My First Post:

[voodrew]

This is the first room of a full castle. I am designing this for a table top role playing session. Took 5 weeks of my free time (not all spent on this project).
Final render was 1536x1152. Total size is 850K poly's. I used 3ds Max 6 with Mental Ray render.
C & C welcome.

[megadave2002]

hey looks pretty good, the only crit I have is the green carpet looks like astroturf (fake grass), maybe it is too shiney.

[Karikoga]

Nice. I especially like that area below the parapet.
Dim the lights from the chandeliers. They are too bright. Try to use UVW on the walls - the bricks are just too massive, as big as a door.

[voodrew]

Thanks for the replies.
Fucherballs: I agree. It does look like astroturf, but I had problems with finding a material that looked more like a rug or carpet. That material is actually the blue carpet material from 3ds max material library. I will keep my eye out for a better carpet material.

Karikoga: The walls are actually using uvw mapping. The bricks ARE massive, but only half the size of a door ;). As for the Chandeliers, I played with them for quite some time dealing with combining lower levels and ambient levels, but the whole room was lit wrong for that. Not moody enough. I intend to let my players help furnish the rooms, so as more objects are added, I may have to play with the lighting again.

Thanks for taking the time to comment, both of you. The dining room is next on my plan list.

[megadave2002]

You should be able to modify the color and glossiness on that mat.

[voodrew]

Ok. Upped the ambient light, changed the tiles, and the carpet materials

[Track_Maniac]

The carpet looks a bit out of place now. The green is too vibrant and clashes with the rest of the scene. I would suggest maybe putting an embroidery pattern or something like that on the carpet and making it less saturated. Other than that I think the modeling is well done and the other textures look very good. Keep up the good work. :D

[Puckducker]

Cool little design....I especially enjoy the horse banner hanging in the center.

Few things. Tone down the reflections in the floor.....they are really killing the compostion of the picture. Give them a bit of fall off, so they don't appear so mirror like.

Also, lighting needs a lot of work. I saw that you've addressed the problem, so I'll just try to offer some help. Subtly is key in lighting...looks like you're place is lit up like the Ritz. Think about how a castle like that would actually be lit....probably by candle light, so right away, your main lights are going to have a lot of orange in them. It's also going to create a lot of dynamic, deep shadows all over the place too.

Just to start you off...start by placing a key light where the chandallier is...give it a bit of orange and make sure it's casting shadows. Then, just keep adding lights to brighten up the places that are TOO shadowy. Don't over saturate your scene with light, just use those fill lights to take out some of the black in the shadows, and illuminate the backs of the objects a bit.

Hope that helps you out a bit.

[voodrew]

Puckducker: Thanks for the input. As for the lights, I explained that they are a work in progress. I will try to add a bit more yellow/orange to see what comes up. I found that the lights as they were did not allow the picture to be printed right (TOO dark). I was a bit disappointed in that since there are a total of 9 chandelliers and 2 sconces by the back doors.
I only intend to have 3 rooms over lit like this: The main hall (what I have posted so far), the dining hall, and the throne room. The rest will be shadowy and moody.

Comparing the original post and this new one, I see that I did up the reflectivity too much on the floor tiles. I will correct this on the next post.

I am still trying to correct the carpet. If I could find a decent pattern for the edge, I would add it.

Again, thanks for taking the time to critique.

Drew