hkabat-forum-threads PaulvMontfort's Showcase

[paulvmontfort 617]

@ cammo: The only thing i changed was the lighting rig and i added the Lippo Centre sign

[dmscopio 225]

Wow! The reflecion and the waterfall is so realistic. It is ready to release? Good job!

[paulvmontfort 617]

just to let you know: I sent the Lippo Centre to Simfox for rendering this weekend and today I started with putting Pacific Place together

@ Simfox: Is there any noticable progess on the Lippo Centre, I want to release it soon

[SimFox 804]

Well, there are some problems with it...

First of all night lighting isn't compatible. Since version 8 of MAX, clasic night windows cause error code 6 during the export. It may have to do something with the way they are applied. those night windows "textures" aren't texture technically speaking . but sort of cut and paste applications so there is something in that cut and paste process that doesn't agree with new versions of MAX.

Second is that materials are way to bright... all of them and will have to be reworked. I don't know how those darker images were achieved but what I get is very much like those previous pones everybody were saying are too bright. Paul are you sure you have sent me current set of materials?

Problem with materials and also model itself is made more difficult by the fact that all of materials are named Default and some number... is that how it is suppose to be or is there some error? Thins makes very difficult to figure out what is suppose to be what. Another issue is that building can not be rendered in Black environment if it to look realistic- remember reflective surfaces have to have something to reflect. but when there is something it will further brighten up scene - making building literally glowing as melted metal!

Could you please name materials and also object according to they functions so that I wouldn't need to guess everything. This would make it much faster. Also we have to think something in terms of night lighting (I mean windows of the building) Do you have any idea how bright should it be? I assume you would still want to utilize that night window texture you've included.

So I have to caution everyone who wants Lippo to look it's best it will be quite a process... so don't expect it to hit STEX in couple of days! Patience, my friends, patience... we were waiting for quite a while and we will have to wait some more I'll try to solve all problems as soon as possible but somethings will have to be done for the first time and that will take some trial and error and that will take some time. in My estimates good quality export will still take about 8-10 hours minimum and I believe that will be quite a few of those. Export if all the CPUs are utilized makes computer practically useless for anything else, and since it is my only desktop at the time and on my laptops I can not really do much more then write something or surf the web (I can not imaging people doing serious work with those things!!) I could do such test exports overnight only! Taking on CPU (one core) off the export will double the export time so it isn't all that good solution either.

[paulvmontfort 617]

@ Simfox, I just sent you a new version of the Lippo with everything renamed. As for the nightlighting, you said you could use nightlibraries. I don't know how that looks or what it is, but i want the nightlighting to look like this:

click

here's a first render of Pacific Place:

[mightygoose 92]

oh god... how long did THAT take..... beyond further words.....

[toxicpiano 125]

awesomeness!

[SimFox 804]

Paul! thanx for this new version! It is still 5,3m tall, though…
Work is progressing! I think I may already today have some first renders to show and ask public opinion.
There is one problem with the very modeling - you didn't make the interior of the towers and as such glass on the walls can not be made transparent. Glass Have to be in order to look like glass. Otherwise it would and is in towers of Lippo look like glazed tiles - flat without depth.
I think remodeling to fix this taking into account complex shape of towers would be to big of an undertaking, but please take a note of this for future!
I have some thoughts on how to overcome this but I have yet to test them to see if my theories would work on practice.
I've remade all the materials that were in Mat Editor using same texture maps you did, but I have a feeling that something is still missing... Like the lattice... which material did you apply to it?
Also, why is lobby glass (one you have some transparency on) is soooo different then the one on towers? I mean you used texture for it (lobby one) - another No-No don't use textures on glass in defuse channels - unless you are going to completely fake the glass and not use any of its physical properties. I've removed that texture but left general tint of it for the glass itself.
Also how did you come up with this baby blue you use in defuse of main body of glass?? Was it conscious decision? or you just tried various colors and decided on this particular because it look good in render? Wouldn't it be more logical if tower glass would have same color as on in the lobby? or is it all that different? It is very difficult to judge from photos, as most of them made so that to catch reflections. And what I need here is exactly absence of reflections in order to see glass itself.

Can anyone who has seen the building in real life tell us is it glazed entirely with same tinted glass??

 

PS just noticed that bump mapping is missing from some parts of the tower glass…

Edit 2:

waterfall isn't on either... do I have to do something to turn the water on?? My knowledge of Particles is limited to the just knowing they exist and being able to spot them here and there... but that's it

[paulvmontfort 617]

"you didn't make the interior of the towers and as such glass on the walls can not be made transparent. Glass Have to be in order to look like glass. Otherwise it would and is in towers of Lippo look like glazed tiles - flat without depth"

- In all of the pictures i have of this building, which are quite a lot, none show any transparency in the glass, you can never look inside only during the night, but for that matter i had the nightlighting textures.

