[spectacular] my entry

[zman]

sup everyone.
CGTalk is waay too big and I thought it'll be nice to get some crits and help in a more personal envierment :)

here's my thread there -
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=2648159#post2648159

here's the latest test i made for the tower

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1126866097_large.jpg

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1126866661_large.jpg
i'll soon post the concept with more details on what i got in mind
what do u ppl think so far ?

[Nippur]

Hi, the scene looks quite good bud I have a few crits for you, The first thing is that the meshsmooth wasn't necessary in my opinion. I think you could get the same result using chamfering. And maybe it would be better because using meshsmooth you get some useless polygons. And since you copy the basic wall really many times, using chamfer instead meshsmooth can save you a lot of polys. The second thing is that the scene looks too much symetrical. I think it could look better with some random details on the tower.

[NULLL]

Aye i agreed with Nippur on the symetrical thing, i'd just remove some of those section and replace them with some re-modelled ones that look a tad different. Perhaps add some sections that show cracks or other signs of aging, perhaps a few stone statues or small ornaments here and there would be nice.

Maybe you could also rotate each of the layers of the tower a bit, to break the symmentry. Right now i see one big line running from the bottom of the tower to the top and that draws alot of attention in your composition, where the attention of the viewer should be focussed on the tower as whole instead.

[Freespace-3DT]

Can such a building be built? Technically speaking, I don't think bricks can handle such pressure that a twenty story tower like that can create. Also, how many hours would it take to get to the top, did they have elevators? :) These are just some realistic questions, but regarding the artistic nature of your entry, with a little more detail ( like what Nippur and NULLL so well noted ) and maybe a sky in the background, it could become something great!

[zman]

finnaly found some free time this weekend ...

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1127592252_large.jpg

besides some modeling progress, my time was also spent for more carefull planning on how to proceed with this. I've decided to not use meshsmooth. there are 2 meanning to this - my workflow will be much slower as i chamfer everything by hand and when i will wanna make changes, it would mean dealing with much higher poly count on the base mesh.
the second meanning to this is that i cut the poly count by 300% ...

anyways, I've focused mainly on the lower part of the tower - the first 2 levels and the beggining of the spiral part. I know it all might look too repetetive. I'm planning on changing that as much as I can to have a good base and then add the real details that will make the variation - flags, torches, plants and so on (plz give me more ideas for details :)

I think i'll take a little break from the tower and start on the city around it now.


this is my (very basic and general) concept btw :)
http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1127417050_medium.jpg

[Ilkejav mk5]

my only crit is that because of the spiral parts, the tower looks crooked... really weird... and the perspective really doesn't help...

Maybe to add a large columns running the entire length of the tower straight up could correct this illusion...

Edit: oh and the grass texture looks crappy...

[zman]

just thought I'd share some of the refference images I've collected on the net to get a good idea of the originaltower design.
I plan to keep the general look close to the original as i see in the paintings and then add my own stuff while stil keeping the base the same as it was ... and then start destroing it :)

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128024183_large.jpg


ok, so this is what i got so far on the tower. as you can see, I kept the basic shape the same as i saw in the refference with my own touch. I plan on giving it much more details and variation to break the repetetivness later on. next up is making the city below it to give the sence of scale.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128076115_large.jpg

[Ravens]

really nice, !! great work! Also your portfolio :)

[RideStowe]

looks amazing so far, from that concept render/sketch i cant wait to see the final product :D

[zman]

Weekend again ...
This is 3 variations of the "simple" city houses. I'm trying to keep it looking biblical and simple looking.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128158933_large.jpg

if anyone's got some good "biblical houses / cities" refference, it could sure help me now with some inspiration for more variation in the designs.

[RideStowe]

nice work so far, keep us updated!

[Ilkejav mk5]

cool stuff

[zman]

By now I've been through lots of refference image from the biblical times. One of the most common props I've seen was vases. This prop will take a large role in my scene to fill in details and live up boring areas. Thats why I've made quite a few variations of it (model and texture).

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128191612_large.jpg

[zman]

I've decided to put a minitower somewhere in the center of the city pretty close to where the babylon tower begins. The tower itself is just about as high as the first floor of the babilon tower. In the screenshot, u can clearly start getting a sence of scale by familiar things "we know".

