Sand buggy tests...Electricimage and Vray

[Giovanni]

hi all,
I modeled this car as a FormZ smooth object learning project (It is actually a formZ tutorial), then I rendered it using EIAS 5.5.





Since then I made some investment in MAX and V-ray, and I tried another version of the buggy...





Both use a separate occlusion pass.

I gave up mapping the Max version right after the credits on the tires (which I had to UV map in UVMapper PRO, since MAX was choking on the tire geometry when using UVWUnwrap mod)...I am still behind in that department, and MAX is just very mapping-challanged to me...

I am pretty sure the V-ray rendering can be improved a great deal.
for example, I am not sure how to tune down the tire material, which looks like wet stone right now.

Thank you for looking,


regards,

gio

[percydaman]

looks pretty good. I would tone down the reflection on the paint and the tires, which will help them to not looks so "wet"

[jawee]

it looks nice, where can i get formZ tutorials?

[percydaman]

haha good luck. documentation and tutorials for form-z are a little hard to come by. I have to learn it for work and it hasn't been fun. If there are some good tutorial sites, please by all means post them

[Giovanni]

well, there is a tutorial section on the back of the FormZ magazine they send to subscribers. Interesting, but quite "fast", meaning, they skip some steps and settings.

Otherwise...did you check formz.com?


regards,

gio

[percydaman]

yeah and wasn't very impressed.

[dennis]

Re: Sand buggy tests...Electricimage and Vray

Both use a separate occlusion pass.

what do you gain from doing that and how. Just a question as i thought occlusion was an optimisation to render only visible parts. ( which i hope is done anyhow )

[Giovanni]

dennis,
the occlusion pass is a further rendering normally done in grayscale, which gives another degree of shading to the original color rendering.
It is very similar to a skylight GI rendering, and you normally compose it as a multiply layer on top of the original rendering (in photoshop or AE).


original rendering:

http://homepage.mac.com/gsucci/.Pict...-occlusion.jpg


occlusion pass:

http://homepage.mac.com/gsucci/.Pict...0occlusion.jpg


Composite image:

http://homepage.mac.com/gsucci/.Pict...y%20buggy3.jpg


The effect is subtle, expecially with renderers capable of good GI illumination in the first place.


For example, this interior was rendered without any radiosity or illumination map, just old good fill lights placements:

http://homepage.mac.com/gsucci/.Pict...20original.jpg

This is the same image with an occlusion pass composed on top:

http://homepage.mac.com/gsucci/.Pict...r2%20final.jpg

The difference is much more pronounced (look at the furniture lower right, and the dropped soffit in the background).



Regards,

gio

[Nenad]

Nice modeling Gio. Congrats! IMO, occlusion seems quite useless in the Vray renders. I understand what it's for in the other exapmle since the image didn't contain any GI/radiosity information in the first place. But why do you use it in Vray?

[dennis]

ahhhh ambient occlusion, i should had figured that much myself. I had my head in real time rendering thinking more in the direction of occlusion for intersection test etc.