3d how i see it

Old King update

2011-12-22T02:09:00.002+02:00

Old king WIP

2011-12-18T18:58:00.001+02:00

Not much time lately for personal projects. Here is a project i'm working on. An old king. Hope u'll like it.

New female(nudity warning)

2011-08-05T14:36:00.006+03:00

I'm working now in my spare time(which is very limited) to a new female char.
Here is the how far i've gone till now:
http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/5608/femalechstrip3.jpg

GA forum - speed texturing competition

2011-05-31T13:22:00.001+03:00

It has been a while since I've posted anything around here....mostly because i have a lot of work which I can't show u right now...I'll have to wait that the game I'm working now to be released.

So this is my texture version for Nimuz's shield
Enjoy it! :)

U can watch the competition here:
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/game-artist-mini-competition/16220-speed-texturing-competition-2-009-shield-2.html

Self-portrait

2010-06-14T16:03:00.004+03:00

Since the begging of my 3d experience i've wanned to recreate myself in 3d.....until now with less success. Now i think i'm close enough with it and after 2 weeks of tweaking and testing and more tweaking i'll call it done.

Software used:
3ds max 2010 - mental ray for rendering
Zbrush
Photoshop

I hope u will like this. :)
Click the images for high resolution.

And here a little turn around

Treasure chest - How to bake correctly normal and ambient occlusion maps

2010-04-30T18:18:00.011+03:00

Hy

In this tutorial i will try to give you a few tips to consider when baking normal map and ambient occlusion for a low poly game asset.
First of all let's introduce our scene.

The scene i've made available for download contains this:
- 1 high poly chest
- 2 low poly chests:
- one with smoothing groups(auto smooth around 50)
- one with only one smoothing group
- 2 low poly baking chests - both with the overlapping faces removed ready to bake the maps from the high poly
- one with smoothing groups
- one with only one smoothing group

You can download it from here
3ds max 2010 scene -http://rapidshare.com/files/381980322/tc_start_tutorial.rar
obj format -http://rapidshare.com/files/381979137/tc_start_tutorial_OBJ.rar

It is generally approved that for a game the props should have just one smoothing group. This is not entirely true. For old gen games and just for some engines this applies. For next gen games this applies only for some very weak engines. Unreal and crytech(the best engines in my opinion right now) don't have this limitation. This idea that one prop should have just one smoothing group appear also because for characters u'll use just one....but that's another story. If u have a continuous surface and with small angles between polys it is normal to have only one smoothing group...u wouldn't want to break...let's say a character face in 2 or more because of the sgroups...it will look bad as hell....but for a chest like this, or for a building or any other thing that has hard edges u should use smoothing groups.

K. Back to our example.
If you look at my start image you will see that the chest in the middle has some serious problems...and all because it has only one smoothing group. One group means continuous surface....imagine that you will make an origami and never strengthen your edges...how it will look? At least odd. The difference between the left chest and the middle one is obvious. Now let's see how this will influence our baked maps.

First step - Setting up the scene for baking
Usually i bake 3-4 maps for a prop - ambient occlusion, normal map, height map and a colored diffuse map to isolate different materials to easy up my texturing. Right now we will bake only 2. Ambient occlusion and normal map.
First of all change the renderer to mental ray. F10 or rendering menu - render setup and in the render setup chose from presets dropdown mental ray no gi. Also check the Enable Final Gather checkbox in the Indirect Illumination Tab and change the preset to low. And also in the Renderer tab change the Sampling Quality this way: minimum samples per pixel 1, maximum samples per pixel 16 and the type of filter to mitchell.

Next step is setting ur environment to white. Press 8 or go to rendering menu - environment. Change the background color to white and make sure no exposure control is activated. Also create a white diffuse standard material and assign it to chest_high.

Now go to create - lights - standard - skylight and create a skylight. Check the use scene environment checkbox at the sky color tab.

Now we are ready to bake.
Select chest_break_sgroups. Press 0(render to texture). Check the Projection Mapping enabled checkbox and pick the chest_high object as target. Don't worry about the distorted cage of the projection. We will repair it immediately. Go to projection modifier and in the cage tab hit the reset button. Then go to push and at amount insert 0.85.

Now back to render to texture window. In the output tab add Ambient Occlusion(MR) and Normal Maps. Change the resolutions to 2048x2048 and also set a path were to save them(default path is ...project/sceneassets/images). Make sure both of them have a target map slot assigned. Hit render. Do the same thing for the chest_break_nosgroups.
This is what you should have now.

