jbshorty - render

[jbshorty]

Originally Posted by -ash-

What settings did you use for meshing in MoI ready for modo, if I might ask?

depends on the model of course. But normally it looks something like:
**n-gon export via LWO
**weld edges is "unchecked"
**angle of 6 degrees (sometimes as low as 4 degrees)
**divide larger than 0.5 (curved surfaces)
**avoid smaller than 0.2 (sometimes 0.1)

jonah

[Frenchy Pilou]

Nicy and cool to see that Moi can help
Maybe you can put it in the Moi's Gallery?

[-ash-]

Originally Posted by jbshorty

depends on the model of course. But normally it looks something like:
**n-gon export via LWO
**weld edges is "unchecked"
**angle of 6 degrees (sometimes as low as 4 degrees)
**divide larger than 0.5 (curved surfaces)
**avoid smaller than 0.2 (sometimes 0.1)

jonah

Thanks for the info - I've just picked up modo and this gives me a good starting point for my own MoI exports.

[jbshorty]

Originally Posted by Frenchy Pilou

Nicy and cool to see that Moi can help
Maybe you can put it in the Moi's Gallery?

modeled in Rhino, meshed in MoI, rendered in Modo. I'm not sure this qualifies for a MoI gallery entry of the full render, unless I make a tech render to show the wires...

[jbshorty]

Originally Posted by -ash-

Thanks for the info - I've just picked up modo and this gives me a good starting point for my own MoI exports.

I see you finally jumped the fence!

[-ash-]

Originally Posted by jbshorty

I see you finally jumped the fence!

Yep, been playing the past few weeks with the trial. Bought 301 the day before 302 came out

Working my way through Andy Brown's camera tutorial at the moment. Have to say I really like working in this tool. I love that loopslice command

[jbshorty]

Originally Posted by -ash-

...I love that loopslice command

Modo does have some great tools for box modeling. Edge modeling still needs some work though... About exporting from MoI, of course the settings mentioned can't be applied universally to all objects. But my practice is basically done in this order:

1. I start by lowering the angle threshold (increasing polygons) until the highly curved areas around the object's silhouette look smooth enough for a detailed render.
2. Then i use the "divide larger than" to refine the areas of low curvature.
3. The first step will often give too much tesselation in thin, highly curved surfaces (such as fillets). So last thing i do is adjust the setting for "avoid smaller than". Thin round fillets require just 4-5 steps of tesselation to look smooth in a final render. anything more is a waste of polygons...

jonah

[-ash-]

Originally Posted by jbshorty

Modo does have some great tools for box modeling. Edge modeling still needs some work though... About exporting from MoI, of course the settings mentioned can't be applied universally to all objects. But my practice is basically done in this order:

1. I start by lowering the angle threshold (increasing polygons) until the highly curved areas around the object's silhouette look smooth enough for a detailed render.
2. Then i use the "divide larger than" to refine the areas of low curvature.
3. The first step will often give too much tesselation in thin, highly curved surfaces (such as fillets). So last thing i do is adjust the setting for "avoid smaller than". Thin round fillets require just 4-5 steps of tesselation to look smooth in a final render. anything more is a waste of polygons...

jonah

Thanks for this - I wasn't really sure how to use the dialog. This is most helpful .

[jbshorty]

Hi all. Just goofing around with Rhino's core render engine. Rhino does not have a built-in cel shader. But it can use environment maps ("mirror-ball" reflection maps) to fake all sorts of materials. So here is an example of my home-made cel shading map, shown with and without wireframes. This was one of my first Hexagon models, made a couple of years ago. I imported to Rhino as a TSpline. You can see where T-Splines automatically removed any unnecessary edges, leaving "T-junctions" and without changing the shape (unlike removing a subd edge).

