Ok so I’m starting my scene for the 2014 Blender Guru Christmas Comp and I’m doing some testing with the snow. I believe this it the best I have come up with so far to represent fresh fluffy snow fall. I’ve tried everything I can think of and cannot get a more compact smooth snow cover which accurately reflects the structure of the tree branches. Besides to get a smoother snow cover will require massive amounts of hand modeling and shaping to get it to look right. I will be using this same snow cover on everything else in the scene using both hair based particle systems and particle dynamics where I will blow the snow particles at things with the friction set high to get a natural dusting of snow:)
I think the same as ctdabomb. One thing you could do to make it look better, would be to make the snow on the tree look more smooth.***My portfolio: http://adamszablewski.cgsociety.org/
Well since it is for a competition i`l try to give a constructive critique if i may. If your scene is stylized and works well with this kind of snow its fine but, look at references on snow on tree, it is not as you have made it to be. your snow looks more like your leaves are white in my opinion. is this tree a big part of the scene? If so id advise to redo the snow.
My tip would be to apply the snow on the branches in a particle system, and since your leaves look short, it should look cover it. Create snowy looking meshes, for example if you crate a box and subdivide smooth it, then scale it on the x axis i believe, you have a snow mesh right there. The trick is to play with both your material and displacement to get the look you want. Packed snow look smoother that the one you have.
Here is an example http://www.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Flagordon.files.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F02%2Fsnow-on-tree-2-24-10.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Flagordon.wordpress.com%2Fpage%2F2%2F&h=2672&w=4000&tbnid=XkIiZcZ5WWDiPM%3A&zoom=1&docid=_Pd0ARDsKBWxDM&ei=R_h9VMPJHtHcaNfAgMAP&tbm=isch&client=safari&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=1201&page=1&start=0&ndsp=50&ved=0CEMQrQMwCw and this is really close, from far you should see that mush details. Cheers and good luck!
This looks great! I agree with ctdabomb; in a large scene this would look amazing, but by itself it is not quite realistic enough. But I feel this is one of the most realistic trees with snow I’ve seen!
That tree would make my PC explode I think it looks great, but 20 million polys!!:eek:
EDIT: I gotta say, it looks a bit cauliflowery to me, maybe it needs a bit of smoothing(or maybe lose 4 or 5 million polys LOL!)
Haha thanks Vicky and Shadow. Well the snow has actually sky rocketed the number of polys on the tree to 405,000,000:eek::eek: Right now I’m searching for the perfect snow particle which makes the look a bit more uniform. I’ve tried several other ideas today and even if I hand sculpt some snow clumps on the branches it never looks natural. I’ve tried shrink wrap, remesh of the particles converted to real mesh, 100% hand sculpt, the use of metaballs and sculpting…on an on. The snow has proven to be as difficult as I expected:) I’m going to render the beast tonight:) Again this is just a test and the tree is not a focal point but the snow will be on everything. Its an out door scene of course:)
It’s looking quite good so far. I’ll see if there is anything I can critique once the next update has come. Or not Can’t wait to see what the final image will look like! Good Luck
Well I have decided to take the hard road and hand sculpt the majority of the snow:( It’s the right thing to do and I figure while doing it I might develop a good process and maybe make more pine trees with “true” snow cover:) I’m going to use the particle system to simulate where the snow show go based on snow falling from above. I’ll just use a cube for the particle object then is dynamic sculpting to the rescue:) I’m not really concerned with the topology in this case so it should work just fine.
On a side note my goal initially was to use particle instancing to make all the snow in the scene but now maybe there will be a bit of both if the particles can give the effect I’m going for in combination with hand sculpted snow.
I did find a way to soften the edges of the snow particles to get rid of that “cauliflowery” look tho…thanks Vicky:)
Giving something the snow-capped look is such a great challenge. In my mind, it might be more about textures than particles. A half-billion faces suggests economy is not a factor here? If delivering the impression of a snow covered tree would do you well in the competition then I would move from practical pine needles to well-crafted images of pine needles to deliver more snow cover on more trees at a faster rate.
The cauliflower look seems like the result of a good dust simulation rather than snow sim. At a certain point, weight cleaves the sides of unsupported accumulation off at specific inclines (specific to what, I don’t know) and I don’t know if Blender can simulate any of that in a timely manner. While I’m a fan of economy for a task like this, let me say, this is an awesome investigation into so many other things too!
You must be having a blast I’ll keep an eye on the thread and good luck!
Small update:) I think I have the tree snow figured out so I can still use a particle system. Maybe not 100% realistic but it could represent a dusting of light snow:)
Here is the latest progress:) I think I will need to finish up in the next few days to get a good 1000 sample render and submitted in time. I still need to wrap the columns in garland and put more clumpy fallen snow on the vines and various other places. I know the bricks are horrible but don’t worry I’m going to hand model individual bricks for the steps and front door landing. I’ll add a front door mat as well if there is time:) No compositing on this yet so no glow or color adjustments.
The snow is looking quite good Derek, as is the scene as a whole. Don’t forget a door knob and door bell Something else maybe to consider if time allows, is a wreath on the door.
Ahhh yes the door of course I forgot to mention the detail of the door:) The current on is a place holder. I will definitely do a door handle and knocker/peep hole. If there is time a wreath. I’m thinking I will place a few random dead vine leaves on the vines and have snow on them. Just small detail touches here an there. The shingles on the house need some work as well. IDK exactly what they need but they seem very CG at the moment. I’ll try more variation and maybe some random coloring?? Any thoughts?? They are all hand placed and I do see a bit of repetition which is easy to fix but the overall look seems a bit off.
Looking great! I love the new shadows, but would like to see it brighter(although I’m sure you got everything covered). I found you the perfect door mat by the way:
While I’m here, congrats on Reynante’s top ten list!
Thanks Vicky good to hear from you:) I love the door mat…almost exactly what I was thinking:) hehe kidding of course. It will probably be holly or something Christmasy.
Thanks too for the congrats, Reyn is a great guy and it was really fun getting to work with him a bit. Amazing talent and knowledge with that guy. The same is true for the list so I hope I’m not out of place there:) I know he left a few great artist off but I think we all know who they are;)
Wow great looking scene so far Derek! The only thing that I can see is the lighting near the ground Is looking a bit flat, you should consider adding a fill light to brighten things up a bit. you may already have this covered, just a thought.
On close inspection it doesn’t look the most realistic, but in a scene this should look great.
I think it looks great, but 20 million polys!!:eek:
