August/September 2017 Challenge: Dwarf City

[- JO -]

Amazing boat !!!!

[Falconius]

OMG

I'm only just learning how to use the Cycles thing - don't even know what all the nodes do yet! LOL!

I have a feeling that your far greater experience with all these 3D apps, shaders and render machines will tell in the end - its already telling

If you need any help or want any of the untextured shaders I have let me know. The node thing in cycles has a big change coming up they are adding a smart material type node in the next version which will eliminate a lot of the node spaghetti currently required in Blender.

This is looking good! I'm totally out of my depth with 3D rendering, I played with some tools many years ago but never got very far. Huge respect for the time you're putting in learning this, it's great to see some more of your work with it!

cheers,
Meshon

Thanks Meshon

That boat is really awesome. It look like it't a real toy.

I played a bit with the 3d softwares lately and there is a steep learning curve. I tried blender first then sketchup and I managed to do what I wanted with the latter but if I understand correctly, blender offers more possibilities?

I'm not sure, since I've not sat down and learned Sketchup before. Years ago I had a look at it and couldn't really figure it out, of course same thing with Blender at that time. From what I understand Sketch up is very useful for precision and planning, and as far as I'm aware has tools suited to exploiting that. Blender is a more general modeling/3d/animating/rendering/sculpting suite like 3DS Max or Maya (or really it covers all the bases, but not all of them well). You can do accuracy in Blender, but it's not necessarily "easy". For modelling (ie playing around with the mesh and editing its vertices etc.) I think it's pretty great, but I hated sculpting in it. Same for texturing, it is very basic and painful in that regard. 3D Coat covers both the sculpting and the painting/texturing bases so well. In any case I think once you learn the basics of any 3d modeling software, like Sketchup or Blender, it is a much simpler transition to move those skills around programs. Like switching from Corel Paint to Photoshop, or from GIMP to Krita.

To learn Blender I just had to go super basic and start with a super simple tutorials, and just press through them even though a donut on the table is not so exciting. Basically like learning to take first steps. I saw he recently started a new tutorial series about modeling.

Amazing boat !!!!

Thanks Jo!

[Mouse]

If you need any help or want any of the untextured shaders I have let me know. The node thing in cycles has a big change coming up they are adding a smart material type node in the next version which will eliminate a lot of the node spaghetti currently required in Blender....

Thank you so much

You are very kind, Falconius - I'll ask if I get really stuck

EDIT: And that new material node is cooler than cool!

[Redrobes]

I will watch that video of the new shader with interest at some point but I had to skim through it this eve. It looked good tho. I did a post a while back on blender called putting myself through the blender because its a hard step to take to learn a new app. I find the UI of blender very weird. It has been criticized for that over the years. I believe that the maintainers of it changed a while back and its now different to how it used to be. I should really have another go and put myself through it again. I gotta get me a 3 button mouse first. Why they chose to use the middle button for view rotate is beyond me. I expect there are better ways of viewing now so ill have to give it another go. Certainly all this node based shader definitions were not in it years ago. My problem is that I know my very very old copy of lightwave very well and I just cant put it down and pick something else up as I always go back to it. But it doesnt even run properly on latest windows now - its archaic. I need to get over the learning curve of blender.

I know that you dont like to learn new apps but you will struggle with terrain in 3D without using height maps. They are so much lighter weight than poly meshes that you can have bigger arrays of them and the tools for terrain work much better. Your terrain will look very smooth with poly's and it may take a lot of work on the shaders to bring them out.

Really like your boat tho. I was watching that guy model the blacksmiths anvil and it is sooo different to how I do it. I think thats my problem with blender in that its like playing a different instrument. Blender doesnt do it the way I am used to. It can do it no problem but it's hard trying to force it to do it differently to how it was imagined when written. Historically I have modelled in lightwave, exported to OBJ and then used blender as a shader only. I think I have a lot of Blender Guru to catch up on...