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128292692_large.jpg

[zman]

nothing much this time.
these bricks are gonna serve me to construct some basic stuff i have in mind like a well. they will also take a roll in this project once I start "bringing the tower down" :)
Like with the vases, i hate it when its so noticable when something was modeled once and just got clonned all over the place so I made a few variations in the details.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128339463_large.jpg

[gnome]

if you're really planning to create things with these bricks, you should remove all unnecessary verts / edges. this will save you some polys, and with so many bricks, it could be thousands ;)
I also thinks that the lower part of the building should be horizontal.

[zman]

stil working on stuff to fill the city with. I needed ideas stuff that biblical cities needed and a well was pretty obviuse. stil need some good ideas. I think I'll make a marketplace area.


http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128398485_large.jpg

[RideStowe]

man you're putting alot of detail into this! nice work

[zman]

thnks :)

more props and stuff to spread around :)
I allwais try to keep it looking very detailed with a relatively low/medium poly count keeping in mind the size of the final scene ...

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128457426_large.jpg

[Wanderer]

Nice. Good luck

[RideStowe]

if you keep the poly count low enough, after the contest you could sell off the models to a game company :)

[Josiah]

Hey, I like this one. I will be here for updates...

[Kiss Csaba]

I can't wait ot see this finished! Fantastic and absolutly amazing job! What render do you use for this?

[zman]

I've decided its time to start constructing the actual city. The general plan is to have a sea with some ships (yeah more stuff to model...) on the right, have a marketplace near the shore, have the "mini" temple on the center and the city houses on the left.

I am now reworking the lighting setup to make it all look good. I am going with a bit darker setup than what i planned so i could light stuff locally with torches and stuff to break the evanness.

I stil gotta re-arrange everything and build much more stuff to fill the city with. Lots of stuff before I evan get back to working (and ruinning) on the tower itself.

I just with i'll have the time :)



anyhoo, here's a viewport shot of what i got so far.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1128805593_large.jpg


Polycount btw, is currently standing on 4 Million so I'll have to start killing polys from stuff that wont be seen by the camera (the back of the well, the back of the temple and stuff like that).

[Freespace-3DT]

Superb detail. The modelling, texturing and lighting is on the spot! But that tower looks very crooked to me, look at the huge difference in axis between the ground and the first floor, it's like the Pisa tower in Italy ( ready to fall ) ...

[ThinkTank]

Amazing work, i'll keep close eye on this...
Freespace, think the idea was to have it crookid!

[EvaX]

OMFG!
My back itches when i'm looking to this :|

This is really great stuff :)
I'm looking forward to see the complete scene!
Keep it up!

[dravenfr]

Wow !

I'm speechless !

It's really incredible ... great job !

More pics ... :)

[limion]

how did you make those bricks exatly? they look fairly simple to model, but i wouldn't know where to start!

[Nippur]

I like your work a lot. By adding those details you have improved it a lot. And BTW your textures are really nice :)

[Freespace-3DT]

Yeah, this whole scene went a lot from the way you showed it in your first few posts, dude. :) Keep it up, I'm waiting to see the final one.

[mrc64]

This is a very cool work!!! wow
Nice texture work, and lightning!

[RodFlanders11]

Wow great work! If I may ask, did you make the clouds (in the render on the first page of this thread) in the 3d program, or is it photoshop work after the render?

[Sky_Eagle]

This is looking very good !
The textures are amazing.
Did you made them yourself?

Allso how can you work with a tower over more then 3.500 000 polygons ? what kind of computer have you got ? Since mine would blow then i think. (and its a pretty fast machine )

[zman]

Thnx guys.
rodflanders11 -the coulds are photoshop work from lots of different photos, it was put as the backround and as 1 of the fog colors (I got 4 different fogs in the envierment settings) with a matching fog opacity map.

sky_eagle -I didnt paint all the textures from scratch if thats what you'r asking ... I took and edited in PS most of them. most materials are also a mix of a few with some procedural masks.
as for the polycount, I cant. so far most of the tower is instanced geometry. later on when i focus more on it and on breaking the repetiticness, I'll break the instance (which will make it much more heavy), add detail, and tweak out anything that wont be visible to the camera.

