August Entry: Time knows no direction

[pyrandon]

NOTE: Pyrandon would respond to this thread, but he's too busy picking his eyeballs up off the floor and repairing the crack in the cement from where his jaw dropped.

[ravells]

What Don said.

[Robbie]

You guys are too kind.

I was hoping that you'd be all..."bleh" when I posted the early WIPs and then get all excited when the detailing started. Looks like it worked.

[Fister]

I really like the subtle textures you used to differentiate the metals used in your sundial. Additionally, the brass detailing really gave it some flare for the eye to appreciate from a greater distance.

[kalmarjan]

I like what you have done so far, as a good start. What have you modeled this in?

A few comments to make it better....

1) This is an old sundial right? How about some grime/wear and tear?
2) Your directional arrows do not sit well with me. I think it is because of the text/runes look like they are floating on them, as well as your raised arc. Perhaps the directional arrows would look better if they were sunk into the metal instead of being raised? It just has a small feeling of "something does not look right".
3) What program are you rendering this out in? I would guess something like Bryce, because you were speaking about a 10 o'clock sun. What would be really cool is if you can map the shadow from the pointer on the sundial, to make it cast the shadow over the dial itself, to kind of give a clue as to being 10 oclock. I haven't worked with Bryce since ver 4, so I cannot remember if it can be done.

All in all, a very good go. Good work. Wish I had time to put in an entry.

Sandeman

[Robbie]

I like what you have done so far, as a good start. What have you modeled this in?

I'm using 3d studio max 9 with mental ray as my renderer. Its all done with A&D materials and the Mental ray sunlight system.

1) This is an old sundial right? How about some grime/wear and tear?

This has always been my weakpoint in regards to modelling still life objects. I've never really learned how to blend materials properly so the weathering and grime appears in the right place. I've gotten closer than ever with this model though due to the A/O blending of the colors...I'll experiment more though.

2) Your directional arrows do not sit well with me. I think it is because of the text/runes look like they are floating on them, as well as your raised arc. Perhaps the directional arrows would look better if they were sunk into the metal instead of being raised? It just has a small feeling of "something does not look right".

Yeah I've thought a lot about that as well...The directional arrow is actually sunk into the base metal...if you look at the thickness of it outside the dial versus inside, you see that its actually buried, but a small bit of it sticks out above the surface of the rough base metal...I imagined the outer ring was placed first, then molten metal was poured in and the directional pointers were then pushed into the cooling base metal. But you're right, the fact that the runes and metal carvings just overlap it freely means either there was a LOT of really fancy metalworking going on, or I was just a little sloppy. I'll see what I can do...I really don't want to lose the design breakup on the base metal that the inner directional pointers give me.

3) What program are you rendering this out in? I would guess something like Bryce, because you were speaking about a 10 o'clock sun. What would be really cool is if you can map the shadow from the pointer on the sundial, to make it cast the shadow over the dial itself, to kind of give a clue as to being 10 oclock. I haven't worked with Bryce since ver 4, so I cannot remember if it can be done.

This makes no sense to me, since the shadow is appearing...are you not seeing the shadow of the pointer pointing to the rune that represents 10am? the earlier render has the shadow pointing at the rune that represents 2am. Thats why I used the mental ray sun system because you can actually set the location in the world (lat/lon) as well as the time of day, and the sun rotates along an arc that represents that with proper angle changes based on season and whatnot. Its accurate enough to do a sundial for sure.

Thanks much for the feedback...as a fellow 3d guy I was looking forward to your response.