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Carrara Challenge VIII - "The Great Race" or "Don't Fence Me In" - WIP Thread is Open

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  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975
    edited March 2014

    Here's WIP so far. I had to duplicate my caribou in the end as it was easier to move them so they weren't so regimented. But I have to duplicated the "walkers" up on the hills who are just coming down to the river and thought I can replicate them. They are objects now. When I try to replicate... and I do select the item in the Model room, nothing happens... Car just freezes. Didn't do that before, but maybe I was doing .car caribou models vs objects. What am I doing wrong...wanted to do some replicating to meet the rules.

    Have lighted each group separately. I know once I put in background and sky all will have to be re-tuned, but was going for a dawn hunt scene.

    Also...I have to paint some more blood around. I don't want to do it on the rock where the hunters are or it will reproduce on all other surfaces as I have consolidated shaders. So I am thinking to make a little rug/mat and put some runny drippy blood on it. Or can I use water drops from Basic Particles?

    Still having fun! :) Silene

    ETA Yikes... need to reduce telephoto....it mucks up the depth of field...the distant caribou look too close! Will repost photo.

    Post edited by SileneUK on
  • d-j-od-j-o Posts: 345
    edited December 1969

    Dartanbeck said:
    FYI, you can add morphs to such a replicator mold, and whatever is replicated onto it will move along with the change in the morph.
    For example, in my Woodlands product, there is a morphing cloud dome slice. This has storm cloud morphs and expansion, compression morphs of various types so you can stretch it out, compact it down, along with those that change its overall shape. So part of the beauty of it is that you can use a morph to enlarge the thing in any direction(s) you need, then replicate the clouds, then shrink it back down- and you'll get clouds a lot closer together than what the replicator would want to place them. Works really cool. But also, for animating clouds rolling in just as the storm approaches, which also gives truly excellent results. We get some really beautiful storms here. Scary, heck ya... but beautiful too. The heavy, artistic multishaded clouds just roll in, fighting each other for supremacy of the next clear piece of sky. Bam....

    I'll have to see how you did it, never got around with playing with the clouds, i did a quick look when i first got it. i use the tree blocks in everything outside that i need with background trees, they look good, load fast and render fast too.

  • d-j-od-j-o Posts: 345
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:

    That looks very nice! The model I linked to uses a cellular function along with curved filter in the displacement channel to get the cotton ball look you've got there. If you use your shader there, you may get a similar effect.

    I downloaded it haven't had a chance to look at it yet, there was a thunderhead one also i grabbed to look at. I'll have to run my bump map as a displacement map. I never had luck using displacements, they slowed my machine way down, I've since upgraded so I'll see what it can do now.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    laurenwbr said:
    Here's WIP so far. I had to duplicate my caribou in the end as it was easier to move them so they weren't so regimented. But I have to duplicated the "walkers" up on the hills who are just coming down to the river and thought I can replicate them. They are objects now. When I try to replicate... and I do select the item in the Model room, nothing happens... Car just freezes. Didn't do that before, but maybe I was doing .car caribou models vs objects. What am I doing wrong...wanted to do some replicating to meet the rules.

    Have lighted each group separately. I know once I put in background and sky all will have to be re-tuned, but was going for a dawn hunt scene.

    Also...I have to paint some more blood around. I don't want to do it on the rock where the hunters are or it will reproduce on all other surfaces as I have consolidated shaders. So I am thinking to make a little rug/mat and put some runny drippy blood on it. Or can I use water drops from Basic Particles?

    Still having fun! :) Silene

    ETA Yikes... need to reduce telephoto....it mucks up the depth of field...the distant caribou look too close! Will repost photo.

    Yikes! No image! ;-)

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    laurenwbr said:
    Here's WIP so far. I had to duplicate my caribou in the end as it was easier to move them so they weren't so regimented. But I have to duplicated the "walkers" up on the hills who are just coming down to the river and thought I can replicate them. They are objects now. When I try to replicate... and I do select the item in the Model room, nothing happens... Car just freezes. Didn't do that before, but maybe I was doing .car caribou models vs objects. What am I doing wrong...wanted to do some replicating to meet the rules.

    Have lighted each group separately. I know once I put in background and sky all will have to be re-tuned, but was going for a dawn hunt scene.

    Also...I have to paint some more blood around. I don't want to do it on the rock where the hunters are or it will reproduce on all other surfaces as I have consolidated shaders. So I am thinking to make a little rug/mat and put some runny drippy blood on it. Or can I use water drops from Basic Particles?

    Still having fun! :) Silene

    ETA Yikes... need to reduce telephoto....it mucks up the depth of field...the distant caribou look too close! Will repost photo.