U can see that smoothing groups don't affect the aomap. But the normal map looks completely different. Those shades of pink and clear blue in the nosgroups nmap represent different illumination. THIS IS WRONG! Ok. Now u will say that this will compensate with the odd look of the nosgroups mesh....but no...you will see....it will just make it odder.
It's time to preview our baked maps.
Delete the skylight. Hide the high and the baking objects. Unhide the final layer.
Open material editor. The first 2 slots are some standard materials that i've applied to our low poly chests. First is for the nosgroups and the second for the one with smoothing groups. Go in materials and search for the direct x manager(if u have autodesk 3ds max design u won't find it...u'll have to find another way to preview ur mesh...a render perhaps). In the direct x manager select from the dropdown Metal Bump9 and make sure u check the Enable Plugin Material. No go in the DirectX Shader - Metal Bump 9 tab and add as ambient&diffuse texture the ambient occlusion and as normal bump the normal map. Do this for our both materials.

U see? The one in the right(the nosgroups) look ..."bleah!". That's why we need to bake them correctly. All we have to do now is to start making the textures. Use the aomap overlaying it with multiply over the diffuse and you can do beautiful things.

This is what i've did with my chest. Hope you like it.

I hope this tutorial answered some of your questions and i really hope it helped. Until next time bye and i'll wait some texture variants for my chest...let's see what u can do :)

Treasure chest(game prop)

2010-04-23T12:10:00.004+03:00

I've made this chest as an exercise to illustrate how important are smoothing groups when u create a low poly game prop and bake the textures. The start was with a very simple chest but i couldn't stop there so i took it to the next level...this one. Now i can call it finished and start the next one.
C & C are welcomed. Thanks

Software used: 3ds max, Photoshop and a little zbrush
Rendered in marmoset

Monika(W.I.P.)

2010-02-25T15:46:00.004+02:00

Hy

K....back on business after about 8 month that i've been having some personal problems. Right now i'll show u some of my work in progress that i didn't manage to post it until now.
This is monika....a high poly 3d female character done in 3ds max and zbrush, rendered with mental ray. I'll wait your c&c about that. Remember that it is a WIP.

History of glass

2009-08-08T17:22:00.003+03:00

I've always made a 3d glass every time i've tried to explain someone how i do all those things in 3d. A few days ago i've found some old photos with a glass i've worked at over years. Then i realised how much progress i've made. I've decided to make a image to illustrate that. Enjoy it:

Bar stool modeling tutorial

2009-07-21T02:44:00.045+03:00

Hy
Today you will learn how to model a bar stool. We’ll make a bar stool like this:

And this is our reference.

You can dowload the final scene here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/260343182/bar_stood.rar - 5.4 MB
Also you can download the movies high resolution here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/258054636/line_creation.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/258072248/top_creation.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/258116440/glass_panel_creation.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/258118536/pillow_creation.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/259890023/footrest_creation.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/260322056/handle_creation.rar

The movies are swf so you will need flash player to see them. Just open with your internet browser.

Let's start.
Set your units to cm from Customize menu -> Units setup. Also click system unit setup and change from inch to cm.

Right click to snap button and in grid and snap setting -> home grid set grid spacing to 1.

First of all we’ll make a plane so that we’ll have the image in our modeling program. We will only use it as a reference…but we will not follow it exactly. So go in front view and create a plan 96.5 cm length and 48.4 width. In Perspective view go to hierarchy tab and click Affect Pivot Only. After that click Align button and click the plane. Uncheck x and y positions and check target object to minimum. Click ok and click again on Affect Pivot Only to deselect it.

Now right click on Select And Move button to open Move Transform Type-in and set x,y and z position to 0 so that our plane will have the pivot point in the center of our world.

Open Material Editor(default key is M). Create a new standard material. Assign to the diffuse a new bitmap map. Select our bar stool and click ok. Also click the Show standard map in viewport button.

First we will create a shape to define the chair leg. We’ll make a rough shape and add more points later. Before doing that move the plane were we have the image with the chair like in my picture….trying to get the leg symmetry point right in the middle of out grid and a little back so we could see in front view the grid lines. Now go to the Create tab and click the Shapes button. Select line and start adding points along chair profile. After doing that select the line press 1(vertex sub-object mode) and using refine we’ll add more points. Add a few more points were you want the shape to keep it’s form after we will apply turbosmooth modifier. If you are happy with the shape add a Lathe modifier, check Weld Core checkbox and click Min button. Add a Turbosmooth modifier and set iterations to 2.