"I've remade all the materials that were in Mat Editor using same texture maps you did, but I have a feeling that something is still missing... Like the lattice... which material did you apply to it?"

- None

"Also, why is lobby glass (one you have some transparency on) is soooo different then the one on towers? I mean you used texture for it (lobby one) - another No-No don't use textures on glass in defuse channels - unless you are going to completely fake the glass and not use any of its physical properties. I've removed that texture but left general tint of it for the glass itself."

- During the day, you can actually look through the glass of the lobby.

"Also how did you come up with this baby blue you use in defuse of main body of glass?? Was it conscious decision? or you just tried various colors and decided on this particular because it look good in render?"

- It looked good

"PS just noticed that bump mapping is missing from some parts of the tower glass..."

- Screenshot?

"waterfall isn't on either... do I have to do something to turn the water on?? My knowledge of Particles is limited to the just knowing they exist and being able to spot them here and there... but that's it"

- Try 'unhide all'

here are some reference pictures to show the difference between the glass of the tower and lobby:

[SimFox 804]

Actually you can see into inside!! What you can no is to really see anything there! it isn't same... Look carefully in the last picture - you can clearly see stripes. Do you know what those stripe mean? The glass has same tint - the stripe show up because that part where Windows are - transparent, the narrow band is where in-between floor parts are and is not that 's why it appears different. On transparent parts some of the light gets inside of the building and so less is reflected. So those transparent bits are darker then not transparent floor dividers - effect is actually quite visible. Edit: I'm rendering one view now! picture should be ready  - if everything will go fine in about 30 min But this will be without waterfall... I'll point out bits without bumps...

Edit2: here is front view rendered by accident, or my sloppiness to be more precise - wrong view port was active. But I think you can use this one for SkyscraperPage.com diagrams! I think it better model that what they have there!

Edit3: I see now that lobby glass is actually almost completely clear just may be slight tint... well that should be taken into account later

Ok Render is finished. I was thinking which one should I out here one on neutral grey or on black background.. Well I think I’ll go with tradition and use Black for first image/s, although I do not think this is a best way to judge some aspects of the render here it could be used to compare to previous ones – this way both against black it will be easier and more fair.

Few notes. I’ve remade all the materials, but apparently there are quite few objects that don’t use any – just basic Max color. I plan to change that and have proper material apply to all elements as Max color doesn’t react all to well with the light. Water is the original I’ll see if I could do something to it too as at the moment I believe there is some room for improvement. Waterfall was hidden and I didn’t learn of this until after I have rescaled the model. Now I don’t know how to get it to the place it should be.

[mightygoose 92]

looks sublime...

[paulvmontfort 617]

the towers have a very metallic look which looks pretty strange

[SimFox 804]

here two more views west and east (previous is a south).

Hello, Paul. You say metallic? How would you define metallic? Metals have some properties that set them apart from other materials. One, probably most important is that polished metal has constant reflectivity. Unlike one of dielectrics like glass and polished stone or water, reflection strength doesn’t depend on viewing angle. Another one is that color of metal will affect color of reflection – reflections in gold will be tinted into yellow, copper into red and so on… Reflections of say red glass are color neutral! And so are of colored liquids. In this respect your glass was more metallic since its reflectivity was with perpendicular/parallel falloff map. Here it is more like glass Fresnel type of dependency. It has been a bit adjusted, but that could be justified by the fact that this glass is somewhat metallised so as such has some degree of constant reflectivity. Partially some of strange effect could be explained because there is no transparency on glass of the towers, but maybe also because this view isn't all that familiar. You kept using sky pictures on your walls although it exactly what shouldn't be there. Also baby blue of previous glass was in my opinion plain wrong. Actually if you look on those two pictures you've posted on this page of the thread my glass looks quite similar to one on those. Anyway I'm welcoming everyone to share their mind! Help us to make Lippo good! To my eye bump may be a bit to aggressive- I have already reduced it by about 40%, but still I think it has some room to go.  Remodeling in order to make transparent glass

And here is bit where bump map hasn’t been applied. See that reflection of the shadow line. It is absolutely straight. If you look around at those renderings I’ve posted today you’ll see that this isn’t isolated incident. There are few places with same problem. I wonder how you were applying the material. I asked once if you did UWV unwrapped the model, but the way you've answered left me a bit bewildered as to have you actually done it or not... Anyway this isn't all that easy to see and if general bump will be eased will be noticeable even less. Also I'm not sure of the "real " size... I have a feeling that these are larger then Zoom5.  Have to check this later... or does anyone know of pixel/meter ration for the ingame structures??