    Yikes! No image! ;-) Will have to be tomorrow now... I really buggered up the depth of field. Loads to fix. Sigh.....

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    laurenwbr said:
    evilproducer said:
    laurenwbr said:
    Here's WIP so far. I had to duplicate my caribou in the end as it was easier to move them so they weren't so regimented. But I have to duplicated the "walkers" up on the hills who are just coming down to the river and thought I can replicate them. They are objects now. When I try to replicate... and I do select the item in the Model room, nothing happens... Car just freezes. Didn't do that before, but maybe I was doing .car caribou models vs objects. What am I doing wrong...wanted to do some replicating to meet the rules.

    Have lighted each group separately. I know once I put in background and sky all will have to be re-tuned, but was going for a dawn hunt scene.

    Also...I have to paint some more blood around. I don't want to do it on the rock where the hunters are or it will reproduce on all other surfaces as I have consolidated shaders. So I am thinking to make a little rug/mat and put some runny drippy blood on it. Or can I use water drops from Basic Particles?

    Still having fun! :) Silene

    ETA Yikes... need to reduce telephoto....it mucks up the depth of field...the distant caribou look too close! Will repost photo.

    Yikes! No image! ;-)

    Will have to be tomorrow now... I really buggered up the depth of field. Loads to fix. Sigh.....

    Do you have Phtotshop or some other image editor that can handle layers and masks?

  • d-j-od-j-o Posts: 345
    edited December 1969

    I checked out his clouds, nice, just too bright for me. But here is my scene with displacement used. Now the bottom part is to be raining water. I'm stuck, any way to render that cube blurry to look like rain pouring down in that one area

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Sure. But it would be better, I think, (at least in Carrara) to create a blurry, rainy shader. I often use Volumetric clouds with special settings to blur things. Carraras blur post effect might not getyou where you want to be... but why not try it. Select the object and go to the Effects tab. It'll still need shader work though.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    laurenwbr said:
    ...wanted to do some replicating to meet the rules.

    Still having fun! :) Silene

    ETA Yikes... need to reduce telephoto....it mucks up the depth of field...the distant caribou look too close! Will repost photo.

    Just to be clear, you have to either customize a terrain or customize a use of a replicator. You don't have to do both. The two do often go together, though.

    Hope you get the blood sorted out. Could you use black in the alpha channel of a simple plane to mimic streak of blood?

    Good luck. :-)

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:
    laurenwbr said:
    ...wanted to do some replicating to meet the rules.

    Still having fun! :) Silene

    ETA Yikes... need to reduce telephoto....it mucks up the depth of field...the distant caribou look too close! Will repost photo.

    Just to be clear, you have to either customize a terrain or customize a use of a replicator. You don't have to do both. The two do often go together, though.

    Hope you get the blood sorted out. Could you use black in the alpha channel of a simple plane to mimic streak of blood?

    Good luck. :-)

    Oh thanks Dio for clearing that up...makes life easier!

    EP... thanks for the PS idea and you as well Dio, I can make layers and lay drips/blobs in various places. I want to get the scene back to its right focus first.

    kashyyyk ..... I love your tornado-like cloud...wow!

    For the first time I am working in a large scene. Usually I just scroll in to get to a distant object but I seem to have gotten lazy and starting using the telephoto of my main camera to dive in to the background. DOH? I should have made a separate camera side by side for that. Then after fiddling with something in the background, I could switch to the main camera and be back to normal panning. This didn't stick out to me like it does with photos... I have a great photo of an old cottage our family had in a harbour. The bridge was at least two miles away, but when I went down the road to get the cottage and the bridge in, I cranked up the zoom. Made a nice photo, but 40 years later I had someone do a watercolour of the photo for my brother's birthday and the first thing we both said was YIKES...the bridge was never that close to the cottage. So I should have known better. Fixing now. Will make blood as well and post later. I still haven't done the background and sky yet.

    So much to do! Thanks all for the help. xx :) SileneUK

  • d-j-od-j-o Posts: 345
    edited December 1969

    laurenwbr said:

    Oh thanks Dio for clearing that up...makes life easier!

    EP... thanks for the PS idea and you as well Dio, I can make layers and lay drips/blobs in various places. I want to get the scene back to its right focus first.

    kashyyyk ..... I love your tornado-like cloud...wow!

