BSG78 Backgroud critic

[Cassiebsg]

Hey all!

Been excited working on stuff for my Battlestar Galactica 1978 fan based game, since I stummbled into AGS.
Finally have a little to show, though not finished.
I've decided to do my backgrounds in 3D, using AutoCad, since I'm familiar with it (though more 2D than 3D) ,so I've also been using this opportunity to learn Advanced 3D (instead of my usual mess of Basic 3D).
Not wanting to start this task with a room that was too big and complex, I choose Adama's quarters to start with. It's not too big, but has  lot of stuff and detailing to help me understand what the fastest way to model is. I'm still missing a few "static" details on the walls, like a speaker, phone and lighting spots, but I'm rather happy with it as is.
Now, I'm not that keen with AutoCads rendering and materials, the "realist" shading in the program is actually better than the rendering (or maybe it's just me, that has yet to bother too much about learning all the settings )...

Ok, I have yet to set light sources, so I'm just using the ambiance default lightning, and this model is only a 3 walls one (I'm only planing on doing a 2D game anyway, and the 3rd wall is never shown on the show).

I'm looking for some critic about camera angle, detailing, or something that may seem off.. (I've already spotted that my two monitors by the door need to grow a little.)

Here's one of the many reference pics from the show I used:


Here's my rendered model (I don't get why the table top of the coffee table is black and the desk is so reflective shiny):


And one from the "realistic" shading from Autocad (I edited this one to get the window black with stars, and the door opening):


Oh... this room has two doors. The one on the right leads out to the hallways, and another one at the left that leads in to the bedroom.

[UnLady]

Hi there, fellow AutoCad-er!

Let me start by saying that, while I love AutoCad with a passion, I don't like it's rendering module. Actually I loathe it. Therefore, I don't use it. So my advice won't be, unfortunately, on the CAD technical side. There, I can't help, since I'm using 3dMax or Viz for renderings.

Now, besides the monitors and maaaybe the round window thingie which could be a bit bigger, the objects of the scene might be in place. It's hard to tell, though, 'cause the angle of the perspective is so severe it causes some implausible deformations. I'm talking about the corner of the couch, mostly. I would suggest moving the camera backwards (freeze the 4th wall, if necessary) and adjust the angle to something more alike to a wide-ish angle photo camera. You can always crop afterwards. To get that much of the room from the defined viewpoint, in a normal (i.e. real life) setting, would mean using a fisheye lens, therefore you'd get spherical distortion. I'd also suggest lowering the viewpoint a bit, to eyelevel, maybe? It looks like it's above eyelevel. Well, that depends on characters and so forth, but I think it would help.

[Cassiebsg]

Hi UnLady, thanks for the quick reply and feedback.

Glad I'm not the only one using AutoCad.
I'm not planing on using it's rendering capabilities... specially now that's I've tried them...
I did once had a program/module for AutoCad, called Accurender, which is what I would love to use (easy to work with, and lovely renders... and in less than an hour I had learned how to use it). Unfortunately I no longer have the program, and think last time I used it, they had discontinued it, and incorporated it into Revit... (or that happened in a dream). But the quality of the render, I won't worry at this point, since as long as the model is solid, with the right amount of detail and stuff well organized, it'll be "easy" to move to another prog. for rendering.
For now I just want to make a decent, and as accurate as possible, model, so I can get a background and start "playing" with AGS... planing to start with a little one-two room game, just to get the hang of it.

I've adjusted the monitors slightly (increased by 1.2 which at the time looked ok, but now they look on the small side again), worked the window, but think I need to also adjust the inclination of the wall. I have a feeling that window is suppose to be round and the wall more steep, to create that "ellipse" look window... Will work on this tomorrow.
I also raised the sofa's back 10cm, as I had realized it was too low, when I drew the small side "commode"... laziness, for not doing it yesterday... LOL

Yes, I had put the camera a bit too high, I was afraid at the time that I wouldn't get that much "floor" area for the character(s) and I was unsure if it was possible to scale the characters (I seem to remember playing games that did that, but been so long, that I no longer can rememberer).
I moved the camera now to "eyelevel" (around 1,5m high, was 1,8 before) and moved the camera backwards (no need to freeze a wall, cause the 4th wall doesn't exist ) I had also thought that I needed a fisheye lens, but don't think AutoCad has a fisheye lens (at least not as standard option).