Anyhoo, I need to post a lighting milestone and now is a good time so here it is -

At this point I got a pretty good idea of how everything will be put togheter and I have a solid base. I think its a good time to setup the "final" lighting setup in general (with more minor tweaks in the end) so that I could make everything accordingly. there are 2 "key sidlights" that come from both sides, warm from the sun which is just starting to set and cold blue from the other side. the other lights are pretty much fill lights. Like I said, i wanna make this a sorta afternoon lighting so it won't be too dark but it could be lit locally with torches later on.

anyhoo, renders of the city are soon to come. I stil wanna add/tweak tons of stuff before i show :)

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1129147428_large.jpg

[RodFlanders11]

Wow I've never seen that method of using planes for background objects, makes a lot of sense though now that I've seen the way you've done it. Great job! Oh, and you've gotta love 3DS's light lister eh :)

You must have a supercomputer to render all those polys and raytraced shadows man hehe...

[zman]

Just thought I'd share this test render that I made overnight. There are tons of things to add and change here.

The scene is currently a bit over 4 million polys so I really gotta start optimizing and deleting any face that the camera doesnt actually see...

I think I'll start working on people next up. They will take an importnat role in this after all.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1129300277_medium.jpg

[claWda]

cool stuff and great progress! I have one crit though

if you look at the fading tower in the sky it symbolizes might and almost something supernatural, but then you look at the ground at it looks like a holiday resort, I'd suggest that you replace the palm trees with more generic trees and also, the ground color should be more gray/green, don't you think?

my overall impression of this scene is very positive, will be looking forward to some updates!

[zman]

claWda - thnx M8. I've been through tons of images/movies for inspiration for props and envierments such as lotr,troy,kingdom of heaven,stargate and so on. obviusly those are not movies from the bibilical times BUT they do have the atmosphere that I'm going for and palm trees took a role in ALL of them !
Regadless of that, I love palm trees :)

[claWda]

okay I get your point, I really like your image so I studied it some more and saw what bothers me, again, this is just MY opinion but I'm sure you appreciate any input :)

anyway, the background shows mountains covered with snow and the overall atmosphere in the image is cold and rigid because of the mountains and the sky, so I simply changed the ground color in photoshop to something less warm - I know it's a WIP but try changing the ground texture, that way you could still keep your beloved palm trees ;) hope you don't mind me posting this pic, keep working!

[zman]

Ey man
I've just tweaked the sand to something I really like + I've added another snow mountain layers and I like how things are now.
BUT
I actually really like the idea of starting some grass there where the houses end so I might actually go with that later on :)

[chris89]

good idea clawda :)

NEway, its coming on really great, keep it up zman

[zman]

Adding details, deleting poligons,Adding details, deleting poligons,Adding details, deleting poligons (those that the camera cannot see like the back oh the houses / minitower and so on) ...
I'm beginning to think the real art here is to deal with the hardware limitation. I stil got so much stuff I wanna add but the render allready crashes sometimes (thats allwais my sign to keep finding stuff to optimize).

Anyways, I've also decided to lower the camera angle a bit. I think its alot better when its almost at the person level (at the cost of showing less of the city, but it actually makes the city look more dense). I've also re arranged the city houses to look more dense. Next up is to add a bit more plant types, add some torches, add more people, add some cammels, working more on the market, and then get back to the tower and start ruinning stuff :)

I got 2 GB of ram, I'm really pushing them to the limit ! :)

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1129549606_large.jpg

[niki]

wow massive work!
I like the scene .. I cant wait to see it finished ..
keep up the good work!

[RodFlanders11]

Wow the city does indeed look way more dense from that lower perspective!

[Berglte]

Holy ****! Incredible detail you got there. I really hope you win that challenge.
But, I do have one tiny problem with this scene. The "minitower" in front of the the gigantic one.
It looks quite small, but when you start to think about it, you realize it must be huge (if it was real). And so it just looks looks odd when compared to that big tower behind it.
Maybe if you add some stalls and other smaller stuff near it, it would look more right.
But anyway, 4 stars from me.

[zman]

Hell.

Its been hell in the past few days trying to render what I got. I allready passed the limits long time ago and decided to split the scene this way - the city (bottom left), the market and sea (bottom middle to right), the tower, and effects in the end.

I've been focusing on the city lately, trying to keep it in very high detail level, yet optimizing whereever I can.

I've now reached the point when the rendering of the city alone crashes at some point. so I divide it into rendering the city in a different pass and the city trees in a different pass (lots of alpha maps take alot of the memory evan if the poly count is relatively low!), EVAN that crashes from time to time.

I'll end up rendering everything in the end (evan if it means tons of render regions and compositting togheter small chunks in PS), but I just had to share my desperation with you now that the render has crashed for about the 100'th time.