Back to the Rhino core engine, i can't get a reflection on the floor because the core engine does not do raytraced reflections. But it can draw shadows, which are evident from the one area light which i placed in the scene. Not sure what's going on with Toucan (the Rhino core engine). The in-house builds of Toucan is a fully fueatured raytracer with all of the bells and whistles:

• SSS
• anisotropy
• DOF
• blurry reflections/refractions
• caustics and photon mapping
• chromatic dispersion
• ambient occlusion

But McNeel says they are unsure of what will become of Toucan, which is really disappointing. They are sitting on this engine for at least 2 years already. I would like to see the full featured Toucan core shipped within Rhino 5. I think it's time for Rhino to have a built-in raytracer...

jonah

[jbshorty]

More examples of materials which can be "faked" by using reflection maps. All maps made by myself, using Modo and Photoshop, except for the "black rubber". That little beauty was created by Hyltom (another Rhino user). For the toon maps, i took inspiration from Hexagon's maps. But they are slightly different in proportion and color banding than the Hex maps...

jonah

[rickei]

"do you hear the grasshopper at your feet?"
Master Po

these are VERY interesting Shorty, I don't use Rhino but thanks for sharing.

[jbshorty]

Thanks Rickei… Just this morning I figured out how to get raytraced reflections from the Rhino core engine. It’s possible now because the new RDK exposes the reflectivity channel (which was hidden in the default Rhino material editor). So having the RDK installed, then I realized I could use the RDK’s Texture Editor and set reflective values. So here’s a few more tests. I only used area lights for these images. And there is no irradiance caching, so they were dog slow. About 15 minutes for the spheres and spherical dingleberries,and about 20 minutes for the grasshoppers. If I used Brazil with IC, it probably would have taken about 2 minutes. And if I used other light types, for sure it would have been faster. But area lights look so much nicer. And this is only for fun...

jonah

[jbshorty]

another test render, using the Rhino basic core engine and the RDK's refraction setting. Rendered only with 2 point lights. And i used the new "custom curve" applied to a gradient on the red/yellow glasshopper...

jonah

[jbshorty]

Had a little more time to play around with this buckle scene. Now i got the plastic materials to look as they should. So I'm happy about that. The tile floor is procedural of course, one area where Modo is seriously underpowered. Hopefully the SDK will be ready for 401 and we can have some good plugin shaders for modo.... Eric? Mark? Julian?... Are you out there?

jonah

[-ash-]

Originally Posted by jbshorty

The tile floor is procedural of course, one area where Modo is seriously underpowered. Hopefully the SDK will be ready for 401 and we can have some good plugin shaders for modo.... Eric? Mark? Julian?... Are you out there?

jonah

I've yet to have a serious look a modo's shaders/materials but after Carrara I was a bit suprised to find modo a bit lacking in this area. I also hope Eric and co could get into shader plugins for modo

[Narration]

Thanks to each of you - this is very interesting to learn about the visible possibilities of different cartoon renderings. I have liked the Toons Plus I got for Carrara, but these are more refinements indeed.

Regards,
Clive

[jbshorty]

A few months ago, Rhino's displacement plugin and Brazil beta became incompatible. But today Andy released the updated displacement plugin So i just made a little test using displacment, sss, and toon outlines...

jonah

[jbshorty]

Hi. 2 new test images from today. I'm working on a project for an architectural landscaper, and they needed a render of ivy growing on a wire fence. I can't disclose the project details, but these are my "proof of concept" renders for a small portion of the final image. The fences were modeled as a mesh in Rhino 4. The ivy was created using Ivy Generator (first time using it!). And rendered in Modo...

jonah

[-ash-]

Nice job - I hope the client is pleased!

what do you think of the Ivy Generator? Not something I've tried.

[jbshorty]

Thanks. Will have to wait for their comment now... Actually the Ivy Generator seems to work OK, but the lack of good documentation makes it difficult to get what you need the first time you use it. And considering i needed to learn it on the spot, I was really missing some good info about it! But oh well, i got through the old fashioned way... One minor detail when i brought the ivy into Modo is there was no texture applied for the leaf alpha. So i had to add that in... I think next time I will try using the MergeOBJ utility that Michael Gibson wrote, so i can merge all of my plant files into one OBJ. Because Ivy Generator only lets you create and export one ivy at a time...

jonah