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New Work if anyones interested


MikeB

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I've been working on a new project in the office, a 145000 sf Student Union. I layed out the plans only using plug ins. For this model I didn't model anything except the floors, everything else is VW Plugins. For lighting I used the skydome available on Vector Depot, and one sun. It took about 2 hours to render.

Enjoy

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Bitchin' !

For fun you can try a gradient background and set the skydome light colors based on the gradient. I.e. for a sunset you could use dark purple for the top color and orange for the bottom color, set the skydome light colors to orange on the bottom, purple on the top, and in between values for the middle lights.

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  • 4 weeks later...

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. I find Mike's rendering both informative and inspiring. I would prefer to see examples of VW work stay on the VW website and not migrate to someone elses site.

A new discussion area on this board for Work in Progress would be a great idea. Until then, I hope Mike and others continue to display examples of what is possible using VW and Renderworks.

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Well, here's an update, I added alot of info and textures and site. I used the same rendering technique with the sky dome object. I changed the sky dome color to white, the blue was shifting the colors too much.

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As far as a WIP forum, I personally think thats a little too much. The renderworks forum doesent have much traffic anyway, so I don't see why we don't just post here.

Thanks for the comments on the image

[ 04-15-2004, 09:03 AM: Message edited by: MikeB ]

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hi Mike:

Have you tried using Image Props for the trees?

You may want to try adding point lights below the ground plane that don't cast shadows to brighten up the darker parts of the building, or maybe increase the ambient light a little.

The skydome and sun can be thought of as primary lights, and if you have time to tweak it further (I know it takes a long time to render this) you can look for brightly-lit patches and put secondary lights to account for these patches lighting the other surfaces around them. (I am currently trying to work out a method to do this reliably, and am wondering if in the absence of true radiosity it would be worth it to try automating these "fakeiosity" techniques. The idea would be to use point or spot lights with distance falloff to localize the effect of the secondary lights.) A grid of point lights (that don't cast shadows) under the building could be one way of adding this secondary lighting. The color of each light could be chosen by rendering a top view with the Render Bitmap Tool and choosing the light colors from the nearest image pixel colors. The lights under the grass would be green, for example.

The darkness of the darker shadows makes the building look kind of drab. Also there is a lot of gray, maybe increasing the saturation in the grass and trees just a little might offset that. Another way to add more colors would be to use the background colors as a guidline for the skydome light colors. For example, a two color orange and purple background could be used for a sunset, and the skydome lights near the horizon can be set to orange and the top to purple, with the intermediate colors used for the in-between angles.

Also I think the background might look better with a gradient or a high resolution sky image rather than the clouds background.

Another idea could be to use a Plain Transparency shader on the roofs, with a very small opacity if you still want to see into each room.

The sun would reflect off of the front windows, you could put spot lights near each window aiming in the reflected direction to show this light hitting the front walk.

Fun image!

HTH,

[ 04-15-2004, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: Dave Donley ]

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quote:

Originally posted by Dave Donley:

Hi Mike:

Have you tried using Image Props for the trees?

HTH,

I have used them, there's something about the abstraction of these that I like right now, I'll eventually replace them

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Donley:

You may want to try adding point lights below the ground plane that don't cast shadows to brighten up the darker parts of the building, or maybe increase the ambient light a little.

HTH,

I'm hesitant to add any more lights, with the sky dome I've got 61, It renders slow as it is, more ambient may be a better way to go, these are really just tests at this point.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Donley:

The skydome and sun can be thought of as primary lights, and if you have time to tweak it further (I know it takes a long time to render this) you can look for brightly-lit patches and put secondary lights to account for these patches lighting the other surfaces around them. (I am currently trying to work out a method to do this reliably, and am wondering if in the absence of true radiosity it would be worth it to try automating these "fakeiosity" techniques. The idea would be to use point or spot lights with distance falloff to localize the effect of the secondary lights.) A grid of point lights (that don't cast shadows) under the building could be one way of adding this secondary lighting. The color of each light could be chosen by rendering a top view with the Render Bitmap Tool and choosing the light colors from the nearest image pixel colors. The lights under the grass would be green, for example.

HTH,

Sounds like a good possibility, but again, all those lights really slow you down

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Donley:

The darkness of the darker shadows makes the building look kind of drab. Also there is a lot of gray, maybe increasing the saturation in the grass and trees just a little might offset that. Another way to add more colors would be to use the background colors as a guidline for the skydome light colors. For example, a two color orange and purple background could be used for a sunset, and the skydome lights near the horizon can be set to orange and the top to purple, with the intermediate colors used for the in-between angles.

HTH,

I haven't tried that yet, sounds interesting

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Donley:

Also I think the background might look better with a gradient or a high resolution sky image rather than the clouds background.

HTH,

The gradients work well, but the image backgrounds are limited because they dont create a reflective environment the way the clouds and the gradients do.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Donley:

Another idea could be to use a Plain Transparency shader on the roofs, with a very small opacity if you still want to see into each room.

HTH,

Once we get the plans nailed down, I'm going to add the roof plans and more detail, skylight ect.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Donley:

The sun would reflect off of the front windows, you could put spot lights near each window aiming in the reflected direction to show this light hitting the front walk.

HTH,

Again more lights [Eek!][big Grin]

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Donley:

Fun image!

HTH,

Thanks, again I was really just experimenting with what VW can produce with a minimum of actual modeling effort. The building is all walls and plugins, the site and trees and surrounding building are modeled. I was really suprised at what came out.

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