Anyways, 'nuff ranting for one day. I'm pretty much done with the city (xcpt for the rendering part). added lots of trees for the desertish atmosphere, torches to light areas locally and make things look more dense that way and break the repetetiveness look, and peaople.



I gave all the (low poly) ppl a basic rig so that I could make alot of varriations in their pose. Like I said before, this scene takes place at about the second that the tower was "attacked", thats why I wanna make some people look shocked, some ppl look scared and running around and some ppl are stil in their normal day occupation, not evan realizing yet what is happenning.



I hope I could start rendering everything togheter, I stil wanna add a few more details in the city before it is final, luckily I have a full time job, so I'll render all the passes (of just the city that is) during the week and have something to show next week. I really need to start moving on as I stil got tons of stuff to do ...


http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1129997970_large.jpg

[zman]

ok
I seem to find a way to lower the quality enaugh to be able to render everything at once for a preview.
Just tought I'de share it with you. sorry if its hard to make out the details cause of the low quality. this is less than half of the original resolution btw. ignore the empty part on the right part, its on my to-fill list

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1130016008_large.jpg

[Freespace-3DT]

Incredible detail, and quality!! Congratulations for this hard work and for having to go through literally hundreds of crashes.

[Sylphx]

not to burst any bubbles or anything but, early civilizations such as babylon didn't have arch technology, unless it was corbelled and even then it was extremely rare. The tower of Babel would have probably been a giant ziggaraut. Not that it really matters though because the work is incredible, and the contest doesn't seem to be based on reality but on the grandeur of the image.

Awesome work, sorry about my little Art History lesson.

[zman]

the city, rendered in many passes (different objects rendered seperatly and occlusion pass). It is pretty much done for now, I guess it will stil go through some major tweakings once I get other stuff done.
now its time to focus on the market and the sea.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1130354952_large.jpg

[RodFlanders11]

This is totally insane, and getting better and better which is just awesome. What scares me is when you said, "lots of alpha maps take alot of the memory evan if the poly count is relatively low!" I'm counting on alpha maps to make tons of foliage for an animation I'm working on, I was really hopin gusin galpha maps would give me more memory to work with :(

Anyway keep up the amazing job!

[zman]

well
I guess I kinda went overboard with them
I got tons of different ones to avoid the "clonned" look, I coulda easily have the same result with 25% of them ... they are pretty high res too ... (print resolution for final image...).

[zman]

Not much new, just a test render of what I got so far on the dock / market in full resolution.
On the to-do list (probably in that order) - build some wooden planks for ships to dock, model more details for the market tents and start arranging them better with more stuff, add ppl, add animals, add big stuff falling into the water causing splashes and so on.


http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1130511889_large.jpg

[Tank[NL]]

sick :eek: :drool:

[zman]

started shaping up the market.
stil lots of details (objects and ppl/animals) needed to fill the place.


http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1130621216_large.jpg

[Starbucks]

this is great simply great... but I fave a few crits.... the "Tower of Babel" wasnt that high... If you are going by Biblical refrerence which Im sure you are you know that the people "tryed" to build the tower to reach the Heavens... to go to God. God saw what they were doing and stopped them by changing their tongues. This is were our many languages begins. So having the tower of babel so high is kind of an orthodox. And the Modern look in the tower is not so accurate. Though your houses and misc have the right accurate material you may want to be using on your tower. Im saying this because the edges and structure are a little sharp and modern than what they could have done around BC. Take this pic for example... this is when God confused the tongues

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/Confusion_of_Tongues.png

Your Tower is a liitle high and should if you want be brought down some.

I love the fact that you have different colors, great, smalls, and all types of people. This signifies that people lived all together once....

I love the fact that you are doing this ...and what an great job you have done keep it up... but if you would keep my tips in mind :wave:

Superb:p

[zman]

I recall reading somewhere that man has allwais been facinated by 2 things - fire and water.
well I keep the fire part for the end, Now I've started with the water. This is why I wanted to catch the ocean too in the composition. I've made some splashes caused by stuff that started to fall apart from the tower.
I'll stil put the "messy" part on hold a bit as I have to finish the market first and then finish up the tower as a whole, but after that comes the fun part of bringing it all apart :)

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1130795703_medium.jpg

[Vozzza]

Ok this is truly amazing! I was thinking of entering, but i got like no chance what so ever. even if i had the technical and artistic skills, I would never have enough patience.

