw, hands back to Garstor) Sorry about that. :)

WendyLuvsCatz

there is a lot of damned awesome stuff happening here!

Varsel

booksbydavid said:

I had too much free time last night and decided to experiment a bit. This is the above image after going through my usual postwork routine in Paintshop Pro and then over to Postworkshop. This isn't necessarily how my finished image will look postwork wise. I was just having a play, and I really liked how it turned out.

This one is beautiful. Reminds me of my understanding of impressionism paintings.

Here is some progress on bushes and trees. Homemade leaves and flowers.
So now it's time to plan the layout of the garden.

booksbydavid

Varsel said:

booksbydavid said:

I had too much free time last night and decided to experiment a bit. This is the above image after going through my usual postwork routine in Paintshop Pro and then over to Postworkshop. This isn't necessarily how my finished image will look postwork wise. I was just having a play, and I really liked how it turned out.

This one is beautiful. Reminds me of my understanding of impressionism paintings.

Here is some progress on bushes and trees. Homemade leaves and flowers.
So now it's time to plan the layout of the garden.

Thanks.

My wife would kill to grow flowers like the ones you've got.

Garstor

booksbydavid said:

(Bends down and picks up jaw, hands back to Garstor) Sorry about that. :)

Thanks! I'll need that later...

Headwax

Varsel said:

So now it's back to work on this.
Here's my first ground-cover parts, fresh from the vertex modeler.
If anybody can identify them, that was not intended. Pure fantasy, trying to make something that looks nice.
Colour and texture are all procedural shaders. ( well not all, some of the leaves are texturemaps. I know it's cheating, but I cant get it to work anyother way)

I have also some bushes and trees in work.

One funny thing, since I started to work on this, When I'm at work and driving around, I keep looking into peoples gardens to see how they looks. Comparing layouts and size and shapes of bushes and trees.

On of the plants we have a lot of here is the rhododendron. They are almost like weeds. So I have some of them.
And they come in all shape and sizes. From small bushes to almost trees.

Varsel, those vertex plants are wonderful. You have an enviable talent there. Makes my cruddy efforts look shameful!

Headwax

Garstor said:

head wax said:

Evil's gift is amazing, aye? :)
What a good bloke - he must have some Australian genes somewhere ;)

Yes indeed!

Still, maybe the next contest -- too busy with work right now. :-(

hah, what isn't there 25 hours in a day over there? our daylight saving isfinished and so we get an extra 2 hours a day :)

Headwax

booksbydavid wrot

OK, here’s the newest wip shot of my little project. Like Varsel, I modeled some flowers for this shot, some nice little white ones at the bottom and some violet ones at the top. Like Varsel’s flowers any resemblance to real flowers is purely coincidental.

I used surface replicators to scatter the flowers randomly about.

I’ve also modeled some mushrooms and scattered those along the tree roots.

I duplicated the lilly pads from the back of the pond and placed them at the front. I rotated the group and deleted a couple then I modeled and added the water flowers. These flowers are modeled from reference. I almost got them right.

Just as a side note: I purchased Inagoni’s Veloute ages ago. I’ve not really used it much since then. For this project I’ve gotten to use it several times. The mushrooms, the water flowers, and the violet flowers all use Veloute in their shaders.

As you can see, I’ve also added more color to the bushes. I’m still not happy with the two bushes at the sides of the image. Still working on those.

And I have to thank Varsel for the tip on water from earlier. I wasn’t happy with how the water was looking, so I duplicated the plane (shader included) and dropped it below the first just a fraction. Suddenly my water looked like WATER! I was blown away at the (what was to me) dramatic change.

I also tried headwax’s suggestion of adding a caustic gel to a light and have it shine on the back wall. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I think the surrounding light is too bright for it to show up. The caustic pattern did show up when I cranked the spot up to 300, but then the back wall was much too bright. I haven’t abandoned the idea though. I think it should work very well when I get my fairy character in there. We’ll see.

thanks for the blow by blow, it's really interesting watching this scene develop, the water epecially really does look like water :) I need to investigate Veloute shaders, now I have the tile shaders, i sthat what you are using?

Headwax

something simple from me, made one petal then used the replicator in a pattern.
if nothing else the render makes a good texture, especially when saved as PNG file with alpha channel in tact.
the petal colouring is two colours mixed with the marble parameter in the shader room
the small holes are in the in the alpha channel of the petal texture using cellular

Sebastianus

Hi everybody.

I made the waterfall with a particle emitter (metaball), the rocks with metaball primitive and the grass with dynamic hair. I used the Carrara's "sun light" lens flare effect and rendered with "sky light" global illumination. No postwork.

Hope you like it.

booksbydavid

head wax said:

booksbydavid wrot

OK, here’s the newest wip shot of my little project. Like Varsel, I modeled some flowers for this shot, some nice little white ones at the bottom and some violet ones at the top. Like Varsel’s flowers any resemblance to real flowers is purely coincidental.

I used surface replicators to scatter the flowers randomly about.

