Boo boo's abound

Here's an early look at the LuxRender version of the kitchen scene, rendered for just a short amount of time (about an hour or so)!  

If you click the image to enlarge it, you can see specks and dust in the image, which is a result of not letting the scene render for a proper length of time.  But you can also see some of the nice effects that LuxRender provides, in the reflection on the floor, and in the shiny chrome of the trash can lid and the water faucet.  The challenge now is to get the lighting more evenly distributed, so that the hutch is shown in sharper relief, without the overexposure of the sun in the window and on the walls.  Also I might have to get specific with LuxRender on how I want the texture maps to lay on the objects (this is called "UVW mapping"), as it has stretched my wood grain textures, and scaled the tiled floor up considerably (compared to the image in yesterday's post)!  Actually I kind of like the large colored triangles on the floor, maybe I'll leave it that way.  Also, the plates inside the hutch are meant to have patterns on them, not just flat color, so that's another mapping boo boo. 


Be sure to tune in tomorrow, for another boo boo ridden attempt at creating this kitchen!  :-) 

A blinding light

Another update on the kitchen scene!

I still need to add materials to a number of objects.  I also need to set up a "mesh light", which will act as the sun when I render the scene in LuxRender.  The image here was rendered inside Blender, using an area lamp and ambient occlusion as the light sources.  An area lamp is a focused beam of light, seen coming in through the window, while ambient occlusion is a general level of light in the scene, having no direct source, but which exists everywhere and illuminates objects not struck by the area lamp.  A combination of area lamps and ambient occlusion is one of the best ways to produce a realistic looking scene in Blender.  However, Blender lacks global radiosity, which is the effect of light bouncing off objects in a scene, scattering light and color onto nearby objects.  That's why LuxRender is used for the final render, as it has global radiosity capability, and makes for a decidedly better looking scene than what Blender can produce alone.  


But there's a cost for such realism:  Luxrender can take several days to render a scene, while Blender rendered the above scene in less than a minute.


I also have to put what's called a "portal" outside of the window, which won't actually show up in the scene, but which will help LuxRender to more efficiently direct and calculate the effect of sunlight shining in through the window.  The portal is simply a flat plane which tells the LuxRender engine, "Hey, shine a light through this hole in the wall!"


You might want to know, where's the refrigerator?  Ummm... it's off camera.  Yup, off camera and yet assuredly keeping our beverages and produce nicely chilled.  And now I will end this post before you can ask about the microwave oven and dishwasher.

Something's cooking

This is the progress on a 3d kitchen scene that I'm creating.  It's based on a tutorial by Karan Shah at cg.tutsplus.com, but includes my own embellishments.  I'm making it in Blender of course, and will render it in Luxrender when I'm done constructing the scene.  The pitcher from yesterday's blog post makes a return appearance here.  :)  Hope you like the scene so far!  
(Please click for a larger view).

3D skinning

Here's a general mini explanation on some 3d modeling.  :)  Yesterday I talked about using skinned surface curves in the Blender application, in order to build a 3d model of a rat.  Here's a simpler example, showing a basic pitcher shape (without the handle).  You can click for a bigger view:

The first image shows the various cross sections that I created (in this case, each section is known as a "V isocurve"). Basically I started with the most complicated cross section in the model, in this case judged to be near the top, where the spout is.  (The reason you start with the most complicated one, is that skinning requires all cross sections to have the same number of vertices.  A complex section will naturally have the most vertices, so it's your guide as to how many vertices will appear in ALL cross sections). 


Then I continue to build cross sections which I feel describe the general shape of the pitcher.  Once the cross sections seem adequate, I then "skin" the object, which image #2 shows.  This effectively creates the "U isocurves" which in this case are curves running up and down the pitcher. This creates a skin for the pitcher. At this point, flaws in the overall shape are usually spotted, and I have to go in and move vertices around, and typically add more rows of vertices to get a smooth shape.  Once I'm happy, I render the wire model to produce the third lovely image.  The model is now ready to have color and texture added to it (I simply rendered a basic white color).  


The rat was modeled in the same way, but was much more work of course.  The cross sections shrunk and double backed on themselves, in order to produce the mouth of the rat.  Then the eyelids and ears had to be dragged kicking and screaming from the primordial void where most created things come from.  :)  


The pitcher is part of another 3d scene which I've been working on just for practice.  I'll post the end result of that project very soon.  :)

The Plague, all over again

Today I created a rat character!  :)

Included here, are a hairy and an original hairless version.  I built this in Blender, Painter and Photoshop.  As a reference, I used a modeling tutorial created by Viacheslav Slavinsky and Timothy Kanters, at the Blender.org website.  I then embellished the model by adding color, texture and hair.  The model itself was created by skinning surface curves, which then required lots of rearranging of vertices.  It was a fun little project, as I felt the need to do some different kind of modeling from what I'd normally do!   


The rat and I will wait right here, if you'd like to run to the fridge for some cheese.  :)