No honestly it's just amazing. You should probably look at the game black and white. They have heaps of this stuff and the 2nd one has some cool special effects i heard.

[zman]

OK, "my" babylon city is allmost done now. I could go on with the details in it for another month but I stil got tons of stuff to do on other parts of the image and only 30 days to go ...
I stil wanna add alot of mess in the market place as it is the crouded place and the ppl are allready outside and some of them are the first to see this comming (some are not as it is just happenning. I'm gonna take this weekend to add final details in the market (stuff laying around, torches, flags and anything that would make sence) and start adding some dust and other stuff.
I'll probably do all the renders during the week.
starting next weekend its back to the tower and some specialFX :)

sorry for the bad JPG quality
(I had to save this image on low quality to keep it at 150K ).

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1131061220_large.jpg

[zman]

well, its weekend again.
about 30 days left for the deadline. this is the deadline I gave myself to work on the city. I could easily go instane with the details for another month but I do have to remind myself constantly that I stil have the rest of the image to work on.
anyways, added more ppl running around, standing shocked or falling from the impact, also added some animals, some more items that fit the time and place and flags that will also take a role later on on the tower. since babylon was the center where all cultures meet and work togheter, I'll make alot of more different flags that symbolize different cultures.
here are some closeups on some parts of the market.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1131214050_large.jpg



babylon city. done.
at least the modeling / texturing of it.
now I have all the week to face rendering it (in very small chunks that will be placed carefully togheter in PS)
I will also render occlusion passes and effects (dust and stuff like that).
aint gonna be easy.
I'm actually pretty surprized I was able to show everything at once in the viewport :)

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1131214305_large.jpg

[Ilkejav mk5]

wow! how can your computer stand all those polygons!?!?!? mine would probably implode and transform into a supernova. :smug:

[Starbucks]

those mountains have snow on them?

[zman]

Finnaly !
After rendering seperatly quite a few bits a pieces of this, I can finnaly put the city render togheter to one pic.
I stil need to render some other passes of the city and make some PS work. I'll post lots of closeups on all the details when I will be totally done with the city which hopefully will be before the weekend will be done.
I really went too far with the city ;)

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1131566771_large.jpg

[USED]

:o speechless 5*****'s

[zman]

Occlusion, fog, fire and other passes and fixes were rendered and compossited in the last 2 days. I could easily spend another month going crazy on the small details of the city but I have waay too much stuff left to do and only about 3 weeks to go...

**** plz note that I had to save this JPG at a really LOW quality to get this file to less than 150K so keep that in mind (it really ruinned the quality) *****
I will probably post some better quality close ups later tonight.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1131735887_large.jpg

[niki]

great ..it's a nice and massive scene.. I really like the big building and maybe this shot penalizes it (just my opinion), maybe you could tilt the angle upward to show more of the building..
keep it up!

[Freespace-3DT]

It's a "spectacular" work, zman! Only thing that bothers me are those palm-trees to the right, because, in contrast to the rest of the image, they look rather fake and simple. Dude, the fog pass does wonders for the overall aspect!

[zman]

OK, back to the tower, here's a render of all I got so far put togheter. I've re-tweaked the lighting on the tower.

This whole work really got me thinking about the meanning behind the whole babylon story. You could say that babylon mainly simbolizes 2 major things (at least for me) -

1 - peace. when you think about it, this was really the last moment in human history when menkind was united and worked togheter to achieve a common goal (2). after this event, god gave us many different languages to create confusion and seperation. mankind had some sort of seperation forever since.

2 - The will to break the bounderies and advance. (need I say more ?)


planned things to do and timeline -

this week to weekend - add as much extra details to the tower as I can to break the repetetivness (such as minor changes in designs, torches, flags, give me other suggestions :) .

next week to weekend - start wreaking some parts on the tower and start working on the effects.

last week to weekend - work some more on the effects and start to finalazie stuff which include mainly color correcting and photoshop enhancing.

Its gonna be tight, very tight :\

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1131817621_large.jpg

[Sky_Eagle]

A impressive massive scene you got there.
Was the render time of your last render ?

Keep it up , can't wait to see the final result

[zman]

"my latest render" - well, I just rendered the tower and comp'd it into what I worked on so far (which you can sum in a few days of just rendering different parts / passes).
the original (tower) render is twice higher res, and it took a few hours.

[USED]

you are the master of all that is great! I am simply amazed, you better win this thing zman!