I’ve also modeled some mushrooms and scattered those along the tree roots.

I duplicated the lilly pads from the back of the pond and placed them at the front. I rotated the group and deleted a couple then I modeled and added the water flowers. These flowers are modeled from reference. I almost got them right.

Just as a side note: I purchased Inagoni’s Veloute ages ago. I’ve not really used it much since then. For this project I’ve gotten to use it several times. The mushrooms, the water flowers, and the violet flowers all use Veloute in their shaders.

As you can see, I’ve also added more color to the bushes. I’m still not happy with the two bushes at the sides of the image. Still working on those.

And I have to thank Varsel for the tip on water from earlier. I wasn’t happy with how the water was looking, so I duplicated the plane (shader included) and dropped it below the first just a fraction. Suddenly my water looked like WATER! I was blown away at the (what was to me) dramatic change.

I also tried headwax’s suggestion of adding a caustic gel to a light and have it shine on the back wall. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I think the surrounding light is too bright for it to show up. The caustic pattern did show up when I cranked the spot up to 300, but then the back wall was much too bright. I haven’t abandoned the idea though. I think it should work very well when I get my fairy character in there. We’ll see.

thanks for the blow by blow, it's really interesting watching this scene develop, the water epecially really does look like water :) I need to investigate Veloute shaders, now I have the tile shaders, i sthat what you are using?

Veloute has tile shaders in it. Probably the same one you've got

http://www.inagoni.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.7

booksbydavid

head wax said:

something simple from me, made one petal then used the replicator in a pattern.
if nothing else the render makes a good texture, especially when saved as PNG file with alpha channel in tact.
the petal colouring is two colours mixed with the marble parameter in the shader room
the small holes are in the in the alpha channel of the petal texture using cellular

That's pretty cool! I wish you'd stop serving up so much food for thought. I'm stuffed. :)

booksbydavid

Sebastianus said:

Hi everybody.

I made the waterfall with a particle emitter (metaball), the rocks with metaball primitive and the grass with dynamic hair. I used the Carrara's "sun light" lens flare effect and rendered with "sky light" global illumination. No postwork.

Hope you like it.

I never can get the particle emitter to do what I want it to. I've also had only limited success with metaballs. I really need to get out more.

WendyLuvsCatz

tell me about it David
that fountain was driving me around the twist
going to move on and scrap the water feature (or just have a nice pond!)

booksbydavid

wendy♥catz said:

tell me about it David
that fountain was driving me around the twist
going to move on and scrap the water feature (or just have a nice pond!)

I'd say we ought to have the next challenge be about particles and such, but I wouldn't be able to make anything but a mess. :)

The Pencil Neck

Oh, man. I need to get in on this.

I had an attempt at creating a swamp scene. I created the trees but I didn't create the grasses and whatnot. Then I got frustrated and bought DinoRaul's Cypress trees.

evilproducer

wendy♥catz said:

tell me about it David
that fountain was driving me around the twist
going to move on and scrap the water feature (or just have a nice pond!)

If it's going to be a still shot, use the metaball modeler to create the water pouring down. If it's animated, then you're on your own! ;-)

Headwax

wendy♥catz said:

there is a lot of damned awesome stuff happening here!

ha ha yes I agree :)

Headwax

Sebastianus said:

Hi everybody.

I made the waterfall with a particle emitter (metaball), the rocks with metaball primitive and the grass with dynamic hair. I used the Carrara's "sun light" lens flare effect and rendered with "sky light" global illumination. No postwork.

Hope you like it.

Sebastianus, I just watched one of your videos with lots of laser effects etc with the partcile emitter - great effects you are getting.
The grass in your waterfall image looks exactly like the newly sprouted grass we get here after rain

welcome to the challenge :)

Headwax

thepencilneck said:

Oh, man. I need to get in on this.

I had an attempt at creating a swamp scene. I created the trees but I didn't create the grasses and whatnot. Then I got frustrated and bought DinoRaul's Cypress trees.

ahh the grasses and the whatnot are the easy bits
did you know the plant editor has an option for a horizontal trunk?
me neither till a few days ago
I looked at those Cypress trees - they look amazing _ I bet he made them in Carrara :)

Headwax

booksbydavid said:

wendy♥catz said:

tell me about it David
that fountain was driving me around the twist
going to move on and scrap the water feature (or just have a nice pond!)

I'd say we ought to have the next challenge be about particles and such, but I wouldn't be able to make anything but a mess. :)

well, I;m crappy at them too so maybe it's a good idea, like taking medicine :)
mind you the winner of this one gets to choose the topic

thanks for the heads up on the shaders too.
I buy things and don't use them,- cause I fall into habits,
now where was that architecture modelling plugin I bought for carrara and never used yet :)

the best plugins I have are Fenric's - they make the workflow amazingly easier!

WendyLuvsCatz

Dimension theory was the Carrara particle king but he has moved on to Studio.
I AM considering metaballs actually, did some animated drool once using them
they can at least be keyframed to go where you wish.

