SMC#05 - Lost Jungle - Forgotten Retreat - Shur'tal

[Shur'tal]

Hey, fairly new to 3d modeling, got 3ds max 2009. I am just doing this as a bit of a hobby, not anything serious.

Tried the last couple of speed modeling challenges at home, just never entered.

This my first real go at it. I'm not very good, however, I do enjoy this and giving it a go.

Going for a cliffside fortress, the renders are poor quality, But it is just a start.

Edit: After some thought, I decided to completely remodel the fortress, does, the original time spent still count? Or does the time reset considering it is a completely new model?

For this model, time spent is 20 minutes

[ClassicGamer-3DT]

Glad to see you join in Shur'tal, if you are starting again it needs to be completely from scratch and so you'll be starting your timer from scratch again too. Looking forward to seeing what you create, best of luck :)

Kind Regards

CG.

[wargrafix]

Its a wicked beast, this model. I'm not much into doing 3d models, but what is this, "timer" thing?
________
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[Dann-O]

The rules state that the modeling must be done in 240 minutes.

[Shur'tal]

Hey, thanks for the confirmation Classic. This is completely from scratch,

Just a quick update, 40mins so far.

[Shur'tal]

once again, my system crashed and I lost my model. So I started again but with a slightly different approach. I wasn't satisfied with the last model, it was too simple and plain, I couldn't see much scope for it, so I decided to do a human race long gone, sort of a precursor race to the mayans.
So therefore the architecture is very similar in design, with some other added points as well.

In the mouth of a long extinct volcano, a lake has filled in the crater, in this crater a temple fortress was built. From excavations done since the islands discovery, the purpose for the construction is not known, nor the method.


That's all I've thought of so far, going to be a doorway under the arch, leading somewhere.

[chichiri]

You're second model is really nice, how many time have you spent on it?

[chunkymunky]

Nice second model, really like the tiers :)

[Shur'tal]

Hey guys, just a bit of an update.

2 hours so far.

[Dann-O]

Nice look sort of a Mayan look to it.

[ClassicGamer-3DT]

Interesting approach, looking forward to seeing more :)

[Shur'tal]

Hey, another update.
Getting closer to the 3 hour mark. 2 hours 58 mins.

Made the room at the end of the tunnel, inside there is an artifact of immense power, said to be able to give the wielder the ability to... not sure, any ideas? Raise the dead? Change the weather? Change time?

Or maybe it holds a demon... not sure yet.

Haven't got a picture of the room, in the next update

Just trying out the lighting, don't have much knowledge in this area.

[chunkymunky]

The modelling looks great to me but you're lighting needs GI at the very least, ideally you could do with an area or infinite light with a tiny amount of colour in it to help light the scene, i'd also personally set your shadows to area rather than ray traced as these will look more realistic, they will sometimes increase renders speeds though. For final clay render setting might I suggest AO aswell as GI it will really show off your detailing, which at the moment are sadly getting lost.

[Shur'tal]

Thanks an absolute heap chunkymunky, like I said before, I have basically no knowledge, just looking at some tutorials here, helping heaps, thanks a lot.

After trying it out a couple of times, I came up with this, mind you , this is not the actual model for the comp, although I could swap the two. This took about 30 mins to make. Is this better?

[Aramor]

What I always use is a Skylight and then turn Light Tracer on in the Advanced Lighting section of the Render Settings menu. Hope it helps.

So far the models look cool by the way :)

[the_bromox]

This is turning out great. I noticed that the screen shot from your second post doesn't seem to show up in your further updates. Whats your plans with those pieces? Glad to see your learning a lot too in this competition. If ya have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!

[Shur'tal]

@the_bromox. The earlier model I did I lost when when my computer system crashed, I ended up modeling most of this current model on my brother's computer and then once I had got my computer working again I transferred back to mine.
It was annoying to lose all the models I had made in the past, I have backups for some of them.

@Aramor, that's basically what I did, I also had a direct light set to ray traced shadows with Falloff and Hotspot set to cover the whole object.

So an update,
3 hours 40 mins so far. Still got to model the door at the top. Changed from on a cliff face, I transferred the green model into the new scene, Still got to do some more lighting, haven't got much for this scene yet.

All the pictures as jpegs I've done so far from renders have been blurry, does anyone have any idea how I could make them sharper?

[Aramor]

That looks awesome.

About the blurry jpegs, I save the renders as PNGs and then save them as a JPEG with Photoshop. That helps.

[chunkymunky]

Cool looking like a fortress now, really good modelling, need to work on the lights but so far so good :)

[hulahuga]

Impressive, try adjusting the camera in your renders so one can appreciate the size...

[EpiPlayer]

Very Angkor Wat. This model makes me kinda want to tour the grounds and see what secrets i can find. after the speed modelling comp, you should take this even further, because i think it's got great potential.

[andrewhall1234]

Really nice look to it. How long have you been modeling for? I think that the models look nice and clean man, pretty impressed. Keep it up. Oh and the lighting looks good, what did you use a skylight in Max?

[Shur'tal]

Hey all. Sorry about no update, been away for the past week in Perth for the Red Bull Air Race. Was awesome. Got photos with Nigel Lamb, Matt Hall, Hannes Arch and more...

Yeah, I'm definitely considering continuing with the model, There are things I'm not entirely happy with; the bridge for example. However there is always that time constraint whilst at school.
I'm in my final year of school, so I'm only 17, haven't been modeling for long, Just mainly muck around, but overall, less then a year. I taught myself, looked at a lot of tutorials as well.

Edit: Got render done. here you go. Haven't tried different camera angles yet. Will do though.

Also, see the little biped at the bottom of the stairs to the left of the screen. 6ft (183 cm) human.

[chunkymunky]

Nice clay render there :) Good to see you back on this.

[Shur'tal]

Definitely back with this. just had some interruptions. Almost done, so expect to see my final entry soon. Speaking of which, where does my final entry go? What am I supposed to do with it?
I haven't done this before, so I really have no idea.

Just as a bit of a note, the previous model was at 3 hours 51 minutes, still a little time for some extra detail. I tried to put some with bricks, all of the bricks, stairs and other details are all modeled. Ill try to do a bit of cleaning up now, and some final detailing.

[chunkymunky]

Classicgamer-3DT will make a final entries thread soon when we are close to the deadline.