Work-in-Progress: Cathedral (Flying Buttress Part II)

So, I did not get much more of the modeling end done this time around.  I had really been hoping to be further along with that aspect of the project, however, I did make progress.  Left is the textured model of the Flying Buttress.  Obvious changes including fixing the lighting and adding a ground plane.  Also, I changed the angle from which the render was taken.  I like this angle since it gives a sense of how truly massive this spire is suppose to be (the camera is now at the approximate height of an average human head).  I started beveling some of the spire, but I cannot see it enough to justify the increase in polygon count.  Finally, for the materials, I am happy with most.  There are a few spots with the one material which look overblown and I am going to need to find some way to fix those spots, but overall I think it came out decent.  I am unlikely to post another picture of the buttress since any further changes are going to be very minor.  Hopefully next time I post a buttress it will be in a full cathedral render.  Next up, the front doors of the building leading into the front two spires.  This building has three spires, two in the front and one where the side wings and main hall meet.  I do not know if I will get to that spire which is significantly smaller and from this angle it may not even be visible..  Until next time,
~gunnah

Work-in-Progress: Cathedral (Flying Buttress Part I)

To challenge myself to bring my modeling to a new level, I have picked to model something that is probably at the limit of my modeling skills: the Gothic Cathedral.  I have always found these structures to be very impressive, but what I feel is unique is the high level of detail on the exterior of the building worked into the stone.  So far I have made the most repeated unit of the cathedral, the flying buttress.  The model, not textured, is to the right, though the image is slightly warped just from the scale of the model.  I am making the model in real units and the top of the highest cross on the buttress is just over seventy meters tall.  I feel fairly pleased with how the model came out, though I want to texture it before I put it on a forum or two for critiques.  Hopefully, I can get the textures done fairly quickly, though there are quite a few pieces to this model and that is likely to slow down the overall speed.  My only concern is the amount of memory it is going to take to render the overall scene.  This model alone has about 125,000 polygons and is going to be repeated quite a few times around the finished model.  Of course I am going to try every possible way to cut back, especially when putting together the final model, but for the level of detail in this style of building, I needed that many polygons.  There are section I would have used more, but I had to cut back, trying to remember objects a few centimeters in size are unlikely to even be noticeable in the final render.

Once this section is done, I have broken down the rest of the building.  The doors will be next and while not especially difficult, they do have sculptures all around which means a high polygon count for them also.  Then comes the spires, one of the defining aspects of this kind of building.  While the doors will likely have a higher polygon count, I know I will need to devout a sizable number to get the overall shape, even if I am not going for an excessively high level of detail.  The spires also have several sculptures, most notably the gargoyles which stand sentinel over the building.  Finally comes the building of the cathedral itself.  This will be of moderate polygon count since most of the detail is handled in one of the other pieces, but the large amount of stained glass will eat up polygons.  While probably not realistic, I am hoping the final model will be about three million polygons.  I am not completely sure if my computer can handle this, but I know if it gets much higher the chances will go down drastically.

Finally the schedule.  I am trying to do this for a contest, though I do not want to sacrifice the render for finishing on time.  With that in mind, I am hoping to finish one section of the building each week, which means I am already behind.  Until next time,
~gunnah

Roman Villa

Left is an image I was making for a competition that had so many problems I missed entering.  My problem was I found this scene almost impossible to render, requiring more memory than my graphics card had and overheating my processors.  The only major things stopping me from calling this completely finished are the fireflies in the courtyard, especially noticeable when zooming in.  In terms of modeling, the only things I wanted to add before the contest limits hit were a shield on the dirt foreground and a few rows of grapes in the background.  If I get around to upgrading my graphics card in the near future, I may look to revisit this image.  Besides that, I am fairly pleased with the overall look of the image.

In other news, I had registered for a course on modeling and that is now over, so I should be posing more since I will be watching fewer tutorials in the coming weeks.  Though there are two contests currently going which I have hopes of entering.  This means very little progress for the game until probably late October, but I have been thinking about it more of late.  Finally, I have been trying to regain access o my website, which I am looking to overhaul and use it to display some of my finished works.

Until next time,
~gunnah