Also for me it’s the moment when I apply a shader so that I could see how it looks. I use a Arch&Design material and select from the dropdown menu the Chrome material. Also I’m setting an environment map. Press 8(Environment and Effect window), click the map button, select bitmap and load a hdr image. Open the Material Editor and drag and drop the map into one slot and chose instance. In coordinates rollover select for the environment mapping Spherical Environment. Use any HDR image you have. It will give a nice reflection for our chrome material.

Now let’s render it so we’ll see how it looks.

Here you have a video were you’ll see how I’ve made the base for our leg. If you want a higher resolution download it from here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/258054636/line_creation.rar -34.4 MB

Now we’ll make the connection between our leg and the top part.
Create a box (10 cm,10 cm,2 cm). Move in the center of the world and up until it fits our leg. Convert it to editable poly and delete the top polygon. Select the sides edges and chamfer them with 4 segments. Select the bottom polygon and bevel it. 0cm height and -0.3cm outline. Connect the vertexes like in my image to make some nice quads. I use Connect and Cut tool. Apply our chrome material and also apply a Turbosmooth modifier.

In top viewport create a cylinder like mine. 0.9 cm radius, 1cm height and 6 sides. Align it to our box. Convert it to editable poly. Select the top polygon and delete it. Chamfer the side edges with 0.02 cm. Bevel the bottom poly to make a shape like mine. Apply symmetry modifier 2 times. Once for x and once for y. Select the mirror plane for the symmetry modifier and pressing s(snap – default to grid points) snap the mirror plane to the center of the world. If the object disappear just click the flip checkbox. Add a Turbosmooth modifier and apply our material.

Here you have a video were you’ll see how I’ve made the top of our leg. If you want a higher resolution download it from here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/258072248/top_creation.rar -28.4 MB

Next we’ll make the glass panel. Create a box with 40 cm length, 40 cm width and 1 cm height. Align it on top of the box we’ve created before. Select the side edges and chamfer them 6 cm with 4 segments. Connect the edges like in my image. Add a symmetry modifier. Now rotate and move points so you’ll have a nice curvy surface. Select again all the side edges and click on connect button. Change segments to 2 and slide to 38. Press ok. Add a Turbosmooth modifier and apply a Glass(Physics_phen) material. Render to see what you have until now.

Here you have a video were you’ll see how I’ve made the glass panel. If you want a higher resolution download it from here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/258116440/glass_panel_creation.rar-24 MB

Next step is to create the pillow. Select the glass panel. Select the top polygons. Press shift and move up to create a duplicate for those polys. Check Clone to object and press ok. Select the new object. Go to poly level. Select all polys. Press bevel. Set height to 0 and outline -1.9 cm. Scale a little on y axis and move some edges to have a nice flow like in my image. Select the outer polys and delete them. Add a symmetry modifier. Select all the polygons and extrude them with 0.4 cm on local normal. Bevel again with 0 height and -0.4 cm outline. Extrude with 0.06cm to make a hard edge when we will apply Turbosmooth. Bevel again with 0.7 cm height and -0.9 outline. Move some vertexes around so you’ll get the shape wanted(see the picture). Select the outer edges from only one side, shift+drag, weld vertexes and close the backside of our pillow. Select the edge ring from the inside of the pillow and click connect. Set segment at 2 and pinch to 69. Add another edge loop in the middle. Select and rise a little the polys like in my image to get a wavy flow for our pillow. Apply a Turbosmooth modifier and a leather material and we’re done with the modeling for our pillow.
The video variant it’s a little different but it came with the same result.

