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
silentheart00 ssmurfmier1985 Damn you guys giving me very similar advice within 10 seconds of each other, you sure you're not the same person?
In all seriousness though I *definitely* intend to add more imperfections and bumpiness and whatnot, so thanks for pointing me in the right direction for that!
thecabbagedetective lol, no, maybe just similar thoughts =]
Nothing to see... Carry on...
thecabbagedetective same thank you too. That is a huge compliment for me :D. But then again it's because all of you guys keep pushing me further to get even better results. I am sure if you add extra details there will be a huge difference already. :)
Oh crap I actually have homework and important things to do... yeah, should probably start working on that...
ssmurfmier1985 I've been so busy I haven't had the chance lol, gotta get something done!
silentheart00 Indeed it is, maybe one more day of faffing about then...
dragonice69 Don't worry about being late, thank you very much!
Part 1 Kind of But Not Really Done!
Okay, first thing's first, I know I usually do daily updates and the like and I haven't been doing that this week (and will unlikely be doing throughout this class) and for that I apologise. It infuriates me because I love doing the best I can and thinking outside the box somewhat when it comes to homework but this month I just have absolutely no time. This is mostly due to the fact that the Epic Pumpkin Contest has been taking up almost all of my time, that combined with a couple commissions I have, I haven't worked this hard at Blender since the vehicle modeling course. I still read every message sent my way and I'll do my best to answer as many questions as I can, but I hope everyone understands why I might be a bit slow at times.
Now, to the important stuff.
I decided to tackle the vehicle shading part first, which required returning to 2.8. Whilst I must say it's grown on me a bit I'll be returning to 2.79 when the class is done because right now it's way too unstable and buggy for me to work with (crashed ~15 times today).
Something that's surprised me this week is it seems not a lot of people in this class came from the vehicle modeling class, as I haven't seen many cars from that class. In a way it's a good thing though, shows CG Cookie is growing! As you can probably tackle from that I've returned to my vehicle from that class (for the unawares it was a Rolls Royce Silver Spur II Limousine). Whilst I was proud of what I had created that class I still didn't feel like it was good enough to put on my gallery due to meh shaders, so hopefully that'll be rectified in the coming days. Now whilst I haven't finished them all (exterior is pretty much done aside from the ground though) here's the render from the vehicle modeling class (2.79 Cycles):
And here's the one I recently did (2.8 Eevee):
Still can't get the hang of shadows...
Well, that's it for now, if you'll excuse me me I'm gonna head back to Blender for a bit before I fall asleep, and for you guys I wish you all the best in your Blending!
thecabbagedetective Yeah Pumpkin Contest! Well as far as the lighting it looks pretty WIP right now, which is perfectly expected. All lamps seem to share a white-ish color so I recommend having fun with saturated lamps for the final render. Since you're going for slightly stylized, colored lamps will cater to that aesthetic.
..seems not a lot of people in this class came from the vehicle modeling class, as I haven't seen many cars from that class
That's an interesting observation. So far neither have I seen many vehicles from that class. I suppose they've all had about enough of me as they can muster.
While I still think you did a pretty bang-up job on your original render, your Eevee version is looking great! Looks like you're using an HDRI with a bunch of light sources which plays well off the car paint's reflection as well as metallic bits. The only negative aspect at the moment is the ground. Get a nice [obligatorily] wet asphalt situation going on and this will be 💰
It infuriates me because I love doing the best..
What about your work so far isn't your best? You're doing great stuff. Quantity ≠ Quality. You gotta chill out before you burnout bruh!
thecabbagedetective No worries mate, I can live without your daily updates 😉
Your eevee car looks so much better by the way!! 😄
@theluthier Fun fact: In that render there's not a single lamp in the scene, just an HDRI, the headlights are naturally bright for some reason, even when turned off lol.
I think I misspoke somewhat, what I meant by doing my best is typically I get started on my homework the minute the class stream ends and I enjoy tweaking and iterating on it throughout the week whereas this week I didn't get that opportunity, so a part of me feels like I coulda done more, but as you said, quantity doesn't equal quality, so I think I did pretty good with the time I had. It's rendering now, so should hopefully be up in the next 20 minutes or so.
And have no fear, we all love ya!
Homework Submission Week 2
Welp, Monday is upon us, and you know what that means, homework deadline! I think I did pretty good with the time I had though I didn't have any time to tell stories this time around. First up is the car, in which I used the limousine I made in the vehicle modeling class. Again, here's the render from that class:
And here's my finished (for now) result from Eevee:
(Update: Thanks to 
gradyp for helping me realize a couple flaws, it has since been improved slightly, though when I have more time I intend to improve it further) It has its problems, naturally. The weird artifacting on the number plate is bugging me (shoulda probably tried using is as a texture instead but didn't have the time), there's not much in terms of imperfections (though being a limo I imagine it's kept in tip top shape) and due to the previous render being rather dark I thought I could get away with a fairly low-detailed engine under the hood, but now it kinda sticks out. Oh well, when the next episode of "Storytime with Aaron" arrives I'll be sure that's fixed.
Speaking of fixing things I was going to take shots of the interior as well but as of right now I just do not have the time nor the skill to do it justice procedurally. I made the leather and plastic look nice enough from a distance and for now I think that will suffice. Trying to do that glossy finished wood stuff is a lot harder than it looks haha.
Also full disclosure, the road is a texture, this one specifically, but I did use nodes to give it a wet appearance, also the sidewalk and the sidewalk brick divider thingy were done procedurally. If this is a problem by all means tell me and I'll change it.
NEXT!
It appears that sspecialfx is the gentleman who provided the inspiration for this week's lighting match, namely this scene, so be sure to give him some love if you already haven't. I decided to use my own plane from the HSM fundamentals course in an attempt to replicate it the most.
^ Goal ^
^ Result ^
Good lord my plane has not aged well lol.
But back on topic, there are some issues, like the shadows are sharper and lighter in areas in the goal than the result, also the goal just generally seems darker. Still, don't think I did bad for 20 minutes. Here's the setup I used:
Well, that's that done for the week! If anyone has any questions or wants me to share something by all means go ahead and ask! With that said though I think I'm going to take a bit of a break from Blender and relax for the next few hours. Have a good one!
After having a looksie it appears the limo file size is nearing 300 MB, combined with 3.5 million verts and my computer being a glorified turbo-boosted sandwich toaster it's no wonder it crashes so much, maybe I'll give 2.8 another go on something more simple.