Large Building -WIP-

The last one (of the most recent updates) looks pretty cool. Really looking nice!

Thanks for the Tutorial too.

 

And you say these only take you a couple minutes???

 

As a tip for future buildings, all of these things are supposed to look round and smooth, so if you can keep the segements around to 36 or greater, even for the low res buildings, that would make it easier for arranging.

Also, no Landing Platform buildings. There is a large area for docking bays in the hole in the center of the city, so don't worry about landing areas.

However, most all of those buildings are just perfect. So thank you.

 

I see your point about how rounded the buildings need to be... I guess I am just used to low poly "Game" modeling.

Thanks again for letting me work on your project... when do you need the finished city by??

Yes each building takes me about 5 to 7 min depending on the building... but I must explain that for every 4 that I make I throw out 1 or 2. Either because I do not like the look of the building or the building turned out to look like one I already made. And as things stand now less than half of the buildings I have made so far will make the final "cut" as most are to low quality... I have found that nothing in 3D modeling is "easy"... you just have to keep at it. For now I plan on making about 50-60 buildings and the city "shell". after that we shall see...

-Eamon

 

Hey, it's great to have you on board.

As for a deadline, I understand that life comes first, so I don't want you to feel you need to rush on anything. Just do your best, and get it done as soon as you are able.

There's a couple of things I want you to look at:

Regallas Aproach Test 01
This animatic was to figure out the camera angles for the closest shots we'll be seeing of the buildings. The large cylanders are the buildings, the hole in the middle is a large docking bay facility.

[image=http://www.weareboring.com/images/misc/corrin_select/db2.jpg] [image=http://www.weareboring.com/images/misc/corrin_select/db1.jpg]
These images are of the docking bays located along the walls of the hole in the middle of the space station. This should help give you a larger picture of what we're looking at.

 

Where do you get this like "concept art" from?? Do you draw it??

 

okay just to make sure that we are on the same page the inside ring in the center hole is like the outside of the deathstar with hanger bays and such, and as to scale is this what you are thinking about... (I made another animatic for more reference...) to see if I now have the concept.

[image=http://holocron.theblood.net/images/building/dockingbay1.jpg]
fly_by.zip

-Eamon

 

Has the sequence already been planned out (one continous shot or several cuts, the camera path, etc., seems it's still animatic phase so why build the full detail)? As far as I know Lightwave doesn't have support for level of detail (LOD), unless more recent versions have added it. If not it doesn't make sense to make all buildings more heavy to make them more rounded (although you coulde convert to subds, but still). If a specific building is only going to be shown in the far background and small, no reason to increase the poly count, with the proper texturing/rendering it should look fine.

Actually the best thing would be to build 2 versions of each building, one low rez and the other high (final) rez. That way you can construct fairly light models which can be used when the animation work is going on, and then swap them with high rez version for test renders and for the final render.

 

I just don't know what you are saying? Are you talking about how long it takes to render an animatic? I did the one above in about 20 min... I am not at the professional level so maybe I am missing something but I don't think I should make twice the models just to make an animatic... and as far as I now the plan is to render the animation in Max not Lightwave... I am just making some models. The animatic I made was just to see if I am catching the "vision" of the director or not... it was more for he and I and not intended as something the final shots would be based on. If you see that I am making something harder than it needs to be please post in terms that I can understand... not that I don't get what you were saying about (LOD) I know what it is just not how it applies to what I am doing...

I guess this makes me sound stupid or maybe I'm just tired again.

-Eamon

 

Lightwave does have Level of Detail, where you can change source models as the camera gets closer to them.

 

Lightwave does have Level of Detail

Thanks, I haven't used Lightwave in ages, long time ago you needed a separate plugin. Nice to know.

I just don't know what you are saying?

Well my comments were actually because I wasn't sure what you were asking ;-). You ask for feedback about the buildings but it's difficult if we don't know exactly how are they going to be used.

In one instance the animatic is mentioned, so low poly buildings are perfectly fine, no need to make them "more rounded" or detailed if that is all. But on other posts it seems they are going to be used for the final product. In that case you want the high detail ones.

In any case yes, you need to make at least 2 versions of the models: low rez for quick animation blocking and for LOD, and the high rez versions necessary for the final rendering. It'll be more efficient to work that way in the end and could save the production significant amounts of time and allow more iterations.

 

Now, bare in mind, those low quality versions of the buildings he's talking about could be primitive cylanders for all I care. There are quick ways of replacing low quality models for high quality ones. The purpose of low quality models in this instance is to use as little computer memory as possible while setting things up. This maximizes performance speeds and minimizes risk of crashing your system while dealing with a big scene.




As for your animatic, there's a couple of things I'd like to critique:

First off, thank you for doing that. It gives me a feel for where we are and where we need to go. The buildings look great, and overall, I like it.

Secondly, there are a few things I'd like to correct, and that really is the purpose of an animatic: to fix things before they're too late.

• The buildings are too far apart. I would like to see them a bit closer together. If at all possible, I don't want to see the streets between the buildings, so low angle shots and POV shots with the ship's controlls framing the shot where the streets would be seen are my artistic plan.


• Scale. We'll have to figure out the ship in terms of scale when the buildings are properly spaced. There are a lot of docking bays and that ship has to fit into one. It may be too big.


• Camera Angles. We'll worry about that later, but for now, I just want you to know that I want the camera angles to show off the city from inside of it. Some of your shots seem to show the city from just outside of it.

This is what animatics are for. I PMed you about joining the production Forum for my fanfilm where we can discuss this without spoiling it for everyone else

 

Okay great feedback from everyone... so thank you all.

I'm going to move my efforts on this to the film's project forum so further updates on my progress will come from the director at his discretion.

However I do plan to give the finished model to Sci-Fi 3D (if they would like it and the films director dose not mind)

-Eamon

 

I think scifi 3d won't mind if you'd give it to them