Windows and inside geometry

For more realism I decided to create more geometry for the back of the house, extruding inwards from the windows to make actual rooms, and then creating windows.

Edit: Also added the back door. Nothing to big to add

MindTex Software Review

Stumbled upon a great product called MindTex by a company called Frozen Flame. It uses a single diffuse/height/normal map to automatically generate other kinds of maps, like ambient occlusion and specular to name a few.

There is a standard map view where you can adjust the sliders to make sure the details are accurate (or to your artistic choice ofcourse)

A bonus which really adds value to the project is the 3D preview showing off all the maps generate. These can be toggled on and off and adjusted in realtime for instant feedback of the textures. 

After you have tweaked to your hearts content you can save out all the textures with 1 easy step. Simply click save > all > select your folder and hit save. Magically done and the files look like this.

I have just been experimenting with the 30 day trial, which doesn't appear to have any limits however I think I will definitely pay $15 for the full license which seems a great deal.
I don't really see any downsides to this really. Its just a great time saving, inexpensive alternative to creating texture maps yourself. Would definitely recommend it!

Diner Film Upload

So it was a while ago I uploaded my diner video and managed to get it looking okay on Vimeo and youtube however only today have I realised I forgot to link to it. So here it is!

http://vimeo.com/43118099

I tried embedding it on my blog post, but it didn't seem to like that.

Texturing the decking/exterior

Parents seemed to like how it was going. I'm working on the texturing at the moment. I am kind of diving straight in there atm just see what might work.
I have been experimenting with using fur for the grass but it's not working too well so I'm not showing that off just yet. Textures are temporary and little time spent on them. The house will be UV mapped to allow for more realistic texturing. The wooden planks are just the standard wood shader and the grass is just a tileable picture.

Patio Doors

Just a quick update, showing the new patio doors. Going to add some more details to it.

Garden Concept Work / Arch-vis

So my parent's have applied for some planning permission to have some decking in our back garden. I thought it would be a great opportunity to model how it would look based on the plans and decking styles.

Probably spent a day on it so far in terms of hours.

(The area below the raised decking shows the existing garden/patio)

I modeled the basic house shape and some of the important window/door areas and the levels of the garden to start with. Then added the decking platforms. I will add the windows and patio doors at some point. They might take a couple of days, but might also do some basic rigging and skinning them to show them open or closed. Textures will really make this pop and at the moment the decking is all polygonal modelling which I could extract the data and turn it into a bump map/normal map to use as a texture to reduce the scene size an d render time.

Subway station WIP and coke can

Haven't posted in a little while. Been busy job hunting for normal jobs and animation related jobs while also getting stuff ready for my holiday soon.

Showing this quick work in progress shot of the station.

And also got a bit distracted for an hour or two and made a coke can. Its fairly high poly for something of this nature. Its more suited for maybe a product advert and too high poly for little objects in a scene.

I might actually use it in the scene just for a bit of colour, but it will obviously be quite small. I might lower the poly count on it as it won't be the focus. The text is french or italian I'm not sure.

Project #1

I have started working on a scene based on an underground train station (Haven't yet decided if it's british, european or metro)

It's primarily a self set task for composition and texturing but also incorporating lighting as a learning task and staying completely away from final gather and lighting from scratch without cheats. Because it will eventually be rendered out as a still, I have the freedom to increase the quality of the textures, models, shaders and lights for the final output without having to worry about massive rendering times for a whole film.

I have put together a concept in maya, using 4 lights so far (I can see this sky rocketing if I'm not careful).
The idea behind the lighting is the warm yellow is coming from the surface and the cool blue from the underground area. The colours themselves compliment each other being opposite on the colour wheel.

During my 3rd year project I very briefly used light linking, a powerful tool to choose what objects receive light. I plan to use this more often to get things how I want them. In this example I used it for creating rim spotlights pointed at the post.

Quick note: The geometry is purely for blocking out. This will be redone