[Starbucks]

Ok I may put my two cents in

This in an miracolous model

But

1. Do you plan on changing the background? Because I dont think palm trees in an snowy enviroment go together.

2. What year is this set on? Its gotta be know n' days right? I say this because of the architect of the building , the design... It looks modern. And plus how did those people build that tower so high?

[vectorealms]

Palm trees and snowy mountains do go together... like in the desert, its 140 degreed and there is still snow on the mountains...

[zman]

USED-3DT - :) :o :crazy: :evil:

Starbucks - This is something I asked myself alot before putting this backround: can there be a snowy backround in a desert envierment ? the answer is yes. it is quite far away.
and yes, it doesnt make sence does it ? look at all the refference drawings I posted earlier in this thread, they dont make sence either. lots of biblical stories dont make sence. maybe thats what makes them spectacular ;)

nph_assassin - what I just said. + I plan on having lots of stuff happening there anyways so it wont be that noticable anyways ...

[Starbucks]

Ok I understand...hmm I just Learned something about that palm/snow subject.

And yes The Bible is spectacular

[zman]

ok, before starting to ruin the tower, I am making some more variation in the details.
I will also spread some props on it like torches and flags of all the cultures next.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1131921729_large.jpg

[zman]

've spent the last few days adding more details to the tower itself. I also made lots of different flags of all the cultures and some torches. I've actually placed them one by one and gave them some variation so they wont look repetetive and clonned (wind effects for flags and different fire/light settings for torches).

Here are a few quick viewport shots. the render doesnt crash now cause I am working with alot of instances (so it doesnt metter too much I am on the 3.5 million polycount :| ) but it gives me other issues. I hope I'll post a render tomorrow and get on to the effects.


http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132269522_large.jpg

[notaloser]

looks great man, absolutely spectacular :)

my only advice is that the mountains in the background look a little too bright for the lighting setup and overall mood.. otherwise, amazing

[Wanderer]

Look nice. Good work.

[zman]

OK, ITS RENDERED!

here are some close ups on the tower's details
http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132326045_large.jpg

And here's what i got so far compossited in.

This is the last time you can see babylon tower standing peacfully like that ;)

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132326203_large.jpg

next up - effects and mess.

[DaftPunk]

Word to the wise, Instead of using a mesh smooth on those bricks, just take that mesh-smooth and use a projection mesh to push a normal map onto the previous version, your viewport and rendering woudl go much faster that way.

What kind of videocard do you have anyway? Thats a huge ammount of polygons to have in a sceen.

[TheWinterLord]

wow beutiful work man! good luck keep it up!

i wish i had a higher resulution imgae of the whole thing because the only part that look weird (i dont know how to fix this) anywyas it looks like the, i must say beutiful, boats arent on water...

sry i dont have a clue why i think so but that the small pic is telling me, sry for making it sounds bad, maybe experiment a bit with it to make it look better... maybe its because on the rest of the pic on that distance there isnt tah much detail because of the sand in the air (dust)
sry.

maybe im wrong

anyways, it looks amazing ZMAN!

[RideStowe]

looks fantastic, the ONLY crit i have its the fire doesnt quite look right, maybe a lack of smoke?

[TheWinterLord]

hey u got a lot of competition, good luck! one more thing, when u look at ur picture you have to look extra to notice that the palm trees on the right goes behind the blue tent, maybe change the contrast between the tent and water a bit more?

i put this pic, in my holy nice 3d collection folder hehe.

[Stubby-]

Thats insane detail....

Wish i had a pc that could handle so many polys.

Cant wait to see the end result. :D

[zman]

Ok, this is what I got so far.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132524391_medium.jpg


I was testing and trying to figure out what will work best for this image all weekend. I came to the conclusion that I cant do what I originally planned (with lots of fireballs thrown into the tower) because It will get the composittion too busy and mainly because I dont have enaugh time to get into the detail level I wanted if I did go ahed with it.
I'm actually stil trying to figure out what I wanna do with what I got now (considering I got 15 days left). I am pretty happy with it so I may not make any more major changes and focus on more local fixes and additions.


Envierment closeup1 - spiral clouds
http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132523584_medium.jpg
A close up on the spiral clouds that surround the upper part of the tower.


Envierment closeup2 - birds on the run
http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132523853_medium.jpg
A close up on birds flying away before the mess will start.
I plan on making lots of more birds later on. I sorta have problams getting them in the right sence of scale because they are just small dots to the full image if I make them smaller than this ...



