Architectural Scenes in Blender

I know I haven't posted anything here for the past two months but I had my summer holidays which was fun! Now I have several interesting things that I've been working on, some for the entire summer and some for just a week or two. For the next few weeks I'll be posting those here for all to see. To start off I'm going to show you guys my progress on an architectural bathroom scene I started working on a week ago. So I went online and found a bathroom photo that I liked, Here's my reference photo:

So based on this I've modelled some of the basic elements of the scene excluding the bathtub. This is the result so far:

I know that my bathroom is wider and the angle of the camera and such is different but this isn't the final image so I'll be keeping this updated under the label "ArchiBath".

Campfire in the Grass

I watched two tutorials from Andrew Price and I skipped through bits of it and only took what I needed. Then I decided to make a fire but using a plane and making the fire wasn't enough, I knew I had to take it further. So for three days I've been working on this scene, simulating and rendering constantly in order to produce this final piece. I worked extensively and went through several different versions before deciding on this one. I had to have everything on one layer or else it wouldn't render properly but that was the only hiccup.

Here is the final piece:

Now onto making water sprays from a water simulation!

The Backbone of My Book

Well today I think something different should be here. What you may ask? Well I've decided to upload the progress I've made with my book. It's not a book yet but it is the prologue to what will come afterwards. It recounts the creation of the universe and describes the elements that form it. So here it is:

Laminodares

Fireworks

Well I decided to do some fireworks in 3ds max. Wanted to render it with mental ray but alas that was too slow, on the other hand though Krakatoa did a fine job. I hope you guys like it. The entire sequence was animated using Particle Flow.There were several steps but I think it turned out really well, especially the last big one.

Paper Boats

Today I had what you would call a mental block. I just couldn't conceive of anything to do and just couldn't focus on what came to my mind. Then I made this amazingly psychedelic animation but I'll render that tomorrow so you will be in for a surprise. Anyway back to the paper boats. So I decided to model some paper boats and distribute then on an ocean. I think the ocean was the hardest but I got it figured out. I used two noise modifiers, one fractal the other regular and then added a ripple modifier. I then used the Mental Ray Ocean water default material and adjusted the wave height. The paper boats had a material with a very low transparency value that was completely calculated as translucency. Here's the end result with some post-production glow effect added in Photoshop:

Garden - Again

Like I promised I rendered the garden in higher quality after tweaking some materials. I think it turned out beautifully.

Garden

Although it has been my exam week I could not help but work in 3ds max because it allows me to relax and cool off my mind. So I decided to make a kitchen overlooking green fields of grass but unfortunately after rendering I felt the image was too cramped and didn't give the feeling I wanted it to so I scrapped that idea and instead created an observation dome, a geodesic glass structure held by metal frames in order to give freedom to the observer and so I placed a wooden table and some chairs and bathed this scene in the sun. Finally I had made something I enjoyed looking at, here is the result. I am currently rendering the higher resolution version of this. So that'll come soon.

Intros, intros, intros

Well it's been a while hasn't it? I've been studying for my exams but I needed something to cool off these last two days. My solution? 3ds max. I've decided that an intro sequence to my 3d videos was long overdue and finally I've come up with something I like. I've uploaded it onto youtube and put it here for you to see. I modelled and textured everything in 3ds max, the rendering was done by Mental Ray including the motion blur. Then I composited the entire sequence in After Effects adding the text at the end. I was going for an orbit around a planet style intro and I think I achieved that but with the interactive destruction of the objects it seemed to become something brilliant. I have to thank Rayfire since it was the only solution other than using Particle Flow which would've been a great hassle. The Physx engine really is amazing because this one thousand frame simulation was completed in an hour and a half. I wish I knew some Maxscript because I want to create a script that will simulate the exact motion of planets according to Newtonian mechanics. Well, I think that's enough chitchat, here is the result of my work:

