My homework thread for the October 2018 Class.
Week 1 Submission: Page 2
Week 2 Submission: Page 5
Week 3 Submission: Page 8
Week 4 Submission: Page 9
Day 3 done!
So I started on my "Remastered" series, with my first ever non-tutorial based render, "Childhood Memory". You can check it out here, but it's quite simple, no story to tell. Right lets have a look then, doesn't seem too bad so just add shaders and ligh- OH GOD WHAT IS THAT
WHY ARE THE NORMALS INVERTED?! WHY IS IT USING FLAT SHADING?! WHY ARE THE WORDS JUST FLOATING?!
OH GOD WHAT IS THAT?!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
Okay, maybe this is a bit more than a simple re-shading and re-lighting, guess this week is "Aaron Rudderham: The Remake" instead. Except I'm not gonna cut it up into three pieces and expect you to wait 10 years for the full experience *cough* Square Enix *cough* FFVII *cough*.
Well I modeled most of it yesterday, with the exception of the "Sony" carving. I'm not really sure how I'm gonna go about this whilst looking nice and not taking 4 hours to fix the topology, and of you guys got any pointers? I'd really appreciate it!
Now it's time for a long time fan favorite to return, the turntable! Comparing both my original and new memory card (which isn't finished, still have more details to add). It's amazing what a ton of practice will do.
Didn't bother modeling the top or back because you won't seem them in the render, but I like what I got so far and if anyone could point me in the right direction towards the letter carving I'd appreciate that. Well that's me done for now, have a good one guys!
thecabbagedetective Why not control the "Sony" with textures? Like with displacement or something?
silentheart00 I think I understand but just to be certain you mind giving me an example?
thecabbagedetective Yeah, sure. Wikipedia has a good entry on displacement maps. Displacement maps will actually change the mesh, so you'll need more mesh density to support the letters. If I remember correctly, a value of 0 or black will push the mesh in, 1 or white will push out, and .5 or grey will not change at all. I'll see if I can find some examples on Artstation. I know I've seen some examples on there.
silentheart00 Thanks! I'll be sure to look out for additional examples.
Day 4 done!
Thought I'd post this early 'cause I don't have many more impressive things to show you in the coming hours. Tweaked my teaser image for approximately the 7,000th time and I think I've finally come across a render I properly like.
Looking forward to looking at this again and finding a small issue like the hand being 0.04% too glossy and spending the afternoon trying to rectify, but so far I think this is the best one so far, finding a balance between mood and lighting. Critique away!
I also got started on the course homework. Y'know, the thing I'm actually supposed to do, and decided to start on the truck first:
I tinkered around with the pointiness values and think I came to something I like. The white on the grey body is a bit strong but I kinda like it, makes it look cheap. I also placed a noise texture on most of the body thanks to 
jakeblended's tip from last class but it appears I may have made the size too big? Or maybe the normal height is too weak? Not really sure. I intend to hopefully put some imperfections on it tomorrow or Sunday but I just wanted to know if I was going in the right direction.
With that done I'm off back to Blender, good day all and happy Blending!
thecabbagedetective Lol the story-telling approach to your childhood memories remaster had me snickering pretty good 😅
The sony logo isn't bothering me too bad in the turntable render. Silent is right that a displacement might do the job. Only potential issue there is your geometry will need to be subdivided heavily to compensate for a sony texture to displace cleanly. I think a cleaner boolean should be fine though.
Your latest robot arm is definitely the best. Way to process the feedback and level up the final result.
Also the toy truck is excellent. There's a softness to it that reminds of Toy Story 3's aesthetic. Did you apply some subtle glow via compositing nodes?
You've done a lot of great work this week. But then again that's kind of your thing! A+ my guy
@theluthier Why thank you for the feedback, but I should say that I'm not quite done yet, as I'd like to redo the bedroom lighting as well, so hopefully you'll take a look at that when it's done!
I'm not too bothered by some dense geometry, I'll just let it render whilst I sleep lol. Also, I intended to composite the truck but turns out the file comes pre-composited! I did tweak the distortion node though, but the glow is probably due to me changing the lights in the scene along with changing it to Filmic (which FYI guys can massively improve your renders, definitely do that) which made the already present glow node show differently.