These are the stripes I was talking earlier about. They’re there because glass is transparent at the portion on the window and not over the floor divide. Effect is subtle but none the less it is there and can make surface of the wall more tactile. Of course with such a strong bump is in place it probably would be to big a miss if it wouldn’t be there.

[bixel 1,228]

simfox looks like your background is set to grey...the reflective properties are mimiked in the windows...perhaps if you tinted environment to a grey-blue like the Lippo colors it should come out PERFECT!!! actually a little more to the blue than grey...it should really be the Lippo

[Sim shady 12]

chokes on turkey at utter realism of the building

my gawd.....its beautiful!!!!!!

[paulvmontfort 617]

I agree with bixel, it should have a bit of a blue tinting.

as for the window texturing, I used uwvUnwrap, box shaped, dimensions 1,1,4

[SimFox 804]

Well colors… mmm…

How should I put it… why do you want to have it blue?? As much as I can derive from pictures glazing on Lippo isn’t blue, or at leas not any more blue then what I put there.

Actually the color was derived from the texture Paul used on the lobby glazing. I thought it was much more appropriate then that baby blue that was on towers.

On all pictures I’ve seen glazing appears to be very, very dark (with possible blue/slightly purplish tint) So that’s why I thought that Paul’s texture color for the lobby was very much on the spot, not for lobby though – apparently glass there is almost completely clear. But anyway… if you want different color don’t limit your self for words.. as you know they are open to way too many interpretations and misunderstandings – just post color swatches and well put our collective thinking hat and decide.

But before you rush for you crayons here is couple of points about glass.

1. Glass as such has NO color in the sense other non transparent materials have – color you would normally put into defuse map of the material in Max or Gmax or what ever you use. If you put totally black object behind glass of ANY color glass will ALWAYS be black you can detect glass color only by seeing something behind that glass.
2. Reflections of pure glass (of ANY color) are ALWAYS color neutral. So white object will appear as WHITE in the reflection in RED glass or on blue glass or in glass of any color what so ever. This is if glass wasn’t metallized. As Metals have VERY different properties!
3. Color in glass is created by light not reflected back from it but by light scattering INSIDE of glass – that’s why the thicker the glass the more pronounced the color becomes.

Taking this into account the best way to detect color of the glass is to look through it on white object. And see drop in brightness and shift of hue. Unfortunately this isn’t realistic option in most cases. So we have to do some creative research… One way is to see glass in the shadow and at as right angle (90o) as possible – this way reflection is minimized and what you see is actually scene behind the glass. Another way is to find area of the glass that reflect something neutral – like overcast sky, or something else white/neutral grey with some parts of glass being transparent and some opaque with preferably opaque object also being neutral. Then hue shift between transparent and opaque areas will be the hue of glass itself, or at least approximation of it.

So although reflections in the glass are color neutral light reflected from the objects behind glass is mixing with the reflection itself adding slight tint that fades the farther away you looking angle from 90o. It also very much depends on how dark the glass is.

Metals on the other had are very different. Reflections are virtually constant and are ALWAYS tinted by the color (defuse map) of metallic itself – all reflections in Gold are yellow, copper – reddish and so on…

 

That’s why I’ve asked Paul what he meant when he said that towers appear metallic to him. Because material on the towers had become LESS metal like then it originally was.

Of course 3d modeling and rendering isn’t exact science and is full of all sorts of short cuts and cheating. But to get this cheating right one should understand what is it he about to fake.

So to cut VERY long story short - what do we want? Blue glass? Why? Would it be right? How blue? Based on what?

There are NO right answers to these questions really they are to matter of judgment. As such it would be nice to hear some explanation and not just - make it blue, red or orange…

Here is a swatch of the color I’ve used on non transparent glass ( not optimal solution, but that’s how it is)

Mine color and its grey representation	Paul's original Color and it's grey representation

---

 

Bixel.

Your train of though is moving in a right direction, (about logic of reflection affecting the color). But because you didn’t have all the info you’ve got off on the wrong station…

Grey background you see on the pictures is what is reflected in the glass. If you look at the reflection carefully you’ll see how many different colors re there! Grey is good to judge brightness and some such – much better then black and also it is a part of my rendering setup. But it is NOT reflected. Stuff what is reflected on the other hand is made invisible to the camera so it wouldn’t get into the picture. These are just technicalities.. But you thinking was very RIGHT one!

---

Paul:

Did you mean uvw MAP?? Or uvw UNWRAP??

If unwrap whe why you put on top of it Box map?? The whole point of uvw unwrapping is to get FLAT map which you can edit/create in say photoshop…

1.  

