interesting method for making the fence, thanks for that thorough explanation. i was also curious about how you modeled it.
another way i can think of (but haven’t tried) would be using dupliverts. you could then make one section of your chainlink and duplivert it on a mesh plane that has been subdivided a few times to get a grid. then adjust the original chainlink mesh so that everything lines up. there’s probably lots of other ways too.
mstram: It didn’t really take that long. I didn’t duplicate and position them one-by-one, I duplicated and positioned them until I got a group of them, then I duplicated and positioned the entire group. Once I had half of the fence, I duplicated the entire half and repositioned it.
Eku: Yes, you could make a fence by using an alpha texture, but it wouldn’t have much detail, and that’s what I’m trying to go for…detail. As for the scene, I was thinking about a crime scene. The body of the victim will have been removed, a chalk line will be drawn around the body(though I hear they don’t do that in real life; I’m doing it for theatrical purposes). The criminal is gone. The scene has been roped off with police tape. They are searching for a clue. There will be a visible clue, but a clue that might be overlooked at first glance. It might be a Cuban cigar, a piece of cloth, or a piece of tape(remember Watergate?). Whatever the clue may be, it will make you shout, “Ohhhhhhhhh! I get it nowwwww!!!”
But in all seriousness, right now I just want to make a convincing alleyway, with realistic lighting, which has always been my weak point.
treatkor: That sounds like it would work, too.
I may have a question later regarding the placement of graffiti on the walls, but then again I might not. Who knows? I don’t. Thanks for all your comments so far.
I hate to say this, but I really don’t want to finish this project now. I mean, I will get to it eventually, but I lost interest. I want to make another character. That’s where my heart is: character modeling and animation. So here’s the latest and last(for now) render:
Here’s some tips and instructions on how to start out with Yafray:
On lights:
If you are using a “Lamp,” then turn down the Energy of the lamp to about .1-.25.
On all lights, except “sun,” and “hemi,” lights, you’ll need to turn up the “Dist,” on the lamps in order for them to have visual results.
I use the “sun,” lamp with Rayshadow on, to start out lighting my scenes, so I can see what I need to do.
On materials:
Bump maps will be bigger in Yafray than in Blender Internal.
Example:
A concrete floor with a “Nor” value of 1 in Blender Internal, will look like it’s 5 in Yafray. Although this is just an example and not accurate measurments.
On GI:
What I do to test my scenes with GI is I downloaded this texture map, which is a sky, in this thread:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24038
I use skyphoto6, which is 3rd down the list. I use this one because it gives off the right colors for testing.
GI is the faking of indirect bouncing of light, so even if no light is directly shot in a certen place, like a shadow, it will not be pitch black. Except, in space and other places were there isn’t anything for light to bounce off of, there shadows will be darker.
GI with Yafray uses the color in the worlds buttons menu. This color can be a simple color you select using the color selector, or a texture map, or even an hdri map. HDRi is another format: it’s a texture that has a light in it and can be manipulated more than a regular bitmap.
Tip: We’re going to use the sky texture we downloaded with GI. It’s giant, but just use a paint program, like Gimp or photoshop, and size it down to 640x480, for testing the scene. And use the full texture as the final product.
Put the texture up as a sky texture.
In the render buttons menu:
Change the renderer to Yafray.
Go to the Yafray tab that pops up, and then click the XML button off. You might also put the Raydepth up to 6.
Another thing: the “Gamma Correction,” that is in the Yafray tab, if you put that to 2.2, and your lighting and GI will be more natural. Only problem is that you have to change all your textures and lights to fit this. For now, try leaving “Gamma Correction,” at 1.
More info here:
http://wiki.yafray.org/bin/view.pl/UserDoc/LinearWorkflow?CGISESSID=d8ebd08dfa22acc5c5038f7d6fb3338e
In the Yafray GI tab:
Click the dropdown box next to the “Method” title, and then select “Full”. “Skydome” doesn’t take in accout color bleeding and other things.
Then select the dropdown next to the,“Quality” dropdown. Select Low for test scenes, and high or better for the final product. Some of the time you won’t be able to notice the difference between the,“Low” setting and the,“High” setting, but some times, if you have the setting,“Low”, like in areas that don’t recive any light and are in a corner behind a shadow, it will look like there are large blobs all over the place, excspecily if you are using gamma correction of a higher value than 1.
Change,“Depth” and,“CDepth” to 4 and 3, respectivly. I heard that’s all you need.
On the chace button:
If selected off, it will have a noiser effect than if selected on, but it’s not a whole lot. You can get rid of it possibly by putting the quality up to best, or using a lot of photons and good settings.(I don’t use this much, it’s more for indoor scenes). It also goes slower on average, but sometimes faster.
With Cache on:
It blurs and smooths the noise: the noise being if chace is selected off.
This is pretty nice on outdoor and test scenes. Sometimes has artifacts that if chace is selected off. Mostly faster, but sometimes slower.
I hope that helps.
According to my view if you have newly found your interest in cigar then getting right taste may be bit tougher task for you. When new cigars arrive, take a good look at them. Two things to look out for at this point: excessive dryness; excessive moistness. Another thing to keep in mind: if you’re keeping your cigars in the humidor over a long period, it makes a lot of sense to rotate them every few months. There is a myth about flavor amongst layman that every Cuban Cigars uses same tobacco and hence has same flavor. However, the reality is perfectly different. There is a broad variety of tobacco and its flavor as well you can gain adequate information about connoisseur of fine cigar from your nearest cigar shop. It does not matter whether the shopkeeper smokes or not.