Here you have the video for the pillow.
Higher resolution:
http://rapidshare.com/files/258118536/pillow_creation.rar -24 MB

Now we will make the legrest. In left viewport create a cylinder like in my image. Set radius to 1 cm, height segments to 1, height to 20 cm and sides to 8. Convert it to editable poly and delete the cap polys. Rotate it like in my image. Now create another cylinder in front viewport this time with radius 1.5, height segments 5, height 20 and 8 sides. Convert it to editable poly also and rotate and move the loops like in my image. Add another loop at the end of our cylinder to preserve the surface when we will add Turbosmooth. Also bevel and collapse the cap polygon. Add another edge loop near the end of our cylinder to create a cap. Select the polys from the end of our cylinder and extrude them on local normal with 0.2 cm. Add two new edge loops to make our edged harder for Turbosmooth. Add a symmetry modifier on z axe and apply our chrome material to both cylinders. Select our first cylinderand move the end points so that they are outside the second one and the leg. Make sure you’ve selected from the Reference Coordinate System dropdown Parent for easy movement. Now we want to stitch them together. Select the leg, click on the editable poly on the modifiers panel. Click attach then click our cylinders. Now there is only one object. Right click to deselect attach button. At our second cylinder add two new edges like in my image. Select the 4 polys that are facing the second cylinder and bevel them like in my image. Delete the new formed polys. With vertex weld connect our two cylinders. Select the connected edge ring and add another loop. Will make the same thing with the base leg. After doing that I saw that the second cylinder was a little too big so I adjust it.
Now we are done with our base leg.

Here you have the video for the legrest.
Higher resolution:
http://rapidshare.com/files/259890023/footrest_creation.rar -49.5 MB

Last thing to make is the handle for rising the chair. For this one I’ll leave only the video. I use the same technique: create, move, add edges, symmetry, add material. Enjoy it.
Here is the video:
High resolution you cand download at: http://rapidshare.com/files/260322056/handle_creation.rar -84.1 MB

At the end you cand play a little with pillow material. I've chosed some plastic shaders. Here is my final render.

Fly energy drink

2009-07-15T04:17:00.006+03:00

Today i have tried to make a design for a energy drink. I've made 3 different models. Hope you'll like it.

Bar chair

2009-07-11T14:36:00.005+03:00

Yesterday i've made a bar chair exclusive for selling on Turbosquid. You can find it here:
http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/475717

modelling and uv layout: 3h
texture: 1h

Necklace

2009-07-06T20:53:00.006+03:00

Today i've finished my necklace that i was working on since yesterday. I'll atach 2 renders. I hope you'll like it. Done in 3ds max 2009. Rendered with mental ray.

First blog - 3ds max caustics tutorial

2009-07-02T22:18:00.017+03:00

Hello there
This is my first blog entry and also my first tutorial.
My name is Georgian(aka nimlot). I will make a tutorial for you. A tutorial about many things but mostly about caustics in mental ray.
I guess that if you search over the internet you should probably find a nice caustics tutorial for 3ds max, but I want to get it a little further. I will try to make a tutorial as detailed as I can because I was always frustrated that after I’ve did some things step by step after a tutorial I was never been able to achieve that last example that the writer showed at the end of it. U know….the image that makes u smile for how beautiful it is. I want to try to get you right there…right at the end….with the best results for you. Hope you’ll enjoy it. Also you can download the final scene. You will find the link at the end. :)
This is what we want to achieve.

I’m using Autodesk 3ds max 2009 but it works in all versions what I do now.
My system:
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz
4 Gb DDR2
Gigabyte Nvidia 9800 GTX+ 512 Mb
OS: Windows Xp SP2 (so only 3.2 Gb of RAM working :( )

Part 1 : Making some nice caustics
So let’s start:
First set your units to cm. In top menu at customize -> units setup select at display unit scale -> metric and from the dropdown select centimeters. Also go to rendering->render setup(F10) and in the render setup window down there where it says presets select mental.ray.no.gi and press ok.
Next create a plane. About 500x500 it would be fine.
Make 4 GeoSpheres like the ones in img.01. Spheres diameter is 10 and 2 segments. In perspective mode select the GeoSpheres and align them to the plane. Select only the z position and set current object to minimum and target object to maximum. Press ok.