Anyway, here's a new pic (that desk occupies soooo much space):


And now it's bed time...

[UnLady]

Ok, it looks much better. A few things stand out now: I think the ceiling is a bit low (that, or the desk is too high). I think having a human sized silhouette that you place in the scene can help. It can be just a simple shape, a box or cylinder around 1,8m high, just to check the scale. You can even place multiple instances when you render and adjust accordingly.

I think the point of view could be moved around a bit, as well. It's your decision whether you go with a clear 1 point perspective, a clear 2 point or a skewed 1 point. You are very, very close to a one point (the beams are almost horizontal lines). Almost but not quite. The eye of the beholder doesn't like uncertainty, the "almost but not quite"s. It's better for things to be quite clearly one thing or another (generally). So I'd say: either go for the 1 point, in which case the camera should be moved to the left just a little, or for a skewed one, in which case the camera would move substantially to the left, solving the desk problem, as well, since it won't take as much of the view as it is now.

I think the porthole, upon closer inspection, is actually an oval. There might be some deformation due to the angle of the perspective in your rendering (deformation that would make it appear rounder). Anyways, I think "cheating" a little and making it an ellipse rather than a circle is ok. Other than the abysmal handling of ellipses that AutoCad has. At least the version I'm using seems to be confused by them.

I hope that helps and... share the AutoCad love!

Edit: quick sketches added, to explain about perspectives. As I'm not sure about the terminology (I'm translating from a different language, the language I've learned all this theory in, pictures worth a thousand words and so on.

[Anian]

1. monitors should be a separate object, so you can move them around
2 a there are a lot of details missing and there's no lights so everything that makes 3d images cool, is kind of missing still, what lights are present are kind of badly placed. You have to mix real light sources (like the blue light from the window, light bulbs etc.) with ambient lights that actually make the scene visible, same as they do on a set.
2 b but most of all, you're missing the ambient occlusion, which would make this scene look much better and make the details that are there already, more visible
3. glass table and the big table seem a bit too far apart, it seems your model is too long or maybe the camera is not correctly set up
4. if you look at the flag, you'll see that the ceiling actually goes a bit higher up than in your room

[Cassiebsg]

Thanks again for the reply UnLady.

Actually the celling is rather low in the original as well... mine is actually higher, if assuming that the door is a standard 2 meter high. I also thought that it was unusually low (funny though, that I never actually noticed it before)...



And that desk is also huge, though mine might be a bit too big, I'll adjust it's size once I've modeled the items on it. I think I placed the top of the desk at 90cm, which would be a normal hight, no? But I'll make it slightly lower.
As for the camera, I'll have to play with it a bit, but then, that's the advantage of having a 3d model, and not a static 2D drawing.
As for the window, really not that easy to figure out, since the back wall is inclined forward, and I don't know the angle. I'll do some test, now that it became "easy" to do holes in walls... And this time I won't add the detail to the window until it looks just right (even if it's a cheated ellipse).

That's okay, English not my original language either.
I appreciate all the help and feedback.

@Anian

1. They are separate objects., they weren't in my original picture, but I changed them afterwards when I resized them.

2a. I think the detail missing (wall riveting, not objects) are being lost due to the bad rendering engine of AutoCad. I need to see if I still have a working copying of my favorite rendering program around before I can present a final version. Reason the light looks like general crap, is cause it is (and probably adding to the lack of detail, since there are no shadows). I have yet to bother setting any lights to the scene, so it's just using the default ambient light that allows one to see the model. These are details, I'll work on, once the model is "finished"... and since I want to render the model with another engine, setting up lights here, might just be waist of time.

2b. I'm not sure what "ambient occlusion" is or how to set it up, but I'll google it, thanks.

3. Might be the camera angle, or the table not having the right size, or something else. I'll take a look at other angles, and see if I get a better idea of exactly where the coffee table should be (and size).

4. Ah! Actually, I hadn't noticed that! I had noticed that the ceiling was above the beams, but had just assumed that it rested on them... Thanks, will fix that, ASAP. 

Many thanks for taking the time to comment. 