    For the first time I am working in a large scene. Usually I just scroll in to get to a distant object but I seem to have gotten lazy and starting using the telephoto of my main camera to dive in to the background. DOH? I should have made a separate camera side by side for that. Then after fiddling with something in the background, I could switch to the main camera and be back to normal panning. This didn't stick out to me like it does with photos... I have a great photo of an old cottage our family had in a harbour. The bridge was at least two miles away, but when I went down the road to get the cottage and the bridge in, I cranked up the zoom. Made a nice photo, but 40 years later I had someone do a watercolour of the photo for my brother's birthday and the first thing we both said was YIKES...the bridge was never that close to the cottage. So I should have known better. Fixing now. Will make blood as well and post later. I still haven't done the background and sky yet.

    So much to do! Thanks all for the help. xx :) SileneUK

    Thanks!

    You can still add as many cameras you need to your scene. Add a conical camera, then switch to that camera, then where you pick your camera use the 'set to...' and move that camera to any other camera, position or directer's camera, you can even save positions and use them over and over.

  • VarselVarsel Posts: 574
    edited December 1969

    This looks like it's going to bee an interesting challenge. Lots of good ideas and wip's so far.

    I'm late in entering, but I did start sketching something, the same day that the theme was announced.
    But then my computer stopped working. So I had to replace my graphic card, installed a new harddrive, and upgraded to Windows 8.1.
    The last was a big mistake....

    So I finally manage to get my programs up and running, except the Content Manager System.

    So as usual I am probably overdoing things, and being to ambitious, but the inspiration overwhelmed me....

    Here is my racer. It's being created in Hexagon, and I hope to rig it.

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  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    Just a quickie to book my spot :)

    Everything in the scene - except the two M4's - made by me in Hexagon (sorry Carrara VM, you are just too frustrating)

    A basic "Good vs Bad" race, destined for an anim, so I'll take a still from that for the entry.

    I will try to make a simple part of it in the Carrara VM, OH VEY!

    Textures just placeholders at the moment, will get down to something better as inspiration takes me :)

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  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975
    edited December 1969

    Varsel said:
    This looks like it's going to bee an interesting challenge. Lots of good ideas and wip's so far.

    I'm late in entering, but I did start sketching something, the same day that the theme was announced.
    But then my computer stopped working. So I had to replace my graphic card, installed a new harddrive, and upgraded to Windows 8.1.
    The last was a big mistake....

    So I finally manage to get my programs up and running, except the Content Manager System.

    So as usual I am probably overdoing things, and being to ambitious, but the inspiration overwhelmed me....

    Here is my racer. It's being created in Hexagon, and I hope to rig it.

    Emmmm OK....is that a mechanical bull under construction???

    Sorry... since my scene fell apart I am a bit prone to black humour at at the moment!

    :) ;) Silene

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    kashyyyk said:
    I checked out his clouds, nice, just too bright for me. But here is my scene with displacement used. Now the bottom part is to be raining water. I'm stuck, any way to render that cube blurry to look like rain pouring down in that one area

    I figured the cloud itself would be a bit bright for what you were doing. Since you were using a mesh, I figured you may want to look at one that works well to see the technique. I was impressed with.

    As Dart suggested, there's a blur post effect you could use, but as he also suggested, the shaders could use some work. I'm thinking you'll want to use some form of alpha or transparency.

    Another possibility is that there are some volumetric cloud types that you can constrain to shapes, such as cubes, cylinders etc. You can also define the amount of fill and fall-off.

    I'll see what I can work up. I don't feel like working on my scene tonight as I'm pretty tired and it needs some deep thoughts on how to proceed.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Here's my attempt at the rain beneath a storm cloud. I used a cylinder shaped volumetric cloud for the rain. The storm cloud is the one I linked to a few posts back, just for the sake of convenience.

    I'm including a screen shot of the cloud settings.

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Very cool!
    Those clouds look most painterly. I like it :)

  • d-j-od-j-o Posts: 345
    edited December 1969

    Very nice, I'm calling it quits for the night, can't wait to give this a go tomorrow!

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    Great clouds and tree, EP :)

    Next portion of my WIP - the gorge down which they'll be racing.

    Technical stuff - The terrain was made in Carrara from a height-map custom-painted in Bryce. Added fractal filter for cragginess.
    The trees are all Xfrog billboards. Those along the cliff-top replicated on a plain, those along the river banks replicated using a distribution map. The rocks in the river were made in Carrara VM and replicated on a plain.

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    chohole said:
    diomede64 said:
    chohole said:
    I did a Bryce render inspired by that song some time back (2006) https://s3.amazonaws.com/bw-1651cf0d2f737d7adeab84d339dbabd3-gallery/media/folder_115/file_1142533.jpg

    Great job. I especially like the mane. I put an announcement in the Bryce thread. This subject might be attractive to the good folks over there, and you don't need a recent version of Carrara to use the terrain tools.