Enjoying your thread so far tho

[Falconius]

I will watch that video of the new shader with interest at some point but I had to skim through it this eve. It looked good tho. I did a post a while back on blender called putting myself through the blender because its a hard step to take to learn a new app. I find the UI of blender very weird. It has been criticized for that over the years. I believe that the maintainers of it changed a while back and its now different to how it used to be. I should really have another go and put myself through it again. I gotta get me a 3 button mouse first. Why they chose to use the middle button for view rotate is beyond me. I expect there are better ways of viewing now so ill have to give it another go. Certainly all this node based shader definitions were not in it years ago. My problem is that I know my very very old copy of lightwave very well and I just cant put it down and pick something else up as I always go back to it. But it doesn't even run properly on latest windows now - its archaic. I need to get over the learning curve of blender.

It took me literally years of start and stop on approaching Blender before I finally just bit the bullet. I'm pretty sure I had it installed on my machine for five years and I'd only open it in curiosity once or twice a year, and then immediately shut it down after think I broke it somehow (ie screwing up the UI by accident ). I wish you success. I think you are going to understand the shaders in Cycles (Blenders current high quality renderer) far better than I can, because I'm pretty sure you know all the scientific and math terms, and indeed how the shaders actually work. And really, if you've got a computer that can crunch the rendering involved that is one of the best strengths of Blender, at least when you consider it's like 2000 bucks for Keyshot and other high quality renderers.

I know that you dont like to learn new apps but you will struggle with terrain in 3D without using height maps. They are so much lighter weight than poly meshes that you can have bigger arrays of them and the tools for terrain work much better. Your terrain will look very smooth with poly's and it may take a lot of work on the shaders to bring them out.

I actually kind of do like to learn new apps, but honestly I'm just kind of worn out on it ATM. I mean in the past few months I've learned how to use zBrush, 3D Coat, and nominally Krita, and I've been Learning Blender for the past year. I'm thinking of picking up Dwarf Fortress again just for a break (But I don't think I have the time, and honestly all I ever wanted to do in that game was make a cool map, so I might as well just go about it this way).

In any case this map started with height maps although there were some irritations, but my plan with it is the arrange a 3d city on top of it and for that I think I need the mesh. Or at least I wouldn't know how to do it without one. I'm planning on bakeing and painting the land colour textures, normals, and ambient occlusion, in 3D coat and I'm hoping that will help to mitigate the poly problems you mention.

Really like your boat tho. I was watching that guy model the blacksmiths anvil and it is sooo different to how I do it. I think thats my problem with blender in that its like playing a different instrument. Blender doesnt do it the way I am used to. It can do it no problem but it's hard trying to force it to do it differently to how it was imagined when written. Historically I have modelled in lightwave, exported to OBJ and then used blender as a shader only. I think I have a lot of Blender Guru to catch up on...

Enjoying your thread so far tho

Thanks

[Falconius]

For those wondering about Sketchup this guy shows what kind of potential it has: Karanak on DA

[Falconius]

Ok two options. Option 1 is a solid fill on the dwarf levels, and kind of carve them out. Option 2 which I'm leaning towards is have the levels hollow so I can show and model the inner works more normally (constructing them instead of carving them). I've been looking at modern mine renderings/maps and this is how they do it (show the corridors and mines floating), it is also the option I'm leaning towards for purposes of ease.
### Latest WIP ###
Splitedorthol.pngHollowedOrthol.png
Guess I'll have to trim the lakes if I go for the hollow route.

The levels are not all equal, they range from 50 meters to I think 125 meters tall. They are all separated an equal distance though.

Here's it unexploded:
unexplodedSplits.png

There are 15 levels, but I don't think I'll have to use them all. Just wanted to split them off in case.

[Mouse]

This is totally unbelievable. I mean unbelievably complicated. I have a feeling, though, that this is going to be a spectacular map when its done

(I like the second one better as well)

[Falconius]

### Latest WIP ###
Tester1 (Copy).jpg
Been testing field ideas over in the left side there (not the triangle bits but the ones with solid colours). I think they are too saturated ATM and I'm not sure how they really look. I may have to put in trees first to get a better idea. Other than that not too much progress, just been working on the surface stuff mostly, trying to develop a style I think works, not really there yet. I need to keep peaked roofs because of the climate there.

I'm also trying to get a sense of scale for the buildings The ones there are pretty large, the mills over on the right and two palace complexes on the mountains. Most buildings I think would be about half the size of the green manor on the hill. But I'm thinking there may be two. One shot like this or from overhead at the same orthographic scale, and then each level perhaps at a closer scale.

[Ilanthar]

Wow, the boat is awesome, and those mountains too!