Looks like I will need to switch my focus to Camtasia recordings until at least the first week of September. For our SAP/cERP training, the book is alright for reference but the guys I work with really need the visual experience of watching a person going through the motions of what they are trying to accomplish. Since I can access our cERP system from home I will be going through the book, chapter by chapter and creating small videos for the teams reference. I’ll start tomorrow when I get home. To bad I will not be able to publish these outside of work (they will contain trade secrets)
The Contours Retopology Tool
Purchased this new tool from CGCookie yesterday and all I could say was wow! Since starting the Character Modeling project and working with the Dynamic Topology tools and getting close to the retopology part of the project I have been hesitant to begin that portion. This project has taken a long time (in days, not hours) and has pushed me to the limit when it comes to this type of work. I find that CGCookie released a new tool to help in the process of retopology and decided to go ahead and spend the 30.00 for the beta and upgrades and I am more than impressed with this tool and it’s simplicity and in a sentence, the addon just works. This weekend I will upload a couple simple pictures of me just playing around with the sculpting tools, not making anything close to impressive and the difference it makes (plus its fun).
I am very surprised by the response of some individuals on BlenderNation from the likes of:
‘harris3d’: “This is obvious a Modo’s contour tool copy ! That would be illegal to distribute it and much more to charge for it, selling it is way illegal Jonathan.”
Then the moron had the audacity of posting his own blog as proof of his statements… I know, logical huh?
I guess he doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘Libel’ and it’s implications since he posted online for all to see and never be removed, ya again logical.
Just in case he runs across this and wants a definition of the word:
Libel is defined as defamation by written or printed words, pictures, or in any form other than by spoken words or gestures.
Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, or traducement—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government, religion or nation. (This harris3d is actually illegal)
Happy Friday everyone!! 🙂
Sit back and think for a bit and the answer will come
When I got home I looked at the node setups I had, both techniques of creating the vignette, other than changing the ellipse mask node from multiply as Andrew has it to Add (the only way it works, at least in 2.68a) I could see nothing technically wrong with the node setup. Then I used the image files I ‘Normally’ use, the multilayer .exr files and it worked! Note to self; use multilayer .exr files for your compositing and use the .png or .jpg files for your final images.
Final image (Black & White was nice as well)
Strange things happening
I was able to get the vignette working using the old method but this time I lost all the color. Any ideas? – Ya, second post in one day (make up for yesterday…. sick)
I do like black and white photos, just not by accident. The vignette is strong in this though.
Lounge Room Final
Here is the final render of the Lounge Room from The Architecture Academy. I had a problem with the Vignette causing some strange artifacts so I left it off until I could straighten that out but it is really not needed for an architectural render.
Compositing multiple images
A question was asked a few days ago on The Architecture Academy and nobody seems to want to answer the question. In a nutshell the person wants to composite together multiple images because his computer can’t seem to render the entire scene the way he wants at one time. So I decided to try this out. I created three images, one for all walls and lighting, one for all the objects within the room (less the rug) and one for just the rug. After these images are complete through their render I will post them. Then I will post the composite image of the three.
Here are two of the three images I am using. The first one is of the rug by itself with an alpha channel and the second is the room, without any objects however all of the objects are producing shadows and affecting the light in some way or another.
Rug rendered alone with alpha channel only
Render with the effects of all objects in the scene (shadows etc.) without actually rendering all of the objects
This a render of all the objects with a transparent (alpha) background
Using this simple node setup (Three Image inputs + two Alpha Over) = One output to further composite
I will use this output for further composting (vignette etc.)
Stay tuned for the final composite in the next post.
Earlier than Me?
People tried to get into work early this morning and were surprised someone was here (me). By 5:15 this morning I had four people occupying my space and not allowing me to do my morning Blender and videos. At least it is Friday and I can catch up tonight 🙂
Render Layers
It looks like in order to render this first Architecture Academy I will have to render the Rug in a different render layer than the rest of the scene and then combine all the layers in the compositor. The only problem is I can’t remember exactly how to do this. Johnathan Williamson to the rescue with his Architectural Visualization Course that uses this technique. Time for a little studying.
Found the problem
I seem to have figured out the rendering problem with my Architecture Academy Lounge Room. I was using the “Experimental” rendering option for the shag carpet, thinking that I needed to., I had never tried it without using that option. When I changed the option to “Supported” everything seems to be working just fine. As soon as this render completes I’ll post the picture. It is not complete, that will be the next post but It gives you an idea and looks little like someone is moving in 🙂
Problems Rendering
Question for everyone that may wish to answer. What would be the problem with an asset you are apending to your scene that would cause the render to error out right after calculating the BVH. This is what is happening to my Lounge Room scene from The Architecture Academy. At the present time I have removed all the assets from the scene and I am added them back in one at a time. It looks like it might be the large potted plant in the corner but I can’t figure out why it keeps erring out because of that particular object. So, needless to say, I don’t have a render to post for posterity.
I also made a rather serious error at work today. I know, I know I don’t usually make serious errors but this is a large one. Not so large I can’t fix but it will take some time. I deleted all but ten parts from and mBOM, not using an ECM to track the changes which means I can’t go back in time and fix it. I fortunately have a excel copy of the mBOM I can copy and paste to recreate it but I will need to copy individually the Object Dependency data. Oops, chock that one up to live and learn.