[UnLady]

90 cm is way high for a desk. A regular height would be 70-75cm. Try that, I think it will help a lot with the scale of the room and everything. And doors are usually 2.05; 2.10m high. These doors in particular seem to be on the low side, though. It would make sense, in a starship you'd want to save as much space as possible, thus the rooms won't be palatial.

[Cassiebsg]

Hey.

Just a very little update on this... I just found out that Autocad render soft is actually using the same engine that 3DS Max is (Mental Ray, though maybe not as detailed as 3DS Max). I was just surfing the net, trying to find good alternatives to render my model (and tried accurender nxt, but hated it!) , when I stumble into a site with some nice tutorials, and nice rendering even (http://www.cad-notes.com/autocad-and-photorealistic-rendering/)! So I'll go do so some "study" on AutoCad rendering and set u some lightings and hope to post a new pic soon.

It would make sense, in a starship you'd want to save as much space as possible, thus the rooms won't be palatial.

Funny that you mentioned that, cause I thought the same think and yet... I was watching an episode the other day and noticed that the ships hallways are unusually high (like double normal hight)! This makes no sense in real life (but guess it aads to the drama of the scenes)... lol.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Same as before: Considering you've already modelled everything in 3D, you should render the scene with any badass renderer instead of the basic ambiant-light-with-no-occlusion renderer. There will be an immediate boost in the scene realism, with absolutely no effort.

[Cassiebsg]

I was "close" yesterday to get a decent rendering, but after an hour with my computer lagging and dragging it self, I realize I need to get a decent computer for the more complex and heavy stuff... this one is good enough to do the basic modeling, as long as I don't get the file too big and do some rendering with default light just to check if everything looks okay (size/shape wise), but that's about it.
Think am going to try turning all materials and textures off, change my layer colors to white, turn of all objects in the scene, and see if I can set up the lighting today, and then let it render with everything on during the night while I sleep...

I just had no idea that Autocad come with proper render software since 2007! Think the last time I had used AutoCad's render was back in 2004 (or earlier), when rending wasn't more than a polished version of the shaded mode...

EDIT (16 MAY):
Well, after a pain time setting up a few lights and stuff (let's just say it took me about 1,5 hour to do something that should have taken 10-20 minutes... I really need a more powerful computer for this!), I managed to let the computer rendering before going to bed...

This is the original render (too dark). I cropped the picture a bit, since I noticed I screwed up the right wall when I repaired a hole (fixed now):


This is the same picture with Gamma adjusted so we can see what's going on...


Need to change the desk into a non polished wood... that just look too much reflective.

Anyway, I'm mostly looking for lighting tips so I don't need to use a few months of trial and error... lol. Doesn't need to be specific to AutoCad. If you used to setting up lighting in 3D models, where would you place the lights, what type (point, spot, distant, weblight, other?), what values would you use or ambiance? That kind of tips.
On my part I'll go study what "shadow mapping" in AutoCad is and how to set it up, and see if it's the same as what Anian referred as "ambient occlusion".

[gingersnap]

Hello! Couple points to clarify:

Ambient occlusion is usually (I say usually because I am not familiar with Autocad) based on the shader/material you use. It does not take any of the lighting information from the scene. Instead, it calculates the distance everything is from everything else and darkens the surfaces accordingly. So, if you have a simple room with four walls, the surface will get darker as it gets closer to the corners. This is usually a stand alone render pass that you will then composite onto your final image in order to cheat light bounce/scattering. Ambient occlusion is a cheap way to really add some softening to the corners. I happen to be a fan of it. I usually save out a separate scene and change the shaders on that one so that you can delete transparent things and not lose any of your material data.

