Carrara Monthly Challenge #30: WAR TIMES - WIP Thread

Stezza

Great work.. thanks for sharing the steps needed.. It makes me want to try and make something.. I don't know what though! 

That Other Persona

Just this past week I started to draw up couple of scenes showing/explaining modern warfare, so I will following this thread.  Am currently working on a submarine with missiles and torpedoes that can be animated launching.  Next need to consider underwater scene creation. . .

Next up is creating explosions, muzzle blasts and rocket flumes with smoke.  A nuke blast, too.  Any tuts for these?

Any ideas on illustrating radar beacons being sent out and bouncing back?  I'm thinking to use an arc with some volume and simply scale it up over time.

 

Dartanbeck

Varsel said:

 

diomede said:

.....

But my card soldiers are now supplemented with siege equipment.  Rematch!

 

 

Well,well..... someone is picking a fight.... a challenge ... an arms-race ....

A proper response is at the moment being installed into one of my surplus ICBM's, and will shortly be heading in the right direction.... 

I am taking the first two weeks in January as vacation, so I should be able to do something with this challenge and contest .

 

In the meantime.... 

If anyone need some uniforms for an army, I have some ... (link at the bottom) for use with http://www.daz3d.com/lorenzo-lorez by Predatron.

Wow! Thanks for sharing, Varsel! I had no idea. You really have a fine store there - I like everything you offer - and there's a LOT of stuff! Another Predatron fan, I see! ;)

 

Dartanbeck

Stonemason gave this away for one day, in both DUF and OBJ versions. This is the DUF version and it loads nicely into Carrara (3Delight version)

At first the Bump being set at 100 might be a bit strong. But I bet if we'd simply swap the Texture map with the included Normal maps for each shader, 100 would likely be perfect.

Wow, this is a huge set and fits nicely with this challenge. This is how I've saved it so far - likely a bit too much atmosphere

Here we're only seeing a portion of this large set. I haven't tried it yet, but I bet it would duplicate nicely, since it's not rigged

wgdjohn

Cool ideas!  Think I'll give a try at modeling some creatures then onto actually replicating on a terrain.

Diomede

Creating a terrain that offers several different potential locations for my different entries.  This is just the default terrain shader and a light blue color for the river.  I will post more details on the methods in my screenshot thread. Here is my basic workflow for creating a  river valley with Carrara's terrain modeler and my image editor (Photoshop Elements, PE).

- Start in PE and rough out a crude grayscale map my intended terrain on a large square canvas (1025 x 1025).  Make sure the river area flows down (darker colors).

- Use the selection lasso and similar tools and isolate different portions of the map and then apply an appropriate blur to that section.

- Make sure the river valley is darker than the areas around it. 

- Within the river valley, create a black line for the actual river course.  Use a white paintbucket for the land so that it can be raised with the terrain editor.

- Create an inverse of the river opacity mask so that can isolate the river with shaders or replicators if desired.

- In Carrara, insert a terrain, delete the default filter, and adjust its size to 1/2 of image  (512 x 512).  Lower the height as desired (75 feet).

- Apply an erosion filter and choose rain - but the default rain will be too strong for a medium sized scene.  Wait for it to finish filterng and then lower the rain effect to 1% or so and wait again.

- If you like the result, duplicate the terrain and create a new master.  Import the river mask and set to a low height (5 feet).  The river will not change, but the rest of the land will rise 5 feet, creating the river bed.

- The new terrain should now have a river bed carved near the bottom of a river valley.

- Apply a river texture to the lower terrain (water if desired, but I just used blue for the WIP.

Note - depending on whether shots will be closeups, your opacity mask can be made to put a stones shader on the land terrain's river bed and a transparent water shader on the second terain. You can also use the river opacity mask to replicate stones along the river bed.

 

For this terrain, I created an area that could have

(a) castle with a moat

(b) narrow river valley with falls

(c) a flat plain next to a river that could have a bridge

Mistara

just thought of one tee hee  

i struggle with the landscapes, doan know how to scale without destroying it

Mistara

i haz the civil war stuff by meshitup.  never rendered it.  i did the tourbus ride at Gettysberg like 18 years ago.

putting an artistic spin on a war scene, dramatic and challenging, eh? 

