Arf?

[RandyWang]

Arf?

I made this puppy for a friend yesterday - it took about three hours' of modelling, but I blame the fact that I didn't actually have a mouse (and it's fairly difficult to use Cheetah with only a laptop's trackpad). Still, I'm happy with how it turned out, since this is the most complex model I've ever made.

Maybe I'll turn him into a balloon animal. =)

 

[Martin]

Hi David,
your dog is really neat. But how did you make the shadow? Did you use a area light or is it a fake shadow?

By,
Martin

 

[RandyWang]

Hi Martin,

That shadow wasn't made in Cheetah3D - I usually use the rendered shadows, but in this case it turned out to be too difficult to make the puppy cast a shadow onto a pure white surface (the plane I used as a "floor" would turn too dark at the edges).

I decided to save myself some time and effort, so I made the shadow in Photoshop: it's just a black ellipse on a layer with 90% opacity, which I blurred with the Gaussian Blur feature. Very easy to make. =)

 

[frank beckmann]

blurred shadows

Hi David, nice little pet.

Just a test:
Blurred shadows in Cheetah3d are highpriced (very timeconsuming) to the fact that only arealights will produce soft shadows right now.

with kindest regards

Frank

 

[RandyWang]

I could, I suppose, have used an arealight to create the shadow - I didn't actually think of that at the time, to be honest.

On the other hand, I don't think an arealight would have been appropriate for this image because it would take too long, and also because it would make it very difficult for me to keep the image looking "right".

I'm quite happy with how the puppy turned out, except for the fact that it's shadow bears no relationship to the light that's cast onto the model. Ah, well. Nothing is perfect. =)

 

[frank beckmann]

Hi David.

As I said: just a test.
As a reflective part, you could have put a plane just near the puppy to get a little light from underneath. If you want so. Very close to perfection. :wink:

Frank

 

[RandyWang]

I'll rerender the puppy with an arealight and reflective plane tonight, just to see how he looks, and then post the results. It might end up looking much better. =)

 

[frank beckmann]

Good morning David.

A new testrender is awaiting.
One simple pointlight. One plane as reflective part. Shadow in PS.

(Are you sure using an arealight? :roll: )


Frank

 

[RandyWang]

Hi Frank,

Originally, I was using the same settings as in that last test render of yours: they're what I usually use, since I think they look great. How, though, did you get the plane to remain white as it fades into the distance?

Also, I usually have raytracing on the pointlight turn on, but now that I think of it, it might have worked otherwise.

I guess I just wanted a much stronger shadow than the one in that last test. =)

-David

 

[frank beckmann]

Hi David.

You´re absolut right with the shadow. That happend by migrating from TFT (work) to CRT (Internet) monitor without synchronising colorsyncs.
I put in a darker one.

I added the snapshot from my workspace to say between the plane and object is space and the camera lays quiet near the "floor" pointing upwards to the shell. So no lassotool is needed in PS.

To your last render: I missed a shine from underneath, if the puppy is really placed on a reflective white underground. :wink:

Frank 8)

 

[peer]

Randy: Did you have Radiosity turned on?

Regards,
Peter

 

[RandyWang]

You´re absolut right with the shadow. That happend by migrating from TFT (work) to CRT (Internet) monitor without synchronising colorsyncs.

How silly of you.

I added the snapshot from my workspace to say between the plane and object is space and the camera lays quiet near the "floor" pointing upwards to the shell. So no lassotool is needed in PS.

Hey, that's quite a good idea. I'll think about that in the future. =)

Randy: Did you have Radiosity turned on?

Yeah - the image looked absolutely terrible with only ambient occlusion. I could have fixed it, but Radiosity was much easier to use quickly.