Still Life: AppleTV Remote

[brijcharan]

Hi there.

Wanted to post my first completed Modo & V-Ray project! I've only recently gotten back into modo, so decided to focus on still life subject.

This is my my first real modo independent, non-tutorial project. Also gave me a great opportunity to test out V-Ray!

Modeled: Modo 11.1v1, Rendered V-Ray 3.52.01, production renderer, Textures: Photoshop.

Got some digital calipers I had and measured the various parts/features dimensions and offsets, then started to model away.
I used Richard Yot's Vizpack (v-ray) as a basis for the shading, with some slight modifications.
Did some minor UV work for the buttons, but I'm not very good at shading yet.
I eyeballed the button icons/shading the best that I could from the remote infront of me.

Big thanks to Muhammed_Hamed!
He helped me out a ton with my various v-ray questions. Definitely dropped my render time down, and the brought the quality up with his help deciphering the various render settings!

Also thank you to Vladimir Nedev & GidPDX for their help as well!

Things I could improve:

• I'm still not quite getting the denoiser right, so I opted to not use it. I find that it would denoise the aluminum, but not the wood surface. So it didn't look realistic.
  Coming from a photography background, this seems analogous to airbrushing a photo, but losing the noise in the airbrushed regions.
  So what I usually do in photography is compensate the airbrushed areas by adding noise back in to match the natural noise from the camera.
• Poly Count could be higher on the curved surfaces.
• I hacked the UV's for the buttons, but they aren't correct. Still don't know much about proper UV'ing and how it works in V-ray.
• Wasted time Shading first versus modelling/lighting first. Too eager for the instant gratification!
• Some Mesh poly's are nGons, not sure if that's right or wrong.
• The smoothing was a bit of an issue, found I had to fake a 'crease' near hard edges, even though I'm not doing Subdivisional modelling.
  I'm guessing the smoothing angle needs to be tweaked, but not positive how to do that in Modo/V-Ray.
  Technically this is just one mesh, and I assigned materials on a per poly basis.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Really nice renders! Good job!!
And the render times for GPU and Adv production renders are very good. I don't use the denoiser myself except for animation and for clay renders to showoff my models(where there is no small details that the denoiser can affect). But usually for majority of my works I pay attention to tiny details and I don't use the denoiser that much.

Got some digital calipers I had and measured the various parts

How much time did it take you to model it?Would be nice if you upload wireframe so that I give you feedback on your modeling.
I would take a top view picture of this remote and use it as guide in Modo and eyeball the rest of details from reference or from the real object. No problem with your technique if it didn't take a lot of time.

I eyeballed the button icons/shading the best that I could from the remote infront of me.

You did a good job on all the materials. Make sure you always have glossry frensel on and GGX BRDF for all your materials. This is physically correct and will make huge difference for your shaders. I think you didn't use Glossy frensel,but I cannot tell if you used GGX or not..

Coming from a photography background, this seems analogous to airbrushing a photo

Your photography experience will help you a lot with CGI. You don't have to use denoiser all the time

Poly Count could be higher on the curved surfaces.

Yeah with the volume button I can spot the edges.

I hacked the UV's for the buttons, but they aren't correct. Still don't know much about proper UV'ing and how it works in V-ray.

It works like any other application. As long as you see no texture distortion for the buttons,it is fine You can show me the UVs too and I will give you feedback if you want.

Wasted time Shading first versus modelling/lighting first. Too eager for the instant gratification!

do a basic lighting first,so that you are able to do the shading. Then when you are done with materials you can touch on lighting and composition again. This is what I do. But you should model everything and UV it first

Some Mesh poly's are nGons, not sure if that's right or wrong.

They are fine if it is like 5 or 6 sides or so...Ngons with Higher number of sides can crash RT GPU or Octane in my experience,so stay away from them. Also if you are planning to smooth the mesh you can have Ngons too,but make sure you place them correctly so they don't cause distortion or benching. Same for triangles,they are fine if you place them correctly in your mesh if you plan on smoothing the mesh.

I'm guessing the smoothing angle needs to be tweaked,

In Vray material common tab you have a smoothing angle. But I never used it before,so not sure if this is what you needed.

[brijcharan]

Really nice renders! Good job!!
And the render times for GPU and Adv production renders are very good. I don't use the denoiser myself except for animation and for clay renders to showoff my models(where there is no small details that the denoiser can affect). But usually for majority of my works I pay attention to tiny details and I don't use the denoiser that much.

Thank you!
What are the clay models? i keep hearing this term a lot when i see v-ray posts. Is it a special shader?

How much time did it take you to model it?Would be nice if you upload wireframe so that I give you feedback on your modeling.
I would take a top view picture of this remote and use it as guide in Modo and eyeball the rest of details from reference or from the real object. No problem with your technique if it didn't take a lot of time.

I can provide you with a link to my scene on drop box for sure.
It took a about a 2 late evenings and a day to do the whole thing. The actual modelling time wasn't long. But most of the time was me figuring out v-ray hehe.

You did a good job on all the materials. Make sure you always have glossry frensel on and GGX BRDF for all your materials. This is physically correct and will make huge difference for your shaders. I think you didn't use Glossy frensel,but I cannot tell if you used GGX or not..

So is GGX just the standard physical shader type to use now?