Here is a quick tutorial found (I don't vouch for it, it just has a picture of ambient occlusion on it). It is set up for Maya, it looks like, but it briefly talks about 3 point lighting as well as ambient occlusion. At the bottom is an ambient occlusion pass (the black and white one)

http://ucbugg.github.io/learn.ucbugg/lighting-a-scene/

Shadow mapping is a cheat for render time (just to clarify, 'cheats' are good , they just usually have minor side effects). Instead of making the program calculate it all out while rendering, it generates shadow maps first (watch the resolutions! You can end up with aliasing and jaggies if it's too small) which are lighter weight for rendering. Shadow maps have the advantage of being able to be 'softened' (ie, blurring the edges) which is a fast way to simulate area lights. (Area lights are resource heavy. They also have different names depending on the software, I think, but imagine a point light like a small incandescent bulb and an area light like one of those fluorescent sunshine ceilings. The software has to calculate light coming from a whole area rather than one point, so it's like using 50 lights all at once in one area rather than one point light. Area lights soften shadows the further you get away from the light source.) Shadow maps have a limitation with transparent objects; they don't do them. You get solid black shadows for glass same as you would opaque.

Now, onto my own personal preferences! (Oh man, this is an info dump... )

First off, destroy all ambiance. No ambiance on materials, no ambient lighting, no default light. You can add it in later if you decide you want it, but it tends to make things flat.

I like to light scenes with spot lights. Let's take this scene, for example, and take a look at your reference image. It looks like there's a fair number of lights shining straight down. The upper parts of the scene look dark, while the floor and mid height items are well lit. You can even see the shape of spotlights shining down along the walls. Again, unfamiliar with Autocad, but you should be able to soften the edges of a spot light and adjust the cone angle. I would start by identifying where you want the main light to be coming from (in the reference, it's coming from the ceiling. So for the sake of ease, I'll imagine that's what you're going for) So, I would start with one spot light shining straight down. I'd fiddle with the cone angle, softness, intensity and falloff until it makes sense and looks nice shining down the wall (look for that nice parabola). Then I'd duplicate the light a couple times and arrange them in a two by two grid from the ceiling.

Softness: by this I mean whether the edge of the light is a hard line or a blurred line. Could be called something else.
Falloff: How quickly the light loses energy. Imagine a two axis graph: Linear falloff is a straight line diagonal down. Exponential is a curve arcing down. Exponential falloff is more useful simply because you should be able to change the exponent used (my program starts with an exponent of 2.) I like higher exponents for lights like the one you have there on the wall as it localizes the light, and I like lower exponents (1.5 - 1.8) for lights like you would have in the ceiling. It goes further without blowing out the nearby geometry.
Intensity: depends on the falloff. Linear needs less intensity, Exponential (depending on the exponent) can need hundreds of times more. When playing around, I like to work in extremes in order to nail it down. For ease of use, on an old computer, you might want to start a new scene and just play with light falloff/intensity until you have a rough idea of how far and bright you want the light to go. Just set up a simple room with two walls and a floor roughly the same size as your scene here.

Alright, so you've established your main lighting. You'll probably notice that there's a lot of dark shadows now. I notice you've lit the scene with a light shining directly on. This is a great secondary light. I would either lower the exponent on it or change it to linear falloff (while lowering the intensity). You want an even sort of light illuminating the shadows/ceiling. The amount of light coming from it now is good; too much is hitting the desk, but the stuff hitting the far walls is good. It will bring out detail in the shadows. If it's not too bright by this point, I'd also keep those lights you have on the far wall. The variation is pleasing.

And now, onto the third direction; rim lights. I would try one out this, but they aren't always necessary. Take an infinite light, do not put shadows or falloff on it. Change its color to be complimentary of the other lights (if they are orange, make this one blue, for example). Now, point it almost directly at the camera. In this case, make sure it is either level with the floor or pointing up, and then point it slightly to the right. What you want to see is an edging of light on the darkest surfaces; it should be showing up on that far corner of the desk, thereby distinguishing it from the shadows. The rim light tends to need to be bright, so start bright and work down. Maybe even mute the other lights to see what it is doing. Rim lights add a bit of drama and definition to a scene, they are very important in dark rooms. If this scene ends up being quite bright, you might do away with it all together. You can also soften it (lower intensity) and tilt it more to the right to soften the effect of shadows and make the scene seem more ambient without sacrificing tone depth.

Another point: you should(?) be able to make a light only associate with certain objects. This is useful for rim lights if they are too bright on one object, but perfect everywhere else. You just get rid of the light association on that object and carry on your merry way.