Envierment closeup3 - the will of god
http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132524027_medium.jpg
A close up on the "source" of all the mess that is about to come.
It also justifies the blue lighting I had all along coming from the upper left :)

[andoy]

just my opinion but i can't help being drawn to the trees i've outlined in RED, i think you should get rid of these, they are not helping the composition.
Then the tree outlined in blue, try to make it just slightly larger so it is not the same height as the building.
sorry to draw on your image but i am sure you understand...
Fabulous work by the way and i do wish you the best of luck..

[ThinkTank]

i'm loving the image, but from the start i've hated HATED HATED the mountain background you've used. it's doesn't belong there!!!!!! try and use something else!

great work!

[zman]

I've been doing tons of tweaks and minor additions to the sky details. I'm afraid that by this point I might have lost my objectivness with this image and I dont wanna go overboard with the skies in general and especially with the effects on the right. I keep trying to limit myself not to get it overbright and to keep it fitting in.

here's a closeup on it and how it works with the entire composittion.
what do you think ?

I should mention that I'm gonna try to do something to the tower this weekend that might change the composittion alot, but most chances are I'll stick to what I got now (besides alot of more local tweakings).


http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132693339_large.jpg

[Sky_Eagle]

I like the it alot !
Did you painted the clouds yourself or are they made with the software you use ?

[sicarius]

...I think you should expand the image a bit, it seems like you are crunching everything into that little space and i know oyu want to make it seem cluttered, but try spreading things out a bit more (which is just my opinion)..
Otherwise it looks extremely good. It looks GREAT even with it being that cluttered. Keep up the good work

[djmj_1000]

damn i followed this thread a long time and did not post

but now you do a excellent job

your picture shows a lot of action going on, what I really like, you can feel the people moving, how many hours did you spend on it till now ?

can we get a detail shot of the sand and the right side because the sandtexture needs some improvement i think

i agree with the palm and the left palm to get a little higher

even if the tower focuses the attention, the palms just dont match with it ;)

but i bet you know and will surprise us

Is this work just for fun ?

the snow and the thunder I dont know, i can get familiar with the thunder, but not with the snow, because if it is like 100km away, it would still be too cold for palm trees,

the thunder is like a circular pulsar, not a real thunder, or did you not intent to make it real

edit: saw you intent to do it that way ;)

[ThinkTank]

i still love it but i hate them snow mountains in the background
(maybe some jagged dark black sharp moutains like the one in lord of the rings :-D :D
-also i think the foreground is to yellow (the whole of the foreground) with the sky you've got you wouldnt get such a bright "yellow" light on the ground area, more blue i think to give it some contrast. i really love the sky you've made, maybe talk us through the process? :D

good work

[Gab]

amazing..
speechless..

keep up the good work my friend.

[Jenova]

WOW. WOW. WOW. I cant wait to see it get destroyed XD

[zman]

I'm experimenting with an idea I had that could solve some of the issues I have.
its not gonna look exactly the way I am showing in the screen, but thats the idea.
kinda hard to tweak render good volumetrix in such high res.
I hope I get the results I want by sunday or I probably drop it and finalize the image.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1132961244_medium.jpg

[demu]

that computer has to carry out such a work?????
I congratulate you zman!! and for the time being I give you 5*****¨s but it continues working in this that I want to see it finished..
it impresses me..
a hug zman..
demian. :)

[achilleale]

really good choice!
the athmosphere is quite real, maybe a little DOF in the first level!

:halo: and :evil: ahahahahaha!!!!!!
nice finish it!

[zman]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1133033077_medium.jpg



It is quite nice to have 2 computers to work on at the same time.

the above screenshot of the particles only showed 10% of the particles. I have set it to use quite alot of particles at a very VERY low density, resulting in a very soft and "dusty" look (as oppose to the solid crisp look). I am now rendering it at the full resolution and thats gonna take about 70 hours(!).

Meanwhile, I'm doing lots of general and local twaeks to this piece and I'll see in a few days how (if at all) to implement the spiral dust render.



I've added another slight fog pass to balance the image, did lots of color adjustments, started adding some local cracks to the tower(more to come) and added rays of light comming from the right. the rays are something I had in my mind for quite sometime. For me, if the blue lightning thing on the left symbolizes god's vengence, the rays on the right simbolize his love and forgiveness to mankind (after all, he never gives up on us).