Your photography experience will help you a lot with CGI. You don't have to use denoiser all the time

Yes, I really like the physical camera addon. Even modo's too. One thing I wish v-ray did, and modo, was adjust the DOF depending on the sensor size. I feel like the bokeh seems to be 'too' much given the focal length and the sensor type I choose.

Yeah with the volume button I can spot the edges.

Ya I have a bunch of other things I've got planned to learn in modo, so decided to not bother redoing the meshes to fix it up just yet. Maybe at a later date.

It works like any other application. As long as you see no texture distortion for the buttons,it is fine You can show me the UVs too and I will give you feedback if you want.

I just quickly did planar mapping. the photoshop textures for each button were 4096x4096. I did turn off anti-aliasing on the images, as they were already anti-aliased. not sure if that helped or not.

do a basic lighting first,so that you are able to do the shading. Then when you are done with materials you can touch on lighting and composition again. This is what I do. But you should model everything and UV it first

So is it recommended to uv unwrap all meshes? I didn't actually do that for my mesh, I only did it for the buttons. I can't seem to find a decent answer on that. It seems like you can just apply materials that have procedural textures, and they just work.

They are fine if it is like 5 or 6 sides or so...Ngons with Higher number of sides can crash RT GPU or Octane in my experience,so stay away from them.

Ok, ya I'm not a fan of how the ngons are, they are definitely more than 6 sides on the top. You know, I'm actually having an issue with RT-Cpu (not gpu) where if I draw regions and change them, modo freezes. I'm wondering if perhaps its related. it seems to be only happening when the denoiser is active. I'll send you my scene in a private message so you can take a peak. the top face of the remote is kind of a mess. Which is how this one tutorial said to do it, but I feel like its probably not correct.

In Vray material common tab you have a smoothing angle. But I never used it before,so not sure if this is what you needed.

Interesting, I will have to play with that!

[Muhammed_Hamed]

What are the clay models? i keep hearing this term a lot when i see v-ray posts. Is it a special shader?

No,it is something like this. Meant to show off the modeling quality of Sub-D cars,characters..etc The material should be a bit reflective and lighting should be soft,so that it shows the smooth curves of the model.

http://orig09.deviantart.net/e249/f/...83-d5swgd7.jpg

The actual modelling time wasn't long. But most of the time was me figuring out v-ray hehe.

Really nice! Take as much time as you need to figure out things,then you can work later on your timing.

So is GGX just the standard physical shader type to use now?

Yeah. It makes huge difference for realism. Read about it more here with Glossy frensel
https://labs.chaosgroup.com/index.ph...lossy-fresnel/

One thing I wish v-ray did, and modo, was adjust the DOF depending on the sensor size

Same here! Would be nice to have that.

I did turn off anti-aliasing on the images

I don't turn off anti aliasing for images,but I know it affects the render times a lot and I'm sure it is not necessary for some cases,so I will experiment with it soon.

So is it recommended to uv unwrap all meshes?

Not at all. I do UV mapping for everything because that is needed for my pipeline. I know many many people that use procedural shading all the time with no UVs and they do perfect job.

they are definitely more than 6 sides on the top

Thanks for the scene,I took a quick look. Those top Ngons on buttons are fine,but some other Ngons will cause problems. I will have more time tonight and I will fix the geometry and send it back to you. And I will take a look at your shading too.

where if I draw regions and change them, modo freezes.

Other people reported it as well and I think Vladimir was able to reproduce it,so hopefully he will fix it soon. I don't think it is related to Geometry though.

[brijcharan]

The material should be a bit reflective and lighting should be soft,so that it shows the smooth curves of the model.

Really nice! Take as much time as you need to figure out things,then you can work later on your timing.

I don't turn off anti aliasing for images,but I know it affects the render times a lot and I'm sure it is not necessary for some cases,so I will experiment with it soon.

Ya, I'm wondering how much it matters if the image itself is already anti-aliased?

Not at all. I do UV mapping for everything because that is needed for my pipeline. I know many many people that use procedural shading all the time with no UVs and they do perfect job.

Ya, I guess if you want to specifically place something on a specific part of a mesh, a uv map would be handy. But procedural texturing is also handy.

Thanks for the scene,I took a quick look. Those top Ngons on buttons are fine,but some other Ngons will cause problems. I will have more time tonight and I will fix the geometry and send it back to you. And I will take a look at your shading too.

Thank you for looking. Ya I did notice on my last boolean that the boolean op said there was a hole in my mesh. so I'm not sure exactly where that is. But I found these random ngons make it far more difficult to do subsequent bevels/booleans. The main area I think is the problem is the large top surface where I put the buttons on. Its kind of a weird shape with the booleans.

Other people reported it as well and I think Vladimir was able to reproduce it,so hopefully he will fix it soon. I don't think it is related to Geometry though.

I saw that post before I posted, but wasn't sure if it was necessarily related. good to know!

Thanks again!

[vladimir.nedev]

Ya, I'm wondering how much it matters if the image itself is already anti-aliased?

The render time anti-aliasing deals with the aliasing that occurs when the image is shrunk because you are looking at it from afar or from an angle.
So even if the image itself is anti-aliased, the render time anti-aliasing is still needed.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Aha. Thanks Vladimir!

[brijcharan]

The render time anti-aliasing deals with the aliasing that occurs when the image is shrunk because you are looking at it from afar or from an angle.
So even if the image itself is anti-aliased, the render time anti-aliasing is still needed.

Good to know, thank you !