[jacqulina 162]

awesome building excellent design

[paulvmontfort 617]

to let you see reflections are a bit blue tinted:

and with metallic i didn't meant it looked like metal. Metallic is a type of tinting in colours. When in 3dsmax you adjust the Object Color, switch to AutoCad ACI palette. The 2nd row of colors are metallic colors.

[SimFox 804]

where in Max can you make such a switch (to AutoCad ACI pallette)?

Just mark exact areas of the tower you want me to use as a model. Or just pick some colors and post them here.

Mind you the entire picture has very strong tint - white balance is VERY far from normal.

[paulvmontfort 617]

here you can see what I mean:

I have an idea: try to have more darker parts and less light stuff reflected like the top of the smaller tower in the West view you posted.

[bixel 1,228]

@ Simfox Like the Tung Chung, your render here is absolutely brilliant but in all the photos I have seen Lippo appears to be blue in most circumstances and it is not because it is reflecting sky...I think in order to appease most HK peeps and other fans of the Lippo the blue needs to be in.

On another note...PVM did such a great job on the model for this and your render is so totally awesome I've a small request..can you do a couple of industy style renders? and to make it even more official have a caption of who it was rendered by, what program they used (3DS Max) and what renderer and date, + Model by Paulvmontfort. Because; I have never seen a better 3D representation of the Lippo ANYWHERE ELSE!!! for both of your guys-s painstaking work have 2-3 awesome renders of this to be used in your portfolio could be wise for any future endevors.

P.S. you may want to use your real names in the Caption so if it is ever used for a presentation nobody will be confused.

[mavere 0]

I think I may be one of those who needs to be appeased.

It looks absolutely amazing, but I think it would be perfect if you make it blue®. Maybe even just a little bit; something just feels...wrong about it's current color.

Either way, I'm not here to criticize, because that's an magnificient BAT no matter what color it is.

[SimFox 804]

Paul! What else, except unhiding, should I do in order to get waterfall to show up in render? I tried all rederers and still no sight on the waterfall...

[paulvmontfort 617]

did you resize it? I have no other ideas of what it can be, it renders just fine here.

[SimFox 804]

I've tired both resized and original - same difference (as some say) - nothing shows up in render And I've tried Scanline... May be it has something to do with different Max versions, although I haven't heard of such a problem.

Anyway, I was thinking to learn about particles myself and this could be some impetus to do it.

I've completely redone glass mats for the towers - made it transparent but very dark  - just as windows in actual building seem to be. I'm also considering of building floor dividers to get those fainted lines.. (just an idea at this stage). Problem is that although everybody speaks of blue - no-one had actually suggested any particular color. And those photos of the building are no more blue (generally tinted) then my first render anyway. In those parts that do not reflect any sky that is. Mind you it is very difficult to make such a picture from normal human position. I were trying to extract color shift info from pictures showing some reflections together with reflected objects and I think windows aren't blue, but rather green as is so popular in HK. They also seem to be metalized somewhat as well.

But here are new issues:

1 Night Windows.

As I've said MAX after ver. 8 can not handle them. Apart form inability to create them for render (without crashing one) it can not access any information on them already included in files from older versions meaning that there is NO apparent way to switch them off. Even if appearing switched off and even renamed they still crush export as long as they are present. only option seem to be deletion. That's naturally leaves gaping holes. Paul if you could disable and still better rename them in your version and send the file to me (also test the waterfall may be it has same sort of problem...

2. General lighting. There is a bunch of nitelite omnis in the model, but I don't quite get the lighting concept... Some are red s(for logo) and some are white. But they placement and properties are somewhat odd... so could you explain what sort of lighting you have in mind?

3. parts of the base do look very empty... should /could something be done about it? what?

4. File you've sent tome has already SC4Model pasted in. Stangest thing is that it is Shangri La model!!

Here is in-game picture with new mats.

Gapping holes - are deleted Night Windows. Picture is Zoom4 as Zoom5 wouldn't fit onto monitor in one piece  and Don't have time at this very moment for stitching... I'll post later the Max rendering of Zoom5

There is an odd green tint to it... This is a brand new lighting rig. It looks absolutely fine and natural on it's own but I guess it needs quite a bit of adjustment for the game... I wounder how gray should shadow be.

[jacqulina 162]

wow looks excellent in game

[GMT 389]

stunning building.

If this won't get a 10/10 rating, I don't know further...

[Duopolis 0]

paulvmontfort -> I wanted to ask if you still working on ICC? Nothing offensive of course! You showed us couple of preview screenshots few months ago. I've been waiting for it since that moment. Please tell you didn't drop this project

Sorry 4 my english...

[paulvmontfort 617]

@ Simfox: check your mail. The building looks absolutely awesome!!

@ Duopolis: I'm still finishing up works i started earlier