This isn't all there is to know (say), not by a long shot, but it's a start for this scene and I *know* how difficult it is to start figuring out how to use a 3d program (I'm trying to start with Blender, and oh what a learning curve that is. So humbling. Can't even move properly yet). Not to mention working with a chugging computer. Maybe check out some ways to optimize your work scene. Are you working in wireframe? Might be a good idea while manipulating lights. It also looks like there's some high tessellation in some of those objects, maybe you can hide the most resource-hungry while you work? There should be some viewing options which will strip your scene down the bare minimum while you're still working in the 3d space. Don't know Autocad though. I would suggest consulting the almighty google and looking for autocad tutorials, and tips on optimization.

Lighting makes *the* most amount of difference with the least amount of work. Nail it down and it is always worth the effort.

I really hope there was something useful to you in there. I look forward to seeing this progress!

[Cassiebsg]

Thanks bunch for the tips, right the type of advice I was looking for!
That tutorial seems interesting, though haven't had the time to read more than a few paragraphs ATM.

I know ACAD can use lights that don't cast shadows (and funny, cause I thought "It's a light, of course it needs to cast shadows!" ROFL) but now it makes sense why I need lights that don't cast shadows. am not sure if I can exclude objects from the light, will have to look into it.
As for how I work, normaly I work with one window/pane open in wireframe, and "move" back and forth in angle view and shade/realistic view. For that one render and adding lights and stuff, I decided to get a 4 window/pane, with top, front and left open (wireframe) and my camera perspective in realist (probably, I should turn it to shade only). That's the pane that was freezing my PC all the time, cause the "idiot" (probably me ) was calculating the lighting and shading real time! Need to look into that, since until I can get a better PC to work on that way of working is unbearable...

I've also spent the last 2 months trying to get into Blender, I thought I could do my BGs in ACAD, and then import them to Blender for rendering, and since I want to try and do the characters there that would "solve" 2 problems at one go. Problem was "can't import .dwg into blender"... ".dxf imports nothing"... ".fbx gives an invalid version"... then I found I could open dwg with Sketchup and then convert to obj... I tryed that and it worked! but I quickly abandoned that. I ended up with a "thousand" mesh to work with... not good! (mostly cause I have yet to integrate the metal "rivets" from the walls into the walls... they're currently only spheres. :o ).
So I finally surrendered, and got 3DS Max installed... So now I'm playing with MAX also (a lot more choices of lights and stuff!)... and I converted the file into 3DS format, so now I can import it into Blender and all my objects are neatly "grouped" by layer (I use a layer for every material)! So I thought great, now I can try rendering with Blender! So I set camera and a light and render, but nothing! Cycles render doesn't work with my PC... and Blender render doesn't look that good
So guess I'll stick with ACAD and MAX for now, and try Blender again later on (but still want to get my characters there, as I'm not that happy with my 2D sprites)...

[gingersnap]

Hahah, haven't read the tutorial, but managed to get through my wall of text? I'm honored. I'm pretty impatient with tutorials. I just look for the pictures that seem to be doing the things that I want and read the associated blurb. Three point lighting (ie, Rule One) and ambient occlusion are the major take-aways with the one I linked. Most discourse on film lighting will give you an idea of how to strongly light a scene. The best thing to do is look for pictures you like and then analyze why.

Oh my, so much back and forth. Porting things between programs is a nightmare. You never know how they're going to tag things, or how they're going to interpret. Obj files seem to be the most common for cross transfers, but I don't know the details. And then there's all the things you don't notice until too late. I like my geometry clean

Max is not a bad program (in fact, it's rather good ). If I'm not wrong, it has v-ray and mentalray. Those are as good as, if not better, than cycles. I think. Cycles makes some weird artifacting, and I'm not sure if that's a samples quality thing or what. Still, all very heavy on the cpu (and gpu, if it supports it). If you have access to Max I might pursue that over blender. User-friendly is an asset in this case, unless you like scripting. Blender's strength comes from an active and free community, and the many plug-ins they generate. Those are the flames this humble moth is pursuing.

Yeah, for work space I would minimize what the view port has to render real time. I just use little render previews to tell what's going on, switch to wire frame/shaded when the scene is too heavy.

[Monsieur OUXX]

A simple tip for the latest iteration: increase the ambient light. It should still lok atmospehric, but much less "dark-for-no-reason-and-it-hurts-the-eyes".