Anyway, enough chatter - here's today's one new render.
As you can see, this one's from a higher vantage point than the others. I wanted to show off some of the roof elements and the way the entrance is eventually going to connect up with the rest of the first show building. The area on the left apparently had its roofing replaced within the last two years, including a new ventilator, which I've added accordingly. Also visible is the control room for Fantasmic!, I believe - it's behind the five-sided structure with the reddish shutters on the right. It's hard to see, but there's now detailed ironwork on some of the front balconies...this was done with real geometry, and it's costing me rendering speed because of the sheer number of polygons. I swear, it's a good thing this model takes so long to create...by the time it's anywhere near finished, it'll be so complex that it'll require the kind of computing speed that won't be attainable for years!
In other news, I had a chance to help out on a Travel Channel shoot at the Winchester Mystery House a week ago. I hadn't been there since I was quite young, so it was absolutely fascinating to see it as an adult with interests in unorthodox twists on old architecture and themed entertainment. Really bizarre place...made me want to develop a 3D model of it! =P Unfortunately, I'm told there are no blueprints, since Sarah Winchester was really flying by the seat of her pants when it came to the design, and attempts at mapping out the whole house to scale have been largely futile. If any of you happen to find evidence to the contrary, I'd appreciate you letting me know! In the mean time, I suppose I'll just have to wait for technologies like Photosynth to get so incredible that they can handle the task of working out a photo-based model of the whole house!
6 comments:
O_O
DUDE... FTW!!!
Awesome! Does Blender let you "cheat" and use alpha textures on things like those balcony details? Might save you lots of work...unless you really want that level of 3D detail. ;o)
Yes, it does - in fact, that's the technique I used for the ironwork on the Haunted Mansion. But there are two significant disadvantages to that:
* If I decide to do closeup shots, it can become apparent that the ironwork has no true thickness.
* More importantly, using a plane with a transparent PNG texture interferes with part of my lighting. I use a technique called ambient occlusion, which basically simulates soft light bouncing around from the sky. It gives some nice detail that'd otherwise be absent in the shadows. Now, normal lights can shine through the partially transparent plane just fine, casting a shadow and everything. But the ambient occlusion doesn't get through - it's just blocked as if the plane were opaque. That creates a very dark shadow inside the veranda, which means I have to add new lights just inside the ironwork to specifically light those areas. I got it to work with the Haunted Mansion, but it takes a while, and the render times can go up a little, and it doesn't look quite right.
One thing I don't know is whether the alpha technique renders more quickly or not (aside from the lighting issue). I haven't done any tests that compare the techniques...perhaps I should.
I try to think of the lack of blueprints just making the project more challenging.
I went to the Winchester mansion back when I was in highschool and remember trying to work out the plan from my rememberences of the tour and photos in the guidebook. I didn't get very far,
Have you compared your work to the work at bendintheriver? I've used his stuff for reference but haven't compared it against photographs to get the accuracy you're going for.
I would guess that the new ventilator is for the master bathroom of the disney suite. I think the big tub is right about there and the walk in closet would be behind the round window in the corner of the building. Plus it was just installed in the past few years
On the fantasmic control room. The window is pretty close to the roof and the control room has to be 7' high to stand up in so I can never quite figure out why the room doesn't stick into the patio below . I assume there's another level above the disney suite and that there's evidence of the control room in the Gallery/ suite and that the height of the top floor is just disguised by the patio roof.
Does that sound right?
Haha, I basically keep bendintheriver.net open constantly while I work on this part of my model. :D Jeff Skinner and I have corresponded via email on numerous occasions - I'm really amazed with what he's done. His work has been an invaluable reference (and source of inspiration!) for me, but I do have to be careful, since there are details here and there that aren't quite right. Some areas are just so dang hard to find information on... =P
I believe you're correct about the ventilator - it was certainly added at the right time, and I do believe one of the bedrooms is right there. As for the Fantasmic! control room, I'm not sure...I'm actually away from my modeling computer right now, so I can't check it, but I believe that whole little "module" containing the room is tall enough for people to walk around in. It shouldn't impact the rooms below. I'll have to look into it when I get back to my model. =)
Joe,
Glad to see you back at it. POTC is looking good. I feel your pain as far as no alpha maps. Working on the Main Street train station wrought iron really slowed things down. Thank god for the "Display As Box" option :)
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