Architectural doodle

[renascent]

After seeing that topic linked from the frontpage of 3d total that blew me away, i thought i would share the WIP on my little doodle :)

Structure sofar is losely inspired by a bridge design in portugal, but i want to make a building out of it, no idea no sketches or anything..., just gonna keep on doodling till my cpu heats up the whole room :)

http://www.renascent.nl/_x/arch01.jpg
http://www.renascent.nl/_x/arch02.jpg
http://www.renascent.nl/_x/arch03.jpg
http://www.renascent.nl/_x/arch04.jpg
http://www.renascent.nl/_x/arch05.jpg

[inveni0]

That's gonna be a lot of polys...what type of comp are you running?

[nwfndh8red]

Seems a bit more involved than a doodle...

The detail looks cool, except there isn't really the form of anything yet. It'd be nice to see this turn into something massive.

Good work.

[renascent]

dell precision 650 work station, dual 3,2 Xeon, 2 gigs of Ram

sofar 2373 objects, 500k poly's however i can bring that down seeing most shapes are instanced.

just a general question how would one go about if the scene really becomes too heavy, i mean some scenes just simply are because of ammounts of detailing...
using Max 7 btw.

[renascent]

nwfndh8red, yah i agree... hehe maybe a should start doing some rough skecthes instead to get a main form down

[inveni0]

On the Minas Tirith project, they use Xrefing...that may not do much good here, since it's one structure. My advice would be to skimp on polys for cylinders that aren't on the outer edge of the structure. Since you won't be seeing them upclose, they don't need a bunch. Also, make sure that any box or cylinder pieces that are straight have only 1 segment on the longest run...multiple segments are unneccessary.

Now, what I do is complete a big piece and then add an optimize modifier when i'm done with it. I set the value really high so that all I have is the basic shape...then I right click the modifier and select "Off in Render". This way my viewports keep running smooth.

[renascent]

thanx inveni0, thats a great tip on the Optimizer

[Puckducker]

Cool work...you should be forwarned about poly counts though, as most renderers have a cap of how many polys they can render. Mental Ray is the only one I know, and that has a cap of about 4 million polygons....sounds like a lot, but if you're already at 500k, then it's something to keep in mind, as anything beyond 4 mill mental ray won't render the scene.

[renascent]

hmmm never heard of that problem before... i use Brazil though

[Thykka]

just a general question how would one go about if the scene really becomes too heavy, i mean some scenes just simply are because of ammounts of detailing...
using Max 7 btw.
If you're using finalRender you might want to use DynamicMSP so that the renderer only loads what's necessary for a single bucket. That way you can really save _huge_ amounts of RAM. And if you're going for some extreme detail, you could decrease the bucket size to something around 16x16 px.
I think Vray has a similiar feature too..

[renascent]

whats is the best way to cleanup situations like these after chamfering?

http://www.renascent.nl/_x/cleanup.jpg

[mBlond]

If you use use chamfer U usually get some tris..you have to remove them!!!

[renascent]

yeah i know the TRI problem it even makes a 5 point there too, but it becomes like a puzzle with the TRI shifting to another position once i try to solve it!

[nwfndh8red]

nwfndh8red, yah i agree... hehe maybe a should start doing some rough skecthes instead to get a main form down

Perhaps some sort of football/baseball stadium? It seems like it would be the beginnings of the worlds largest stadium.

As for your chamfer problem (which is a pain, I know), try putting the meshsmooth on, and then hit "1", that'll put on the vertex edit mode, you can then try and move that bumpy bit inwards. However, be careful because sometimes if you accidentally select the wrong vertex it can screw up the entire meshsmooth.

Give that a shot and let us know how it turned out.

nwFnd

[Jedianakinsolo]

What's wrong with Tri's? I figured the problem was the quad over there.

[vectorealms]

I get the same problem with chamfering corners like that, the quad always makes the meshsmoothe look wierd " like in the pics posted above" if anyone posts a solution id be happy :)

[renascent]

well my solution in the case is taking the shape out of the form ;)

discreet should really create some modifier cleaning up a model to quads automatically, ive heard other 3d apps have options like that.... what does max 8 get, remove isolated vertices and edges in one go.... *sigh*.

http://www.renascent.nl/_x/arc.jpg

material is brazil shellac (carpaint, chrome) no lights here, just one brightcard above the geometry, incase youre wondering :)

[renascent]

lil update, gotta love the bend modifier ;)

http://www.renascent.nl/_x/detail011.jpg

[renascent]

little further again.... 800k poly's... cpu still goin fair

http://www.renascent.nl/_x/detail013.jpg

[renascent]

http://www.renascent.nl/_x/detail014.jpg

rendertime under 4 minutes, which is nice :)

think im about 50% ready

[midzt]

lookin pretty amazing so far :)

[renascent]

heres the result, wasnt really a doodle but i could say that at the time ;)

http://www.renascent.nl/mtv/mtv.mov

[mpfive]

lookin pretty amazing so far :)

i'll have to agree there, awsome job so far

[renascent]

even though the thing is done and already playing on TV i decided to redo it the way i wanted for my portfolio with better light and material setup... rerendering now, heres a little taste.

http://www.renascent.nl/mtv/shaft_compare.jpg

full version with sound ready 2moro