Overall I'm glad you like it and hopefully you'll think the same of what's left to come this week. Thanks again!
thecabbagedetective Hey hey! That hand is looking sweet! Depending on what you want to do, maybe now's the time to add subtle defects. Truck looks good, too. The white on the grey edges kind of pushes it more towards metal for me, though. Otherwise, good work.
silentheart00 with subtle defects do you mean a look at the mechanic hand that some parts are broken?
thecabbagedetective that is some really nice work. I love the way the mechanic arm turned out. Nice work with the truck too
yyukinoh1989 Like adding scratches or dings so it's not so perfect looking. Nothing so extreme as breaking bits off.
silentheart00 Ta very much! I definitely see what you mean about adding extra details but seeing as this is merely meant to be a "teaser" for a much larger project I think I'll leave it for now. Sadly I also understand what you mean about the truck, I'd really like to have it only in the wheel arch part but not sure how I'd go about that, might end up removing that.
yyukinoh1989 Thank ya kindly! You're doing pretty good yourself!
Day 5 done!
Not gonna show anything here because I'm almost done for the week and I'll save that surprise for the morning! Have a good day and good luck!
thecabbagedetective he what? Don't do that xd I want to see it T_T. How much hours left till we can see it :). I know I am impatient xd but then again I am a curious woman :D.
HOMEWORK SUBMISSION WEEK 1
Heya! There were a few more things I wanted to do but I decided it'd be smarter to eek it out throughout the month so here we go!
First up we have the toy truck (funnily enough, when I first did this exercise when I was just getting into 3D - back in February - I showed it to my friends and it became one big in-joke. I'm now known as the Dumper Truck Man). Not much has changed since I last showed this. And but not much I mean nothing at all (this was true to begin with at least, I've edited it a couple of times now thanks to advice, so cheers for that!). I was considering changing the white edges because as was pointed out they make it look a bit metallic but overall I still quite like them.
Whilst not finished here's my Sony Memory Card so far, a "remake" of my first non-tutorial based render nearly 7 months old (jeez, time flies). Was gonna do the displacement map today but felt I'd rather spend my time either working on my friend's project or the pumpkin contest, so I'll be doing that and hopefully setting up the scene throughout next week. Probably should have done some more impressive lighting but to be honest it was done at the eleventh hour just so I'm not late.
We then have the bedroom exercise, which whilst setting up the lighting I thought it was rather unfair, because the toy truck got both shaded and lit whereas the bedroom only got lit, so I decided to liven things up.
And here's the nighttime one:
I understand if these are not to be counted considering it was a lighting only exercise and I apologise if that's an issue, but I at least have my old homework to fall back on plus I had too much fun doing this.Though to be fair I did use a fair amount of textures (both from Poliigon and TextureHaven) but there's a fair share of shading in there as well. I should also point out that whilst I was going for realism there was quite a few things I left out, namely imperfections, like dust, fingerprints etc. I really need to get good at those, and I'm starting to get rather miffed I don't use them.
Lastly there's my "teaser" image, which has seen quite the transformation and it wouldn't be nearly as improved as it has been if it wasn't for you guys, so thanks for that! This is also the closest I got to one of those "lighting match" exercises this week, so maybe I'll get the opportunity to properly do that soon.
Welp, that's everything. Thanks for everyone leaving feedback, advice and encouragement! Hopefully I've made it in time for @theluthier's grading but I've got a few hours left so all should be well. I'm not terribly sure what advice to give from this week of homework but if any of you have any questions or want some advice you're more than welcome to ask, so don't hesitate! Good luck to those who are wrapping things up for the week and have a great day to you all!
ssmurfmier1985 yyukinoh1989 Sorry to keep you waiting haha, hope you like it!
thecabbagedetective really amazing work. I love how you're homework turned out. Great job again :) I still am working on my truck xd it takes a lot of time. Wonder how long the shading of the bedroom took :o. Keep it up you're doing a real good job. One thing I find a bit too intense is the reflection in the window of the night scene but that is a real, small thing and it can be just me too that find that