Xmas Project / Critiques welcome!

So yesterday, I happened to visit BlenderGuru.com, and I noticed that Andrew Price has a Christmas Competition going on.
Yay! I was happy to know this, because he had mentioned on his podcast that he wasn’t sure if he would even do one this year.

Now, I have never entered one of his contests before (or any contest for that matter), and I haven’t done any large projects yet, and the contest deadline is in about 2 weeks. Also, I work 30-40 hours a week. Therefore, I decided to try to do something simple, but try to make it as high quality as possible.

Right now, the plan is to make a simple nativity scene inspired by this image. I haven’t done much character modeling, but I have played around with sculpting, so I think I can manage some simple Precious-Moments-like figures for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, and hopefully a couple animals. This would be framed with Christmas lights, and that would be about it. In the background, out of focus, you might see a fireplace or something like that. Since it is a very simple scene, I want to try to focus mostly on photorealism and materials.

Just to get my feet wet, I decided to make some Christmas lights, since that would be pretty straight-forward. (Also, I haven’t even touched Blender in at least a month…) So this is the result after 1-2 hours of modeling and re-modeling (plus a little love in the Cycles department).

Please note that the brightness of the lights is a bit exaggerated simply because there is no other light source. And yes, I know that there are no wires, just bulbs. They’re, uh, futuristic Christmas lights. :eyebrowlift2: I’m planning on adding the wires tomorrow, although I’m not quite sure how I’ll do that yet. Then I’ll spend some time sketching out the composition, rather than putting that off until later.

That’s all for now, but expect updates soon. Feel free to comment and critique. Thanks!

Edit: Thumbnail updated

Attachments


All right, so I’ve been a little busier than I had expected, but I modeled the wires (with a bit of difficulty). Here are the almost finished lights:


To cut back on the fireflies, I have a node setup for the filaments to keep them from actually lighting the scene. Instead, I have some invisible spheres giving off the light. This seems to work better.
There is a little problem, however. I am using a curve modifier to deform the wire, but I don’t want the bulbs themselves to deform. Therefore, I have attempted to create a seperate, unrendered mesh with a curve modifier that has a particle system emitting the light meshes. I was hoping to use the vertex normal to control the direction of the bulb, but this doesn’t seem to work. If the vertex’s normal is pointed downwards, the light simply points upwards. Does anybody know how to have a particle system that emits objects and allows you to control the rotation of those objects? I am not worrying about it right now. I have a lot of things to do for this project, and if I have to, I’ll just do something quick and cheap to make it work later.

I fixed the issue with the lights! :smiley: Instead of using a particle system, I just used duplifaces:


Now it’s on to sculpting the figurines…

I modeled Joseph today:


It took me 3 hours to sculpt and retopoligize, which is a bit long, but not bad considering I haven’t sculpted anything in the past 2 years. In the final image, his skin, beard, shirt, hat, and headband will all be different colors.

I want to do a little improving on the shape of his hands. Then I need to rig and pose him, and then I’ll move on to Mary.

It’s looking great so far. I like it. But there is something I find a little strange. The lamps look dark but their light is interacting with everything else. But other than that, I see a lot of potential here. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, that is because I am lighting the scene with invisible spheres. I had been getting a LOT of noise when the tiny filaments were emitting light (look at the first image I posted). Bigger light sources create less noise, so this is my little workaround.

I will add the “glow” effect later with the compositor.

Here’s Joseph, fully posable!


The plan is to utilize Joseph’s arms and staff as “guiding lines” to direct the focus of the final image to the baby Jesus.

I added a little color! :cool:


Now it’s on to sketching out Mary!

Here is Mary:


I am going to rig and pose her tomorrow.

Now they are both rigged:


Joseph looks a little slim. Maybe I’ll play around with his bone weights.

I wasn’t able to get anything done yesterday, because I worked all day. :frowning: But today, I was able to make the baby Jesus and begin setting up the final image. I already know how I want the composition to be in the final image, so that helps! There will be a tree and fireplace in the background, which I haven’t yet modeled.


I’ll see if I can make the stable before going to bed tonight. Then I have the whole day off tomorrow! :smiley:

Here’s my rough modeling of the stable:


I’ll have to make the logs a little crooked so it doesn’t look so perfect.
Now to catch some Z’s…

Here’s a high-res test render of the improved stable:


I’ll have to work on the roof next.

After a little tweaking and a new roof:


It looks promising. Perhaps the plastic figurines could be a little scuffed up as though they had been stored in a box for a year? Maybe add a couple of sheep figures with one that has been knocked over by a curious cat. Some tinsel bits could stand in for straw.

Interesting ideas. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can make any sheep in time for the deadline. :frowning:
However, I do plan on making some green tinsel and spreading it behind and around the stable, along with Christmas lights.

Here’s my latest test render with materials on the figures:


It’s actually not supposed to be plastic, but ceramic:

I made the figures shinier to get rid of that plasticy look:


TINSEL!


I think the reflections on the figures are a little too bright. I’ll have to cut them back a little…

Here’s the latest update. I made the figures a little less shiny:


If you look closely, you will see christmas lights in the tinsel. This is simply because they are both following the same path, and I am going to work on this later.
I have to work 11 hours tomorrow, so I’m going to call it a night and try to get some more progress done in the morning…

Even though I was busy today, I managed to put in a couple hours of work on my project. I added a tree and also began tinkering with depth of field:


I think the tree might need a few more lights…