Trying Blender for the First Time

Well here's my first fluid animation and simple scene that I did with Blender. The software is efficient and quite speedy too but it lacks the intuitive modelling capabilities and the easy navigation system of 3ds max or maybe it's just that I'm using my small laptop. Anyway whichever it is I have to say I'm impressed with this free piece of software, it's just really good and now in comparison to 3ds max I have to say that in some respects Blender is a good compromise and gives autodesk a good run for its money. Here's the first thing I did. I was going to do a tutorial on the shielding effect but unfortunately I don't remember exactly how I did it and when I tried to reproduce the results let's just say it was ugly. So now my plan is to make a tutorial on how to model GLaDoS from Portal 2 and that will be in several small videos since YouTube limits me to 15 minutes (urrgh...). Anyway check this out and I'll be bringing you a tutorial hopefully by this Thursday or at the very least a simple introduction.

Physics in 3ds Max 2012

The real purpose of this simulation/animation was to determine whether or not the cloth modifier in 3ds max could emulate rigid body dynamics when set up correctly. Well the result was thus:

I think it is possible and with further tweaking would make the physx plugin obsolete in some manner but that's stretching it I guess. Anyway as you can see it clearly is possible to some degree to make rigid body-like simulations using only the cloth modifier. The simulation on the right is physx and the left is cloth. Enjoy!

Fractal-like Structures

So I got into fractals a few days ago and so from structure synth began an idea about animating and using fractals. Then the other day I discovered that I could create structures similar to fractals using the array tool. I hope you guys like it. I animated it and then rendered it in Mental Ray.

A Snowy Lamppost

So I guess this is another new post. Straight to business, don't want to wander around that much so as not to bore you. Well it snowed like crazy here for the past few days and during that I decided to take some photos and one photo just made me want to design something in 3ds max, anything as long as it was based on the photo I took. That began three days of rendering, refining, modelling and designing of this:

So the image on the right is the photo I took and the one on the left is the render.

PFlow + FumeFX + Krakatoa = Awesome

Having to be secretive about my 3ds max "excursions" I can't add much here as frequently. Anyway so I took the opportunity and built a scene with 3ds Max and added a PFlow particle animation and a FumeFX animation. Then I created several partitions for the particles generated by PFlow and FumeFX and using these partitions I rendered it in Krakatoa. There aren't that many particles, I'm guessing it's not over 1 million but if it is, just wow. Anyway I hope you enjoy watching! Cheers! :D
This is the original:                                                                                   This is the version with a soundtrack:

Physx and Krakatoa

I think I've become obsessed with Krakatoa. I mean the endless possibilities with the particles make it seem like the very world is at my fingertips. Oh and I was testing out how to do a ball and chain simulation using the physx simulation engine. I learned the strategy from a tutorial but it is quite interesting the way he made it work. I am not going to make a tutorial on how to do it but I might in the future so stay tuned. Here's what I made:

I apologise for the low quality. Thank you!

Krak + PFlow = Particle Heaven

Ok. So I was thinking that I'd make an animation that would be a sort of hyperspace effect. Rendered using Krakatoa and made using 3ds max pflow. It turned out pretty good but it needs a bit of polishing and all that but overall it's pretty nice. See for yourself:

Project Stardust (Yep! Once again!)

Well I finally finished rendering this beauty and now I just uploaded it. I hope you like it. Post a comment, like it, do something! Someone please find this blog! I'm done whining. Enjoy!

Glu3d

Now this is a worthwhile plugin, although not as amazing as RealFlow it certainly is much cheaper! Check out this Mental Ray rendering.

Back to some old-fashioned modeling

Well yesterday morning I was reading on Tomshardware.com and I saw this very interesting picture of something called a Nixie Clock. Being intrigued by it's design I went on the internet and researched about it trying to figure out what the hell it was. I saved some reference photos just in case I needed it. Then I returned home later that afternoon and decided to start making something for my girlfriend based around the concept of a Nixie Clock. Although not exactly the same, in an hour or so I came up with this.

I'm quite proud of it since it was only an hour or twos work and so far it's been my best attempt at recreating something from reference photos. Later, I will post a tutorial on how to make it yourself.