Basement Project WIP

[Matt Sugden]

I'm doing a basement animation and seeing as though the project is going to take me a couple of weeks, I thought I'd post some WIP in a hope to improve the images while I'm working on them.

 

There's a couple of tricky aspects to the images in my view, the first with it being under ground there are only a couple of spots of natural light coming through, from some small sky lights, so getting a nice balance between these over exposed areas and the artificial lighting is going to be a little tricky.

 

The other thing for me is getting the pool to look good. Ideally I'd like to get caustics working, for a bit of artistic license if nothing else, though I am obviously concerned with render times with this being for an animation. Anyway, here are the first few shots of the space. Still lots to do, but feel free to start chipping in with suggestions.

 

One of the aspects of the water I'm not happy with is the texture of the surface, I want to mimic the look of some very very small ripples, almost that look when you can tell there are thermoclimes (difference in temperature) in the water, no Idea how to achieve it however.

[shaneis]

Looks like it'll be a good looking animation. I think you do need some caustics in there, though with smaller ripples it will be a subtle caustic effect. You might be able to reduce the impact on render times by adding large area light just below the four skylights and use it just to emit caustic photons.

 

As for the water surface, does Max have a "water" material? I use Maya, and there is a procedural texture for water with wave frequency, height etc and it animates. Plugged into displacement, it makes for some good-looking water. Maybe Max has something similar. I attached a recent render of a pool that I did for a friend, using caustics and the formentioned Maya water procedural to create the displacement, mia_material (same as A&D in Max) for the materials.

 

Hopefuly it will convince you to use caustics.

[Trevor Tizard]

Very nice images so far. Have to agree with Shane about the caustics.

 

Would you mind telling me what type of lights you are using?

 

Thanks.

[Matt Sugden]

At the moment, I'm using a couple of Vray area over the sky lights, where the natural light is coming through, and the rest are all max spots or omnis in the pool. I tried using the ies patterns to start with which looked lovely but the render times were getting a bit too bloated so I've had to drop them in favor or the max basic ones, which is a shame.

 

Do you guys ever notice such a big difference in render times using ies lighting?

 

I've done a quick pool test anim with the animated, caustics, this is all faked so far. I've put an animated texture around the pool lining, and also the surface has a faked caustic on top too. I think when I come to the final anim I will try and animate the wave bump also.

 

I've popped it on http://www.virtual-living.co.uk/pool test.wmv though I'm ont happy about the boundary between the jacuzzi, using a different anim, and the main pool section. I think I might raise the jacuzzi wall a little so the tow are actually separated with a little bit of wall.

[shaneis]

For the most part, IES does increase render times especially if there is lots of reflection/ refraction.

 

As for the caustics - one thing I was brainwashed with by my head lecturer was this, "sometimes, by the time you figure out how to fake caustics and make it look believable, you could have rendered the real caustics maps."

 

I understand that it's not that simple when it's animating, but remember that caustics solves can be rendered early-on, saved and used later because they are not dependant on the camera. You can also render at roughly one third of the frame rate (ie, 1 caustic solve for every 2 or 3 frames) or better yet, render render a 2 or 3 second loop of caustic maps. As long as your camera is moving through the scene, 99% of people won't notice.

 

Also, water always looks better if it is displaced rather than bumped. Do the water displacement and caustic pass at the same time. This little problem of yours has sparked my interest in animating water caustics. If I learn anything of use, I'll post it back here.

 

Hope my 2 cents helps,

 

S.

[Matt Sugden]

Some updated views of the basement, couple of things I'm not happy with.

 

The picture frame in the hall way is very dark for some reason? I have glass in front of the frame, to get the reflections, but I have it set to invisible cast and receive shadows, so no idea why it is making the white border so dark anyone any ideas?

 

Still not completely happy with the water, it just looks too fake basically.

 

Anyway tips, or ideas to improve it would be welcome. cheers.

[Trevor Tizard]

I think you need to get some reflection on the water, doesn't appear to be any at the moment. Also the wood floor seems a little over sized. As for the picture, is the any fog in the material?

 

Here's one I did a long time ago..............

[Matt Sugden]

Thanks for the comments trevor, your reflection was it just a straight non-glossy reflection? over the bump/displacement map?

 

I think your right about the wood too, some times you can't see the wood for the trees!!

[Trevor Tizard]

There is a slight green colour in the fog..............