    I have the latest and greatest, but am struggling with the terrain tools. I can draw terrains well in Bryce, but they don't come out quite right in Carrara., but there again I have been using Bryce since 1997. and Carrara only since 8.5 was released.

    @Roygee - that is going to be fantastic. Thanks for turning me on to the Bryce heightmap editor (in the thread on railroads).

    Just think how much we could learn if more of the friendly Bryce folks were to bring their terrains into Carrara and meet the challenge requirements by using a replicator, or by any of the many other ways to customize a terrain or replicator.

    If only there were more Bryce users who also have Carrara... :)

  • Jay_NOLAJay_NOLA Posts: 1,145
    edited December 1969

    If someone is looking for some inspiration TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is Showing The Great Race on Saturday, March 29 at 4:00 PM central time. (Check your listings to get the time for your area and in case the site I got the time from had it incorrect.)

    This movie was the inspiration for Hanna-Barbera's Wacky Races and has been an inspiration for others series, movies, etc.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Jay. Set your recorders, everyone. So far, I don't think I've seen a WIP based on The Great Race movie. Maybe it is too obvious?

    Here is a WIP for my "don't fence me in" entry. I have a fence now (vertex model, duplicated), so that is progress. I also have a Spanish mission, because why not? It is just the Alamo from the Carrara object browser. The cluster of tress near the end of the fence have been placed there. I customized the silver maple by extending the trunk and spreading the branches out more. That is my image of the trees that are on the great plains. The trees along the stream banks are placed with a replicator.

    Making slow progress on the cattle because the details of the herd will in part depend on how I handle the scrub grass. I have been experimenting with replicating grass vertex models, and with using hair. I'm not satisfied with my results with either yet. I had pretty good results using hair as the scrub grass when I lowered the camera, but then I lost sight of the stream bed.

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  • de3ande3an Posts: 915
    edited December 1969

    Jay_NOLA said:
    If someone is looking for some inspiration TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is Showing The Great Race on Saturday, March 29 at 4:00 PM central time. (Check your listings to get the time for your area and in case the site I got the time from had it incorrect.)

    This movie was the inspiration for Hanna-Barbera's Wacky Races and has been an inspiration for others series, movies, etc.


    Thanks for the heads up.

    This is my favorite comedy movie of all time! If you haven't seen it, watch it now. (2:00 PM pacific time)

    Come for the race... Stay for the pie fight.

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    Thanks, diomede :)

    Your WIP is looking good - reminds me of the vast empty spaces with lonely farmhouses miles from nowhere in our Karoo region. Beautiful in their desolation!

    Make no error, Carrara is capable of making really good terrains, but no-one seems to use them for much else than backgrounds. I needed a very specific type of terrain, which is why I used Bryce - it has such a good heightmap editor that is easy to use to design a custom terrain.

  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 841
    edited December 1969

    It's great to see the works being produced here by everyone taking part. And lots of lessons for the rest of us.

    Regards to all.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Using various layer of height maps to achieve more specific control, and it works!
    Some Test shots and the height maps loaded into 3D Designer of Howler, to show what each map does by itself.

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:
    @Roygee - that is going to be fantastic. Thanks for turning me on to the Bryce heightmap editor (in the thread on railroads).

    Just think how much we could learn if more of the friendly Bryce folks were to bring their terrains into Carrara and meet the challenge requirements by using a replicator, or by any of the many other ways to customize a terrain or replicator.

    If only there were more Bryce users who also have Carrara... :)

    Wow, Yeah! Very cool Roygee! Man, I still haven't even messed with Bryce, yet it looks so cool. Thanks for the reminder that we can truly use it to enhance our Carrara work. Bravo!
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:

    Here is a WIP for my "don't fence me in" entry.
    Looks awesome! ;)
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Dartanbeck said:
    Using various layer of height maps to achieve more specific control, and it works!
    Some Test shots and the height maps loaded into 3D Designer of Howler, to show what each map does by itself.

    Looks pretty cool Dart!

    Everybody's stuff is looking pretty sweet as well.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    I had no idea that we could layer multiple height maps on top of one another. This adds an enormous amount of flexibility, as we can set the specifics for each map separately. Need to knock out some more pointy thingies? Make another nice, smooth map of the path you need, and put it in with whatever height is needed to create the effect. I'm loving this!

    Howler really helps. With 3D Designer built in I can see my height maps before I'm done with them. PuppyRay can actually texture it and raytrace it using my graphics card with Global Illumination! I'm loving this! :)

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