Challenge Weeks - 9 - 10 Dice!!

Challenge Weeks - 9 - 10 Dice!!

If we have consistent participation I'll be adding a prize. For now these are just for fun, and learning. Please don't hesitate to visit, and try out any of the previous challenges.

As far as the challenge goes try modeling accuracy, experiment with shading, give a go at lighting, or make the focus something more your own design. The intent is to give everyone an idea to start from, and a goal. In the world of art, and design the idea is generally the hardest thing.

Work has been busy, and long hours lately. So I'm sorry for missing the weekly inspiration. We will continue to have the challenges go two weeks. I think it actually gives people more time to experiment with the project.

This week is a set of dice. I loved the visual composition of this image. I can't wait to see what people come up with!
 

Attachments

  • Five_ivory_dice.jpg
    Five_ivory_dice.jpg
    58.1 KB · Views: 924
My first stab - my dice are way to perfect and pristine to be interesting - will have to work on giving each piece and face unique character - adequate starting point
 

Attachments

  • Dice-Challenge-v1.jpg
    Dice-Challenge-v1.jpg
    398 KB · Views: 928
Well here is my try.
Modelled and textured on sculptris to get it a little more organic, redered on cheetah.
 

Attachments

  • dice.png
    dice.png
    93.7 KB · Views: 913
Here is my result for the dice challenge.

I had fun and learned some things while doing this. Thanks for the practice. All modeling, lighting and DOF effects rendered with Cheetah.
 

Attachments

  • dice_render1.jpg
    dice_render1.jpg
    374.2 KB · Views: 903
  • dice_setup.png
    dice_setup.png
    391.9 KB · Views: 907
Last edited:
I never heard the fan on my Macbook Pro 15 inch until I did the DOF for this render freaked me out I did not even know I had a fan.
 

Attachments

  • Dice.jpg
    Dice.jpg
    260.8 KB · Views: 887
Last edited:

I did the dice a while ago and I wanted to play with caustics...
So 500 renders later. ;)

I did a little post level adjustment on this one.

 

Attachments

  • CausticDice.jpg
    CausticDice.jpg
    146.1 KB · Views: 858
Hi Eric, Hi Uncle, nice work all round :icon_thumbup: Test renders, tell me about it, Caustics or DoF can lead to rather extended render-times and quite a few trial shots, as was the case for me too :frown:

Great to see some different takes and builds for this weeks contest as well :)
 
Bits of old bone

Decided last year's Dice looked a bit too 'machine made' and they were rather 'Poly' saturated, decided to have a go at a low 'Poly' version for a more organic look, including the extra round edges, and yes the opposite sides do add up to 7.

All done in Cheetah, background is an HDR image, everything else is procedural, finally figured out how to do a 'straight' woodgrain effect… capable as ever of missing the staggeringly obvious (duh). Balancing woodgrain, shadows and reflections was fun (all in the render not in PS), all worthwhile in the end though :-D
 

Attachments

  • All New Dice.jpg
    All New Dice.jpg
    246.5 KB · Views: 842
  • Original Dice.jpg
    Original Dice.jpg
    124.4 KB · Views: 843
  • Dice Build.jpg
    Dice Build.jpg
    118.3 KB · Views: 825
I hate to say I spent a lot of time trying out various techniques - some fast - some cumbersome - Here's what I finally settled on.

I really liked seeing the variety of everyone's renders -

Pablo, I like the rough, scuplted look to yours
icodealot, great lighting and solution
Uncle, the dirt on yours is great and your DOF is spot on
Zoo, what a great experiment for caustics - very cool.
Pat, great overall solution and lighting
 

Attachments

  • DICE-v5.jpg
    DICE-v5.jpg
    122.6 KB · Views: 692
:icon_thumbup: Rene, good job, very nice render, this challenge was more interesting than seemed at face value, so thanks to Nichod for another good one.

I think Icodealot's 'straightforward' approach sets a great example with a good result in the final render too.

Cheers to all, this one was fun, Pat
 
Cheers to all, this one was fun, Pat

I second that! Nice work so far to all who have participated. This seemed simple on the surface but it really did get me learning some new things and I enjoyed working through it. Thanks for organizing this challenge.
 
When I have more time I'd like to focus on some decals / dirty surface texture. Not sure you guys care to share but if anyone has any tips on application of surface dirt as you've achieved it, I'd be glad to hear them. You guys produced some great examples with the addition of random dirt spots. I used a modified Marble texture (see the JAS file attached to my final render in the Gallery section) to add some surface color variation but did not make it through decals. I started messing around with procedural textures to simulate surface dirt but I've got quite a lot of learning to do there.
 
Last edited:
When I have more time I'd like to focus on some decals / dirty surface texture. Not sure you guys care to share but if anyone has any tips on application of surface dirt as you've achieved it, I'd be glad to hear them. You guys produced some great examples with the addition of random dirt spots. I used a modified Marble texture (see the JAS file attached to my final render in the Gallery section) to add some surface color variation but did not make it through decals. I started messing around with procedural textures to simulate surface dirt but I've got quite a lot of learning to do there.

I don't use procedural textures very much, so no help there but here is an image of my work in the Gimp using layers to get the dirt onto the dice. Hope it is of some use.
I used the background/plain render blurred in Gimp to save time.
 

Attachments

  • GimpWork.jpg
    GimpWork.jpg
    324.6 KB · Views: 694
Last edited:
I don't use procedural textures very much, so no help there but here is an image of my work in the Gimp using layers to get the dirt onto the dice. Hope it is of some use.
I used the background/plain render blurred in Gimp to save time.

Awesome uncle808us! Thanks for sharing the tip. Making things too complicated I guess. I'll give the UV mapping approach a try soon and see where that gets me.
 
Hi Icodealot, A whole jamboree bag of a topic, mine went more or less like this, see pic.

Turbulence - UV1 Scaled 0.2 across all 3 settings under sample. Gain 1.35.

Fractal - 3D Scaled 16.0 across all 3 settings, otherwise unchanged.

Gradient as shown, yellowy colour for dice and greyish colour of dirt… by varying the position of the gradient pointers (slide along) you get more or less dirt. Darker Grey, stronger dirt etc.

Material had a bit of Specular and Reflection, not Fresnel.

I suspect Tonio could spend a year writing a book on just this alone :lol:

Cheers, Pat
 

Attachments

  • Dirty Dice.jpg
    Dirty Dice.jpg
    76.8 KB · Views: 689
SUPERB Solutions Uncle and Pat!!

I was thinking of unwrapping my UV and adding dirt as an image texture, but I got lazy. I'll have to try out Pat's procedural solution as well.

I added dirt by using a Particle Mesh set to Surface type on two of the Dice objects. The attached image shows all the settings for one Die. Basically it is a sphere, colored brown with a Crumple modifier and then squished flat with random rotations in particle tag.
 

Attachments

  • DIE-dirt.jpg
    DIE-dirt.jpg
    188.3 KB · Views: 681
A Pile of Dice is always nice!

Yeah Dices are always fun to work with. I decided to submit this pile of them which will turn out to become a wallpaper of my iPhone.

All done in C3D, no postwork.
 

Attachments

  • Pile of Dices.jpg
    Pile of Dices.jpg
    113.5 KB · Views: 633
Back
Top