...and the real 3D geometry technique clocked in at a whopping 22:23. =/
This is a disappointment because creating the actual geometry is a rather more elegant solution. For one thing, it lets me actually see the ironwork while I'm navigating through the model; it doesn't just magically appear at render time. Furthermore, it just plain looks better. And perhaps most importantly of all, real geometry allows my ambient occlusion lighting to bounce through the holes and allow us to see the shadowy areas of the balconies. If I create a flat plane with a transparent image texture, ambient occlusion treats it as an opaque wall, and the balcony turns black. Then I have to carefully light the balconies separately, which in turn increases the render time...something I did not do for this test.
I'm using that last factor as a huge excuse because...well, I don't want to UV-map these puppies anymore. I want real geometry. I did the UV-mapping for the HM ironwork, and the results were merely satisfactory after a buttload of tedious work. Render times were still high, and I didn't reap any of the benefits of doing true detailed meshes. So I'm gonna be adventurous and make all the POTC ironwork the more authentic way...and render times can walk the plank, for all I care! =D
By the way...sorry for the weird way the lamp is cut off in the first image. I forgot to activate ray transparency, which also would have boosted render times a little, I think. Another excuse to do real geometry! ;)
Lastly, to my less CGI-oriented readers, I apologize for these more technical posts. I'm sure some of you just want the Disneyland stuff, not the nitty-gritty details of how I do it, but I'll continue trying to deliver both in proper proportions. =)
4 comments:
I must agree, Joe...the 3D ironwork does look better. I wish there was an "in between" method you could use...almost like a "cookie cutter" cutout version of the ironwork...flat and all on one plane...but not an alpha image...but with the physical holes cut out of the black ironwork image and the edge cut out all the way around...like those cool laser-cut greeting cards. Does that make sense?
-Derek
The fully rendered ironwork looks a ton better IMO.
What kind of hardware are you working on?
Perhaps this is the excuse you need to upgrade ;) (in case you need an excuse for a wife or something...)
You gotta build the geometry man... it is SO much better looking, will be a million times more fulfilling for you, not to mention all the retardedness of occluded geometry with the UV maps and having to separately light things to get shadows, etc... just not worth all the extra hassle to cut render time (which it really might not in the end).
I'm glad y'all agree. :D
Derek, I actually tried what you're talking about one time - UV-mapping the images onto planes with rough holes cut out - but it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. It takes more work than either method on its own, and it still doesn't look great. =/
Yeah, Mike, I'd certainly love to upgrade to a top-of-the-line Boxx computer or something, but I don't think that's gonna happen for now. The computer I'm using is only a couple of years old, and the money tree is not exactly flourishing at the moment. ;) It's a reasonably good computer, though. Intel Core2 Duo processor, 2.67 GHz, 2 gigs of RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 8500 GT graphics card...certainly not an amazing machine or anything, but it works.
I think something's wrong, though, because I just let the computer render for, like, six hours, and it got about a quarter of the way through a render of the entrance. That seems excessive...I mean, I've got a few simple image textures, and ambient occlusion is on, and there are reflections in the windows, and there's a little ironwork around the lamps now, but it's not that insane an area of the model. Something's screwy here.
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