Next step is to create a light for our scene. Go to create standard lights and select from there mr Area Spot. In the left viewport create a light just like the one I did(img02). To be sure it is exactly as I did select the light and right click on the Select and Move icon in main toolbar and set the position to -700 cm on x 0 cm on y and 350 cm on z. The target should be in 0,0,0. Change the multiplier to 4. Change the decay to inverse square and set the start point at 1029.4 and at spotlight parameters change the hotspot/beam to 4.5 and the falloff/field to 74.7. And now we have our first light in place. :)

Now we will start making some nice shaders for GeoSpheres.
1. Open material editor and select the first slot. Name it glass. Open material browser, go to new and from there pick Glass(physics_phen). Leave it how it is.
2. Select the second slot and name it chrome. Open material browser and pick from there Arch&Design(mi). In material editor select from the template’s dropdown select (under metals group) chrome. Leave it how it is.
3. Select the third slot and name it brushed. Open material browser and pick also Arch&Design(mi). In material editor select from the template’s dropdown select (under metals group) brushed metal. Leave it how it is.
4. In the 4th slot we will make a more complex material. Select a slot and name it ruby. Open material browser and pick raytrace. On raytrace basic parameters check the faceted box. Click on the diffuse color and set it to rgb=141,0,0. Click on the transparency color and set it to rgb=255,77,68. Set the index of refraction to 1.77. Click on the specular color and set it to rgb=255,144,144. Set the specular level to 136 and glossiness to 40. Click the button next to reflect and select the falloff map. Change the falloff map to Fresnel and deselect the Override Material IOR checkbox. Go back to your base material and in Extended Parameters rollover, in the Advanced Transparency tab check the Color checkbox and change the end to 20. Click on the color square and change it’s color to RGB=172,0,0. Now go to the SuperSampling rollover and deselect Use Global Settings. From the dropdown select Max 2.5 Star. And we’re done.
5. In the 5th slot create a standard material with diffuse RGB=100,100,100 and assign it to the plane.
6. Now assign to every GeoSphere one of the materials we’ve created.

Create a camera just like mine and make a test render(F9). It should look like this.

Now it’s time to see some caustics :D. Usually caustics are a problem. You have to play with them a lot until you will get the result you want. For instance if you don’t want to wait too much on render you will have to accentuate the intensity of caustics too see them. I will show you how. Select your GeoSpheres and right click in viewport. Go to Object Properties. Now go in Mental Ray tab and click the Generate Caustics checkbox. Click ok. Now we have the caustics generators. All we need now is to tell the renderer to render them. Open Render Setup window(F10) and go to Indirect Illumination tab. Go to Caustics and Global Illumination tab and check the Enable checkbox under Caustics. Now let’s see what we have.

Pff…..almost nothing. Don’t despair….it’s only the beginning.  There are 2 important values to play with when creating caustics. The first one is the multiplier and the second one is the average caustics photons per light. The multiplier is useful when we don’t want to wait a long time at render and we don’t need to achieve a too much realistic render. Increasing the multiplier value will make caustics more intense. I usually use it when I want to see how it comes. The average caustics photons per light is the key for realism. More photons means more accuracy. You will see. In our the image above we barely distinguish any caustics so it will be a good idea to increase the multiplier value. Increase it to 10 and let’s see what we have there.

Now we have something. This means we’re doing great.  Don’t change the multiplier value and change the average caustic photons per light to 100000. Let’s see how it goes now.

Now we have some nice caustics. Let’s play a bit longer. Change the multiplier to 5 and the average caustics photons per light to 500000. Watch out….it will take much longer to render. We’ll see some much realistic caustics. I like them but I think it should be more intense. So I will let the multiplier around 8 or so. This will be the our optimized values for the final render. If you want more depth than increase average caustics photons per light until you are satisfied. For now I think 500000 it’s enough.

Now we will play a little with the light. Just for fun. Move the light a bit closer to our GeoSpheres. Let’s say x=-415 cm and z=190 cm. Also change the decay start point to 607 cm. Change the multiplier value to 8 and average caustics photons to 100000. Let’s see how it looks.

Nice. I really like how it looks. I wonder how it will be if we go closer. Let’s move the light to x=-210cm and z=75cm. Also change the decay start point to 327cm and the hotspot/beam to 12.

Nice. But now the caustics are too intense. So let’s see how it works with multiplier set to 1.5 and the number of photons to 1 mil.(1000000). Don’t worry my render time is still under 1 minute(around 40s).

I would say it’s much nicer. Next thing to do is to get rid of those ugly shadows and get some nice smooth shadows. Select the light and go to the modify panel. Go to Area Light Parameters rollout. Increase the height and width of the rectangle to 100. Also increase the U and V samples to 20. Let’s test it.

Now it looks better. I’m proud of you. Last image took about 2 minutes to render.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I'll post another one in a few days so stick arround.

Here is the link for the scene:
http://rapidshare.com/files/251183657/caustics01.max.html