Yesterday I began modelling a Mad Scientist Mansion using Lightwave 3D, I will start posting updates of my models and I would apreciatte if you could leave any feedback, tip or shortcut. I may be missing something...or doing it completely wrong. I will need help on the lighting and Texturing Phase.
31DEC2007
This is not a big update, but questions start to up. How can I make lightnings that look real? I started working on 2 point polygons with a little blue tinted glow. They look crappy.
The image above (Pic01) shows on layer one the castle & on layer two the lightnings in construction. I used 2 point polygons.
Modeler Screenshot
Image above (Pic03) shows an early render test, I made a little animation of this and it doesn't look as bad, but I would like something chunkier, brighter...more real. Any suggestion is welcome.
Above: Pic04: shows the castle with the same texture, I don't know why there aren't many shadows. I turned to 0% ambient lighting and used a spotlight. Any ideas?
11JAN2008
I've been working slowly this week. I started with what is my first try to create a character in 3D, my target is something really simple as I don't have too much time to experiment. I'm happy with the way the head turned out, simple and cartoony, but I will start again with the body. I've never modeled, texturized or rigged a character. Please feel free to leave your comments on how I could improve the model or design. Thanks. 
I can't decide if details for the body should be made on a UV texture instead of the model to maintain simplicity. 
The mouth will be mapped as a bitmap since there are some dialogues and I think it fits better the cartoony look. 
I decided to make some samples with saslite in order to see if I could show the hair I had in mind, after several tries with the wrong settings I got one sample where the hair was finally placed on the right spot, now I just have to tweak the settings in order to make it look more fluffy.On the video, I added a scene with the camera going around the head, the head has a goaty and some hair to the sides, but as the camera turns the hair starts to disappear, why is that?
13JAN2009
I re-modeled the body of the scientist this morning. I think it looks better now.
I'm having problems with sas-lite, please read below.
Modeler Screenshot
Render with no Sas-lite (hair) applied
Sas-lite applied, but it won't show the hair on the opposite side of the head
Front view doesn't seem to have a problem
No hair?Why is it that saslite won't render hair from some angles? I thought that it was because the camera was not seeing the polygon so I made that surface double sided but that didn't solve the problem, any ideas?
Problem was solved with the help of the following comment:
Sprogger said...
Its a while since I used sas, but I recall somthing similer that was solved by increasing the value to 100% in "render backside fibers" under the pixel filter.
I posted this over on the flicker group too.
Hope this helps
18JAN2008
Not too many updates, I'm rigging the model... here are some renders I've recently done.
26JAN2008
18MAR2008
I'm not too happy with the results, the video is too dark and time was not enough to finish the original idea. Here's the "final" render. I would like to re-work this in the future to make it better.