Diomede

Meshitup does great work.  Here is a reference painting for Gettysburg.  The 8th Ohio by Dale Gallon.  Doesn't have to be complicated.  There are so many other possibilities.  Pickett's charge, etc.  Can't wait to see what you have in mind.

 

MistyMist said:

i haz the civil war stuff by meshitup.  never rendered it.  i did the tourbus ride at Gettysberg like 18 years ago.

putting an artistic spin on a war scene, dramatic and challenging, eh? 

 

 

And here is an update on one of mine.  I mentioned that the terrain had a place for a moat and castle.  I've replicated some catapults around the moat.  I've also inserted a bridge over the moat.  All the shaders are screwed up, and there is no castle yet, and no army for the siege, and no....  The test render may be too dark because the sky light is sunset and I plan to have other lighting generated by stuff being on fire.

Some progress, but suggestions are welcome, as always.

 

Dartanbeck

Just as an experiment, try faking it a little. Try this:

Drop in a new Distant Light, leave it white and crank the brightness up to 300 and aim it towards the camera and then angle it so it points from the right towards the left, but mostly towards the camera from behind - so it's only lighting the back-side of the objects in the scene.

Now add another Distant Light, this time give it a not-too-saturated yellowish gray color. Aim this one kind of the same as the previous one, but instead of toward the camera, face it toward the scene away from the camera, bring brightness down to 47. Try not to aim it down too much, but not too straight horizontally either. Kind of right in between, and then adjust according to shadows.

Now add one more and face it like the last one, but going the opposite direction (Left to right) across the scene. Make it low-saturation bluish gray and bring it down in brightness to 35 or even lower to taste.

Just try it, see if you like it. If you still want that dark dawn effect, try darkening the colors of the last two lights a bit. The first light (Rim Light) is to accent the shapes of all of your elements in the scene, so it often looks nice to not let it interact with the terrain, and just leave the shadows to come from the sun and the other lights.

Stezza

Didn't know which way to go with this one... was thinking of a space battle and thought of something more historical.. and using Varsel's great bits of clothing for Lorenzo ( some modified & retwxtured ) I decided to go historical using the Eureka Stockade for inspiration.. and if time maybe a space battle 

The Eureka Rebellion was a rebellion in 1854, instigated by gold miners in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, who revolted against the colonial authority of the United Kingdom. The Battle of the Eureka Stockade, by which the rebellion is popularly known, was fought between miners and the Colonial forces of Australia on 3 December 1854 at Eureka Lead and named for the stockade structure erected by miners during the conflict. The rebellion lasted for less than half an hour and resulted in the deaths of at least 27 people, the majority of whom were rebels.

Headwax

The Eureka Stockade - great choice. ;)

here's a start on mine, please click for big

modelled artmour, shields, , used VWD cloth plugin for eye textured 'rug', used surface replicators for spikes, retextured elephant with slightly higher res textures, modelled castille thing on top of elephant, still to add post work smoke etc and other solfdeires with arrows, plus an eagle or two

 

 

wgdjohn

Bravo! Andrew

Headwax

wgdjohn said:

Bravo! Andrew

thank you - a lot of fun doing  this stuff 

 

Dartanbeck

Cool Stezza!

HeadWax, Wow! freaking WOW!!!  I Love It!!!

Diomede

I was going to do Hannibal crossing the alps - so glad I went a different direction. 

That is one amazing armored elephant!!!!!!

Stezza

 

what an awesome armoured Elephas maximus and levitating rocks as well.... looking forward to this one 

head wax said:

The Eureka Stockade - great choice. ;)

here's a start on mine, please click for big

modelled artmour, shields, , used VWD cloth plugin for eye textured 'rug', used surface replicators for spikes, retextured elephant with slightly higher res textures, modelled castille thing on top of elephant, still to add post work smoke etc and other solfdeires with arrows, plus an eagle or two

 

 

 

Diomede

Thanks you for this -

.

 

Dartanbeck said:

Just as an experiment, try faking it a little. Try this:

Drop in a new Distant Light, leave it white and crank the brightness up to 300 and aim it towards the camera and then angle it so it points from the right towards the left, but mostly towards the camera from behind - so it's only lighting the back-side of the objects in the scene.

Now add another Distant Light, this time give it a not-too-saturated yellowish gray color. Aim this one kind of the same as the previous one, but instead of toward the camera, face it toward the scene away from the camera, bring brightness down to 47. Try not to aim it down too much, but not too straight horizontally either. Kind of right in between, and then adjust according to shadows.