I've decided its time to post a higher resolution image to better show the details so that I could get more specific crits and directions from you as I fear I may have lost my objectivness working on this piece for so long.

this image is 33% of the original resolution -

http://www.zivcg.com/babylon_med.jpg

[jandys]

Very nice indeed.

Since the final image will be 9 times bigger, you should consider to put some people at the tower. It looks wierd seeing so much people around and none at the tower itself. Billboards should do the job without adding additional major memory requirements.

[djmj_1000]

yes some people at the big stairs running downwards, some vases fall down the stairs, some brocken etc

[zman]

well, like I said, its 3 times bigger (not 9) an stil not enaugh to see ppl clear.
there's actually a test person on the big stairs (that white pixel) and he isnt noticable at full res !
I cant add ppl anywhere else on the tower cause of the camera angle ...
there are a few ppl on the temple tho'.

[jandys]

Ok.

You wrote: 33% of the original resolution:
That could mean two things:
1. the x and y resolution will be tripled in the final image -> image will be 9 times bigger
or
2. Number of pixels will be tripled that means that the x and y resolution will be
x*y = 1152 * 1575 * 3 = 5443200
x/y = (1152 / 1575) = 0.7314285714
x = 0.7314285714 * y
0.7314285714 * y^2 = 5443200
y = 7441875 ^ 0.5 = 2727.98
x = 2727.98 * 0.7314285714 = 1995.32

So which one is true? :???:

BTW if that white pixel on the stair is a human than the flags is like 70 m long and the torches like 30m? :evil:

ok, ok - stop throwing stones at me. I'll be good. :halo:

Excellent job. :drool:

[zman]

fresh from the oven ...
Checked my other computer and it finnaly finished rendering (see the image how long it took o_0 ).

Unfortunatly I couldnt find a way to put this in without ruinning the composition so I'll be dropping this idea.
I'm gonna take this weekend to finalize this image and submit the final on saturday.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1133458583_large.jpg

[RideStowe]

wow this is going to be spectacular indeed! i cant wait to see the finished piece. amazig details thus far

[zman]

added some cracks all over the tower.
mainly in the lower stories where the pressure is higher.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1133495424_medium.jpg

[RideStowe]

god you are so good! i really hope you win. is it alright if i show your piece thus far as an example of amazing work tomorrow for my students?

[zman]

RideStowe - you'r a 3d instructor ? of course you can :halo:


Just rendered another layer of dust.
This one is much "lower" than the first one. I figured most of the dust is closer to the ground (when everyone is running and the ground is shaking) so I made this layer.
It wont be a very noticable difference but it adds.

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1133534269_large.jpg

[zman]

since the tower is just starting to crack up and crumble, I'm adding a little bit of dust to the bottom of the first floors (again, where the pressure is the strongest).
http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1133541654_large.jpg

[zman]

here it is compositted in.
need some feedback on it (more / less ?) cause I think I am totally losing objectivness over this piece allready :)

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/11/8617/8617_1133542917_large.jpg

[Kiss Csaba]

Everything is fantastic and perfect, but how will it collapse? I can't imagine it, it's so huge and big, how many bricks will falling from the sky? 1 million? :roll:

Keep it up!

[Segreto]

this looks really great but i think i would have liked to have seen this thing get annihilated by meteors or something like that. (like your concept sketch) I think the lighting thing (wrath of god) and the beams of light look good but arent really showing off what you could do with the image. It seems like your trying to put too much symbolism into it, and thats distracting from the spectacular event that this was. But besides all of this the image look superb. I love the amount of detail you put into this. Its insane to put it plainly. I cant imagine how many hours you must have put into this. I hope you win this competition. This is one of the best entries that i've seen. good luck!

[RodFlanders11]

This project is remarkable. I'm not going to dare give you advice though lol...

[BoomTown]

HOLY CRAP! Thats Phenomenal. How do you manage so much data without your comp falling over all the time.

Like Segreto maybe some of GODs heavenly wrath. Maybe so fireballs hitting the side of the main tower which could send debrie falling on the people. It would add a little bit of action to the top of the picture. Just an idea, its amazing as it is though so don't stress.

Good luck with the comp

P.S 3dTotal guys, maybe he could do a tut later on :)

[Sky_Eagle]

Looking very good !
Are you gonna continue the image or is it done because you needed to enter it in the competetion ?
Since it would be pretty cool to see the tower apart with bricks falling off the huge tower