Sebastianus

Here is how I create the scene.

I created a rock wall with metaballs and I placed a particle emitter on it with this property:

Metaball Influence: 10
Max Numb particles 80000
Emission cube X 1,00 Y 0,20 Z 0,00 m
nb particles/sec 10.000 +- 50
size 0,01 m
dispersion angle 0
objects friction on collisions 5%
bounce factor 8%

Sebastianus

head wax said:

Sebastianus said:

Hi everybody.

I made the waterfall with a particle emitter (metaball), the rocks with metaball primitive and the grass with dynamic hair. I used the Carrara's "sun light" lens flare effect and rendered with "sky light" global illumination. No postwork.

Hope you like it.

Sebastianus, I just watched one of your videos with lots of laser effects etc with the partcile emitter - great effects you are getting.
The grass in your waterfall image looks exactly like the newly sprouted grass we get here after rain

welcome to the challenge :)

Many thanks, and thanks for watching my video. This is my first challenge, and here i've seen lots of good work, I'm glad that you liked my waterfall.

Headwax

wendy♥catz said:

Dimension theory was the Carrara particle king but he has moved on to Studio.
I AM considering metaballs actually, did some animated drool once using them
they can at least be keyframed to go where you wish.

yes it's sad to lose him :(
I wonder if you can animate a distribution map with the surface replicator?
that would be one possible way of animating water particle?
there was a great tut?example? in the old forum or somewhere by bgrosse.... ?- he had a groovy little waterfall thing happening with metaballs
partcles and physics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTxsGnqkB_0
http://www.makeknownthepath.com/pub/waterfalltutorial.pdf whatever this link is has vanished

see

http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=1135664

also mcguiver did some good stuff I think
he still pops in from time to time, I think I pmed him to join the challenge but he must not have received it as no reply

Headwax

Sebastianus said:

Here is how I create the scene.

I created a rock wall with metaballs and I placed a particle emitter on it with this property:

Metaball Influence: 10
Max Numb particles 80000
Emission cube X 1,00 Y 0,20 Z 0,00 m
nb particles/sec 10.000 +- 50
size 0,01 m
dispersion angle 0
objects friction on collisions 5%
bounce factor 8%

thanks Sebastianus for sharing that. Obliged!
will come in handy in the future I bet ;)

Headwax

I see dimension3d has a grass modelling tut on youtube

starts at the ground up ;) and very methodical

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_kucTAys4Y
and
part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQmXxPqXWR8

WendyLuvsCatz

are splats using Xfrog billboards permitted?
(they are texture maps, I then use them in the replicator)
they work well once you create a separate alpha map for them in Gimp
(Carrara does not see their alpha)

or do I need to photograph or paint my own plants and painstakingly trace out alpha outlines??

Headwax

wendy♥catz said:

are splats using Xfrog billboards permitted?
(they are texture maps, I then use them in the replicator)
they work well once you create a separate alpha map for them in Gimp
(Carrara does not see their alpha)

or do I need to photograph or paint my own plants and painstakingly trace out alpha outlines??

No :) Everything from x frog is banned :)

But seriously,

oh, the idea is to make all the plant stuff in carrara,
and to stay away from "readymades"

so an example might be for you to photograph a leaf
on a white background and use that as your texture,- and with a little feathering of the white selection that will be your alpha map
- you could also use textures and alphas loaded from the net
or hand painted ones
or ones available in Carrara if you must

then replicate on something to make your plant

for billboards I would go the way you always do with your fantastic spherical renders

ie make your plant, render it with alpha and stick it on your "splats"

but as xfrog deals with " ready mades: it's best to avoid them in both the interest of fairness and in helping ourselves explore Carrara's capabilities

same as using howy's wonderfull commercially available plants - it's not really helping us to use Carrara unless we use them soley to see how he made them/

I know you know how to do this so for someone who doesnt

QUICK TUT on Alpha Maps for leaves

1) Find a leaf
2)Place it on white cardboard or black cardboard
3) photograph it trying to avoid shadows or shininess on the cardboard
4) In photoshop duplicate the original picture
5) use the FILTER THRESHOLD to make this layer purely black and white
6) select the outer black area (assuming you used black cardboard) , expand the area with SELECTION MODIFY EXPAND by 'x no of pixels
7) Feather the selection with "x" number of pixels
8) paint on this boarder with black and you should get a soft edge between the black and white areas
9) save this as a separate file and use this in the alpha channel of your leaf shader
10) The original pic of the leaf goes into your Colour chanel of the shader

notes:

a) If you can't see your leaf then invert the texture in the alpha channel
b) The "x' number of pixels that you expand and feather will depend on the pixel amount of your original image
c) you can make a Bump texture from the first by turning it into a greyscale and twiddling the levels and maybe adding a little noise as well
d) This texture can also go in the Highlight (?) channel (or maybe the shininess chanel?)
e) you can also use this method to make photoshop brushes if you take pictures of weeds etc with a cardboard background