-finding the light

While I was working on this project, I came to a realisation that I am working with a medium that challenges reality...

Instad of focusing on realistic scenes, I started to focus on a more artistic view.

so here it is. "finding the light". I found this is much more interesting to work on as well as think about than ordinary scenes. more deep and more abstract.

this took longer than most other projects, as getting the desired lighting is very difficult. there were no tutorials explaining the interation with light passing through glass so I had to figure it out myself.. therefore it took much longer.

reasonably happy with the result.

-HDRI balls

This is done by following a tutorial, about HDRI and realistic reflections about an environment.

as you can see these spheres has reflected the environment known as HDR images, (google it for more info. I'm still getting used to the concept) but now I shall start a new project that incorporates this method for realism..

-desktop

so heres the computer scene, everything else was pretty straight foward after the keyboard, except for the mouse which was quite difficult to get the right organic shape, in the end i had to cheat a little... (its actually quite hollow on one side)

-keyboard

my next mission was to recreate my desktop, starting with the keyboard. the keyboard was a good excersize of viewport mapping and uv mapping.

again done with MAX, I first needed to get a good image of a keyboard from google and pretty much just trace it. the good thing about the keyboard is that its pretty much 2d, you can guess the thickness of the model.

it took a while to get the keys mapped on to the model, but other than that, was pretty smooth.

-fake caustics

when I said previously that you cant get realistic caustics (the shadow that is casted by glass) without 'Vray', I lied..

without 'Vray' you cant get realistic caustics... easily.

but apparently you can get 'fake caustics' which is not perfect but a close to realistic loophole to achieving what the 'Vray' can do.

and heres how:

http://www.3d-resources.com/3d_studio_max_tutorials/fake_caustics_tutorial.html

but you cant follow the tutorial exactly because the tutorial is for MAX 3.0, so you just have to figure out some bits your self...

-Spilt glass

Again on MAX, this one was a bit more difficult, you need to know the theory behind the difference in glass and water. I found that the default 'water' material in the library doesnt give you enough options to play around with. In my opinion using the 'standard' material gave you more freedom and control. Apparently you cant get a realistic reflection and refraction with out 'Vray' plugin, which I dont have...

this took about 4 hours again, most of the time went on figuring out the material and using the cloth modifier, but the part I'm most proud of is the partially soaked cloth (which is hard to see), but looks good to me.

-Breakfast

this breakfast scene was done from scratch.

no tutorials, except for the creation of the brushed stainless steel material.

the project took about 4 hours.

I need to work on how to use lighting better.

-Spaceship

done in 3Ds MAX. its not that hard actually, the tutorial doesnt tell you how to material the ship but I did my own thing and worked out exactly how I wanted.

for those who wants to look at the tutorial:

http://www.3dm3.com/tutorials/the_hole/

TEARK

Introducing 'Teark'
My journey towards somthing extaordinary on all four limbs...