Now add one more and face it like the last one, but going the opposite direction (Left to right) across the scene. Make it low-saturation bluish gray and bring it down in brightness to 35 or even lower to taste.

Just try it, see if you like it. If you still want that dark dawn effect, try darkening the colors of the last two lights a bit. The first light (Rim Light) is to accent the shapes of all of your elements in the scene, so it often looks nice to not let it interact with the terrain, and just leave the shadows to come from the sun and the other lights.

 

Dartanbeck

diomede said:

Thanks you for this -

.

 

Dartanbeck said:

Just as an experiment, try faking it a little. Try this:

Drop in a new Distant Light, leave it white and crank the brightness up to 300 and aim it towards the camera and then angle it so it points from the right towards the left, but mostly towards the camera from behind - so it's only lighting the back-side of the objects in the scene.

Now add another Distant Light, this time give it a not-too-saturated yellowish gray color. Aim this one kind of the same as the previous one, but instead of toward the camera, face it toward the scene away from the camera, bring brightness down to 47. Try not to aim it down too much, but not too straight horizontally either. Kind of right in between, and then adjust according to shadows.

Now add one more and face it like the last one, but going the opposite direction (Left to right) across the scene. Make it low-saturation bluish gray and bring it down in brightness to 35 or even lower to taste.

Just try it, see if you like it. If you still want that dark dawn effect, try darkening the colors of the last two lights a bit. The first light (Rim Light) is to accent the shapes of all of your elements in the scene, so it often looks nice to not let it interact with the terrain, and just leave the shadows to come from the sun and the other lights.

 

My Pleasure ;)   Give it a try?

Headwax

thanks Stezza, Diomede et Dart 

 

Levitating rocks - they are my speciality :)

 

Dartanbeck

Don't you just Love that Shroom Castle? Thing is a piece of art all its own!

Dartanbeck

head wax said:

thanks Stezza, Diomede et Dart 

 

Levitating rocks - they are my speciality :)

 

Roger Dean's too! :)

namtar3d

All of this is amazing! I will to try to make something good :D 

Headwax

Dartanbeck said:

Don't you just Love that Shroom Castle? Thing is a piece of art all its own!

yes it fitted the bill nicely! And Roger Dean, classic, I loved his album covers - didnt mind Yes either.

 

@namtar3d looking forward to your work

 

Happy New Year all and one :)

 

 

 

Stezza

Happy New Year to all..

Here is just a concept render to see how things are coming together.. I need to pose more miners for the replicators and adjust position settings more.. same with the Police.

The final render will probably be a lot different to this but similar if you know what I mean.. Tricky getting the models set up in different poses ect... so will take a while.. In the New Year hic...

Headwax

triffic scene Stezza, good to see the Eureka Flag  , those police uniforms look good, but the sense of atmosphere is a winner

PhilW

Stezza - looking really impressive already!

MarkIsSleepy

I took a break from my beholders because I need to think about the scene. I'm not happy with my dungeon hallway and want to find a more integral way to use replicators.

So I started on my second entry until I come up with something for the first one.  I made a rock elemental to fight my lorenzo lorez guards and starting putting in the pieces for a scene.  A couple things are still floating in the air and I need to rig my elemental so I can pose them, then array my guard unit against them.

Here's a quick test render to see how the lighting is looking; I also did some quick post-work to try and get a feel for where I might want to go with it - not sure if I will keep all the bloom/glow.

Stezza

Thanks Phil & HW 

@MDO2010, that looks like something from Ancient Aliens.. looks goood ;-)

I Used numerous replicators, surface replicators, fog, splats.

Used replicators to create the stockade ( the barrier between the miners & the police. Posed lorenzo several times and exported as objects then reimported into the replicators for the miners & police. Used splats for some smoke & fire, a lot of retexturing of clothing..made the wooden barrels and the Eureka Southern Cross Flag.

Replicated trees and also used Mmoirs background mountains. Final image I postworked in PSE14.

click for bigga

 

 

wgdjohn

Great looking scenes/ideas folks.

I had such good luck modeling my snowman... so decided to step it up a notch and model something a tiny bit more complicated.  As soon as I finish an anim for mmoir's Animation Exercises to do. Exercise #5 "Bounce." I'll be in creature creation mode. :)   Will have to see how that works out for me.