happier...

Just a quick render of the teacups (without shadows) to check the brightness of the spotlights above. I am happy with how well the pick up the elements in the ride. Obviously the lightbulbs don't have their own seperate lights inside, they only have a glow that has been applied. So the next step is to add subtle lights, especially around the back of the roots to make it seem as if they are emitting their own light, which would result in areas of the roots to be brighter than others.

 

Again, a render of the carousel creatures as of yet. Here I have lowered the intensity of the point lights within the carousel, which resemble lights on a carousel more than before. I think with the light from the moon which is to be added and some secret 'filler' lights which will pick up the underside of the creatures, and help to make the scene look more realistic.

adding a sky into the scene

We are using a painted sky because we did not want the lights which we are setting up in our scene to be affected by additional light coming from the sky (which is what would happen when using a hdri image). So, by painting this image and applying it as a texture to a dome, this way the sky will not emmit it'sa own light and a simple point light can be used and positioned in front of the moon in order for it to appear to have it's own light source.

Here I just wanted to show that the image is attatched onto a band of faces arounf the dome. The image does not stretch or distort to the top. When the lighting is set properly, there is no abvious seam where the image stops and the matte black faces begin. This is why the sky gradually becomes darker towards the top.

playblast of the first shots

It is very difficult to work out an appropriate speed for the camera. There is a fine line between the audience becoming bored, and being given enough time to look at the detail on the models. I am fairly happy with the speed of the camera up to the point of the snake's head. However, I may go back and slow down the camera movement from there to the point where it reaches the organ. (the box). I feel it may be too fast. I will be able to fix this when the rest of the models are in place.

playing with lighting... and failing it seems

Ok, so here is a quick pic of my models altogether. The centre of the carousel may seem 'blocky' because it hasn't been smoothed before rendering. I have inserted five point lights and placed them high above the modelled lights which have a glow applied to them. The aim was to see whether I could make the light source look as if it was coming from the physical lights on the carousel. I like the way in which the top section of the carousel middle is lit. However, it is obvious that the point lights are in the scene. They are clearly reflecting off of the blinn texture on the carousel. So, I shall have another play to see if there is a way of meeting in the middle.

Just a quick check to see how a close up of the creatures would look with the same lighting. Here, I have included Vicky's model of the horse, it gives me a good idea of where to go in terms of lighting because these will be the beginning shots.

more mishaps...

Nothing to be proud of, but I wanted to post these just to show what I have been playing about at all day. I'm sure that some settings need to be changed, as I seem to not be able to change the colour balance on the displacements in this scene. Especially on the exterior poles of the carousel, and the roots of the teacups. Perhaps it's something to do with importing seperate scenes into another? I shall have to investigate. But it's a rather annoying problem. On the other hand, this gives a rough idea of the layout of the assets so far.

Here I have applied a very basic glow to each of the bulbs. Personally I think they're too yellow. So I will have to change that to an off white or paler tellow. I want it to look eirie and not warm. Again, spot lights will help with this. I also think that the red cup is a tad too bright; it looks more of a toy than a used seat. But... the displacement maps for this ride are coming along!

Cloth on the statue

I have, however, managed to begin to fathom the displacement for the grim reaper. Still a tad confused as to why there are two sets of uvs and displacements for one model? It seems to work for the time being though.

some like to work... some just plain don't want to co-operate

As you can see, the displacements are causing a few problems. Depending on which displacements are applied to cartain elementsd within the scene, and their settings, other models are affected. I need to look into this as it seems that multiple models are sharing displacements? Simon suggested re-exporting all of the models individually and re-applying each texture and displacement. Which does mean starting again, but if it works then... hey ho!

faffing about

It's pretty clear what I have been playing about at all day... I just thought i'd post these few pictures to show the 'annoyingness' of maya! I madfe sure that I have written down each setting for the alpha gain and alpha offset of each asset's displacement map, so that when it was time to bring them all into one scene I would be able to apply them quickly and CORRECTLY!! But, just to keep me on my toes, maya had other ideas. I have imported all of the cups individually and applied the textures and displacements, however all of the settings appear to be too high for the models in this scene. So a lot of adjusting has had to be done, I'm finding that a lot of the settings have had to be made into single figures. I am getting there... slowly.

confuzzled by the stalls

not entirely sure why this keeps happening to the hotdog stall... personally I think it looks quite funky. But nevertheless it's not what we're going for.

whoopsy-daisy... i forgot to smooth the mesh (add divisions) before I applied the displacement and render. So all fixed!

Above is the basic mesh on smooth.

snake's seat displacement

displacement on the snake...ish

The displacement here is worse than that on the pig. The front part I am perfectly happy with, it seems to work well. But the back end, especially on the tips of the outer feathers, the displacement has become 'stepped'. It's looking very ugly at the moment. Also the texture is not fully donw, they are simply block colours for the time being.

displacement on the pig...ish

not happy with the displacements yet; they're too messy. But this post is just an update to show the teeny tiny bit of progress from today.

rooty teacups

ghost train vines

Just a quick test to check whether the displacement map works...

Here I have continued to paint on the detail, the largest part of the brickwork had been painted.

doodles for the ghost train

displacement and normal on the fox

second and carriages are underway

Z-Brush hates me!!

So, I have tried to re-open some files in zbrush, which had been uv mapped. Unfortunately (and we don't know why!!) it hasn't saved the uv maps properly and the seams have changed. Therefore when I need to export the displacement maps, they will be exported using the wrong uv map. Luckily, this model was taken into Maya after it was uv mapped. So I have been able to bring it back into zbrush and all I have needed to do is resculpt in zbrush. Something I didn't want to have to do AGAIN at this stage.