Windmill Model

[MMounteer]

Hi everyone!

I just recently completed a pretty lengthy build of a windmill. I was inspired by this and thought it would translate well into 3D so I went for it, with the artist permission of course. I neglected a few details but tried to squeeze everything in that I could. Took about 3 months working on an off but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Here are some detail renders I did with wireframe passovers.

Would love to know your thoughts! Cheers!

 

[frank beckmann]

Excellent work! (Maybe too high poly for in-game use - if that was your intention - aside from that the best thing I´ve seen for years here)

 

[misoversaturated]

Great job!
The animation is very cool too, though I would like to see a complete version with a bit of terrain and a fitting HDRI background.

 

[Hasdrubal]

It's really exceptionally well done, also a real good translation from the 2d concept into 3d. From what I saw in the video the topology is very clean. So best note on all fronts.

And of course it cries for a glorious render with an environment (though I don't agree with misoversaturated about a hdri background. It wouldn't fit your style).

 

[MonkeyT]

Lovely!

Illustrative or painterly HDRI files are hard to come by ( I don't know if you can apply a painterly effect filter to an HDRI in photoshop or not ), but a painterly, abstracted cloud or sunset HDRI around this model would be interesting.

Note: I have experimented before by combining an HDRI, with background rendering disabled, for lighting with a flat, softened backdrop image using a similar color palette mapped to a plane before. I first rendered the object using the photo-real HDRI to get the lighting right, then made a render without the model, took that image into an editor and played with it, then mapped the edited image to a backdrop plane for a final render - make sure to turn off the rendering of shadows cast on or by the backdrop plane. I should have softened any hard reflection properties on the model, too, but life intervened and I never truly finished this experiment out. The technique was fun, though.

 

[MMounteer]

Excellent work! (Maybe too high poly for in-game use - if that was your intention - aside from that the best thing I´ve seen for years here)

Ahh thank you so much frank, I really appreciate it. I was not planning on using it for a game but now I'm curious. Is having a high poly mesh for an animated short a bad thing? I know it's ideal to optimize topology for game engines but if the purpose is for a narrative short for example, is it okay to have a high poly count?

Great job!
The animation is very cool too, though I would like to see a complete version with a bit of terrain and a fitting HDRI background.

Thank you so much! I agree that terrain would be ideal next time and considered doing an HDRI render, but I liked the lighting from a sky light more for this piece.

It's really exceptionally well done, also a real good translation from the 2d concept into 3d. From what I saw in the video the topology is very clean. So best note on all fronts.

And of course it cries for a glorious render with an environment (though I don't agree with misoversaturated about a hdri background. It wouldn't fit your style).

Thanks a ton! I would have loved to put a more developed environment in there but my viewport was already pretty slow with all the textures lol

 

[Helmut]

Excellent 3D work, Matt! Everything nicely fits to the style / the genre of this model. Congratulations on a great example of modelling!

 

[jdmac]

I nominate for the Cheetah 3D gallery.

 

[MMounteer]

Excellent 3D work, Matt! Everything nicely fits to the style / the genre of this model. Congratulations on a great example of modelling!

Wow thank you so much for the complement, it means a lot to me.

I nominate for the Cheetah 3D gallery.

Haha thank you, the highest honor for sure!

 

[uncle808us]

Beautiful. Excellent. Nicely done, you've got some talent.

 

[Hasdrubal]

Just an aside: (HDRI as background works only well with lower res renders (or very big hdris and wide camera angles). As big as the hdri may be, you only see part of it in the render (for example only 2000 px or less in the width from a 16 k hdri. Such a big hdri would at the same time unnecessary raise the render times. Instead there are hdris (even free ones, for example on hdriheaven) coming with a matching backplate (a high resolution picture as background image). So you can use a 2 k hdri for lighting (in such situations even less would work; meaning "fast") and still have a believable situation with the background (though that's of course depending on the quality of the pair). In this case one could change the backplate into something painterly)

 

[MonkeyT]

Just an aside: (HDRI as background works only well with lower res renders (or very big hdris and wide camera angles). As big as the hdri may be, you only see part of it in the render (for example only 2000 px or less in the width from a 16 k hdri. Such a big hdri would at the same time unnecessary raise the render times. Instead there are hdris (even free ones, for example on hdriheaven) coming with a matching backplate (a high resolution picture as background image). So you can use a 2 k hdri for lighting (in such situations even less would work; meaning "fast") and still have a believable situation with the background (though that's of course depending on the quality of the pair). In this case one could change the backplate into something painterly)

Interesting. I'll keep an eye out! thanks.

 

[Joel]

This is a great model. How great? It elicited a compliment from Cheetah Hall of Famer Frank Beckmann. Maybe I have had my Forum settings inadvertently set to somehow filter out his posts, or he’s just been taking a time out to do other things, but it’s been a long time since his last post, by my count.

2020 was a rough year. I’m happy to see Frank reappear in spring 2021. Second only to Dr. Wengenmayer, Frank has made a huge contribution to C3D’s users’ productivity. Every time I use C3D I re-use things he’s explained in the Forum.

The forum has been notably less active since he vanished. Could be a coincidence, but I’d welcome more tips, tutorials and Gallery posts in 2021. Meanwhile, thanks to the usual suspects (Zoo, Helmut) for pitching in.

 

[ZooHead]

Wow, that looks like a lot of work.
So much great detail.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[frank beckmann]

Is having a high poly mesh for an animated short a bad thing? I know it's ideal to optimize topology for game engines but if the purpose is for a narrative short for example, is it okay to have a high poly count?

No - not all - you mastered already the animation part - don´t you?
I guess the scene has about 100k polygons so far - that's nowhere near dramatic - and not a problem at all for today's game engines.
You can still save a lot of geometry, especially on coplanar areas where they don't add any visual value at all. But sometimes mapping is just easier that way.

 

[bobziila]

Just saw this. Awesome work. I can only echo what everyone else has said. So much to look at. You can almost hear the squeak as the blades turn in a soft wind.