Topic: 3D Bunker

[selmiak]

Since you all like work in progress art and I could need some feedback on my current blender project here we go.  To get more used to texturing and modeling I decided on a bunker as there are a lot of 90° angles which make it easier to texture and slowly I'm getting into it me thinks. What do you think, what would you improve?

x1 x2 x3 x4

a very basic bunker. Is it too generic?

x1 x2 x3 x4

more details, less samples while rendering to get it out of the 3D software faster but this leads to these distortions effect.

[Danvzare]

Reminds me of SCP Containment Breach. So if that's the vibe you're going for, it's perfect.

[Darth Mandarb]

I think they are off to a good start and it's a great way to learn texturing (on easy to unwrap shapes!).

I had the hardest time w/ marking seams... I just couldn't wrap my head around it at first. Just kept at it and eventually got a feel for it.

Is it too generic? Yeah probably...  but that's how just about anything starts off! Just keep adding details to make it more real!

Also it feels a tad too "clean".

Are you familiar with Polligon? They have some amazing FREE textures (with AO, diffuse, gloss, normals, etc) and all repeatable. The pricing isn't too bad either if you want to be paid member but for this project I'm sure there's free textures you could use to learn with! What they have that I LOVE are the "overlays" for adding smudges, cracks, grime, etc. It takes renders up to the next level!

The second image (with all the fireflies). There's a few tricks I use (if I want to avoid more samples/longer render times) but want to diminish the dreaded cycles fireflies!

• The one I find works the best is increasing the lamp/light size. It won't get rid of all of them but usually kills most of them! I have found I can keep the light "level" where I want it (meaning it's not brighter, just bigger).
• No Caustics. In the render panel > light paths > near the bottom there's a checkbox for "no caustics". This works wonders in most cases!
• More Samples! This seems counter to the point but I have found that increasing the samples just slightly can, in a lot of cases, kill a lot of the fireflies as it gives the cycles engine a little more time to calculate the light paths. Takes a bit longer to render but it's a trade-off.

There are several other ways but these three have worked the best for me!

Here's a link (probably the one I used to develop my three above, it was a while ago I don't recall!) from Blender Guru (a great resource on YouTube but I'm sure you're familiar with him already!).

Good luck and keep posting the WiP images!

[selmiak]

@Danvzare: I don't know the game, I just modeled I bunker hallway and used dim lighting to make it moody but I take that as a compliment

@Darth:
fireflies, that is really fitting
Isn't poliigon from the blender guru guy? Should be good then. Or some other youtube blender tutorial person? He really makes useful tutorial videos. I also like the advanced tutorial series from the Agenzas Brothers. In german and in english and really consecutive and informative and easy to follow and still advanced.

I turned off all the caustics setting in the render tab and used twice as many samples, still fireflies. I'll try increasing the lightsource size, maybe this helps. I like the dim light though.



So what I am wondering, is there any way to make blender autosave the renderresult? So I can let it render for the time blender tells me and initiate a shutdown on the PC rather than rendering while I'm trying to do other stuff on the PC or wasting energy on keeping the PC running...

[Darth Mandarb]

Does look better though! Blender is all about that tweaking!

Honestly, for test renders such as this, I don't really bother. I just deal with the fireflies most of the time!

Poliigon is Andrew Price's site yes (the Blender Guru). His stuff is great and the free stuff (on youtubes) has helped me soooo much.

Hadn't heard of the Agenzas Brothers but now I'm watching all their stuff! Thanks for that!

Blender doesn't auto-save single image renders (no idea why they wouldn't let it do this).

A trick that might work (I haven't tried this) is to render an animation (saving each frame as an individual png file) instead. You could just do two frames and make the second frame "blank" so it renders instantly. I know when you set up animations in this way it saves each frame individually as it goes so it might work for what you're wanting.

[Cassiebsg]

Actually, you can just render 1 frame in the animation, too. Just put the same frame number on the start and end and then render animation.

Alternatively, if you are using composite you can add a output->file output node, and it will save the image (been using this to save my layers images off an animation). The downsize is that for some odd reason you can't choose the filename, just the folder where to save.

[nihilyst]

The newest Blender Guru video features 18 methods to speed up render time. Here it is. Some of them I didn't know yet.

[Cassiebsg]

Nice, I'm always looking for faster ways to render. Though I'm pretty happy with my current rendering times. 

[Mandle]

Those "fireflies" really give the shots a security camera kinda feel. I wonder if that's an exploitable "feature"? Do they show up randomly each render or in exactly the same place?

Yeah, the same effect can be done with other graphics programs, but it would just feel cool to do it via a "flaw" in the rendering process instead.

[KyriakosCH]

I really like the feel/lighting/colours. Good work 8-)

[selmiak]

this blows my mind:

Will test denoising in blender 2.79 later on this bunker hallway...

[selmiak]

my denoising attempts don't give results as smoothass as the video above. It seems more like a blur filter to me, not post rendering noise reduction through data gathered from rendering.


But I modeled some more 3D locations, here is some WIP...

This Scene is supposed to be a huge balcony made from marble with stairs leading up to it. It is actually just a background, and I want to play some animations in front of it. Also I recorded some greenscreen footage of a friend acting that is supposed to interact with the animation. But for now let's focus on the background

Chosing the correct tiles for the floor is important








After fiddeling around for some hours in the nodes editor I settled for the version you see in the last image. All these little bumps make it so different every time and I could have spent more and more time in the nodes editor just for the floor, but modeling is also fun!





These damned pillars won't stand up straight, not even viagra helps. So screw them standing up, this looks pretty cool this way!



Put a handrail on it and finally throw in some more interesting light than just plain white light. This lights up the bright marble like texture pretty well.


Some more lights with an interesting texture on the surfaces and cool shadows on the upper floor.




I smoothed the surface and made it some rough polished marble... hopefully...




Then I did cut some windows out of the wall and even out of the ceiling. please note the nice light that comes through the ceiling holes onto the main floor




And then the nice ceiling light is not that visible any more when you want to have a spotlight on the action supposed to happen in the foreground.

[josiah1221]

Nice, I really like the look of this

[selmiak]

Thank you josiah1221

[Cassiebsg]

Love to see all these work images.
It's great to see how something very sci-fi (1st pic), turned into such a lovely and elegant interior.
The lighting and the materials do make a lot of difference. But think you need to up the samples, it's way too grainy and full of fireflies.

[selmiak]

x1 x2 x3 x4

current and close to final version of the balcony!

[josiah1221]

this is flipping gorgeous!

[KyriakosCH]

I agree, very stylish

It could use some pendentives, though, to make it more byzantine-gothic

[selmiak]

Thanks josiah + kyriakos. There is no dome above all this, so no need for pendentives from an architectural view. But for stylistic reasons I could add some more angles and pendentives. maybe on the next project