Hi mindblender,
When you instance a copy of the sections (ALTD), and mirror them (CTRLM)as described in the tutorial, make sure that they are accurately placed. You can use snap to grid (SHIFTS) to help you do this. However, take a look at my latest ocean tutorial becaus that uses new methods that actually cut down render time.
Cog
Hi all,
I have been up to my ears in modelling, texturuing and rendering ready for the deadline for the CGTalk FXwars Ocean challenge. I haven’t even had a chance to visit this forum for the last 2 weeks. Howver, my modelling and animation are now completed and I’m in the process of rendering shots.
Here is the hero character Buoy.
I still have a huge amount of compositing and editing to do after the rendering so I probably will not have enough time to come back here before the deadline. However, once the entry is there I will let you all know.
Cog
Honest Cog - your work makes me feel like I need to go below for a hot soup before thinking about doing anything.
looks nice, but the thing up at top has far too many folds on that one side, i cant think of a type of collision that would produce a shape like that. instead, try and make it look like it got hit with a bar or something, sort of like this:
(and of course with more ment parts around that to make it look a little more wheathered)
and the only other thing i see is that the upper cage part looks too much like 3d parts put together, if you darken the areas where they come together to make it look like it rusted or something that will help a lot, it just doesnt match the botom area much.
nice job though 
I think what Cog is aiming at (and succeeding quite well) is a face. Buoy is a character, not just a model.
I agree, there is probably no way that part could have been bent into that shape purely by accidents.
Hi frig,
Although the competition requires real oceans, the model is stylized. Indeed 3Distracted is absolutely correct in that BUOY is a stylized character and therefore an attempt at a face.
However, I have tweeked the mesh slightly to both add a little more crumple to the top and also bevelling on some of the sharper edges.
Anyway, back to rendering.
Cog
the face thing is hard to get from yuor picture, i also agree with frig about it.
in my opinion you do not really need this face thing.
ha! i did not get the face thing on first glance, but now it is obvious, good work! but i do agree with frig about the fittings looking too uniform. i little grit on the recesses, or maybe a raised bump line at the weld? something to match the geometry to the texture.
looks great! keep at it.
jim ww
Hi Guys,
Thanks for all your usefull comments. I have added some weld marks to the head which hopefully add to the look.
I’m running out of time so no more updates from now.
Cog
Hi all,
I have now submitted my entry for the CGTalk FXWARS Ocean Challenge #10.
It was a real struggle to get it finished on time. I was within seconds of the deadline. Why is it that when you need to get things finished machines break down, software starts behaving erractically, and uploads take 10 times longer than normal?
Voting now starts and your support would be appreciated (shamless plug).
You can view the movies from and vote from here. My entry ‘The Cruel Sea’ is entry #14:-
http://kvaalen.com/cgtalk/fxwars/
By the way I believe there is one other entry that used Blender.
Cog
You’ve made some mistake with the filename…none of us in #blenderchat can download it.
The simpler the better.
http://www.litster.nildram.co.uk/movies/cruelsea.mov
btw, you don’t need to use the ‘url’ command, just paste the link in and it will show up as a hyperlink
–Edit–
Just watched it, very good indeed! Now I just have to watch the others to see how yours compares
Hi M@dcow,
I’ve had to edit the post as it seems brackets are not accepted in the Elysiun url code.
To help the actual entry is this one:-
However I have mounted a smaller render :-
http://www.litster.nildram.co.uk/movies/colin-litster_FXWARS(317x135).mov
and a copy using the correct filename convention for the FXwars challenges:-
http://www.litster.nildram.co.uk/movies/colin-litster_FXWARS(634x270).mov
That one is only 11Mb in size for the outer reaches.
However, the thread to the voting page at least enable you all to SEA the competition.
Cog
You know…the water does look great but for some reason it still doesn’t look “real” - the reason being that if you watch the waves, they don’t move. The just are created and then dissipate. You can’t see the wave’s energy moving thru the water at all. It’s more like a bunch of little waves all doing their own thing but not affecting each other much.
-niko
Hi all,
I didn’t add a huge amount of detail to my submission or my own crits reference this work. Although I have added that on the WIP thread at CGTalk I thought others might learn from my mistakes …
Since I didn’t give many details on the voting page I thought I should bring together the information here. Most of this is explained in earlier posts in this thread but time was only hinted at.
This has been an incredibly challenging exercise but very satisfying. All those that entered should be congratulated for the amount of time they all probably had to spend on it. Water is one of the most difficult things to simulate and I have learnt a great deal out of attempting it mostly to do with planning and time management.
All modelling and rendering was via the open source Blender 3D suite.
I also used PaintshopPro, Gimp, and Photoshop CS for some of the UV textures although the majority of materials, especially the water, were created with Blender procedural textures.
I used 3 PCs to spread the load of rendering. I had hoped to have a six PC linux render farm available but hardware failures and location difficulties became difficult in the time frame. I rendered to PNG sequential files that I had to convert to TGA in order to bring into Adobe Premiere v6.5 for editing. I could have used Blender for the edit but memory and speed constraints in current Blender version (solved in the latest CVS) made me nervous of using an untried new feature. Unfortunately Premiere became very flaky during the final edit which meant I couldn’t see a preview whilst editing. The final render from premiere took over 30mins and the upload to the files location about 20mins literally within seconds of the deadline.
I spent many evenings and several weekends almost full-time on the project starting from 10th February. In the midst of this I had a conference to attend, that took up almost 5 days and several family events that subtracted from that available. That means that its difficult to give precise time spent but I would estimate about 164 hours.
60% of that was development of either models or materials.
40% was animating and rendering (although some of the rendering was started while the development and animating was progressing)
I unfortunately left most of the rendering far too late and as a result had to scrap some shots, that either had render errors, or were too complex to complete on time.
The glaring mistakes, and lessons, that I see in it now are:-
…THIS IS THE STORY OF THE OCEANS AND THE BRAVE BUOYS WHO DEFEND (IT)…
Should have been THEM.
Lesson learned:-
Don’t change the words at the last moment when you have other more pressing problems occupying your attention.
Lesson learned:-
Don’t assume that remove doubles (vertices) will sort out a mesh in Blender. Sometimes it will produce odd faces that muck up normal mapping that not even CTRLN (force normals to outside will resolve.
Also if you test render do so at a resolution that will show such discrepancies. Leave more time to render at least 3 times longer than planned.
Lessons learned:-
Monitor test animations on a good quality monitor. I used a LCD laptop for that shot and I just didn’t see it.
I could have edited that out of the final movie but time ran out. Leave More Time to render.
5.In the same shot the ship textures, that are simple flat planes with a ship profile applied have a nasty black line at there top caused by not setting a switch in the blender texture buttons.
Lessons learned:-
LEAVE MORE TIME TO RENDER.
Planning is also vital because it should give a mechanism for estimating what can be achieved. I had 3 other shots that I would have loved to have included. One of these I called my complex shot.
It included a storm wave with both the mine and the buoy with; spray, mist, wake, splashes, and raytraced waves. I had 7 layers to makeup the final shot I was struggling to get the wake splashes looking right and it was just not worth fighting to fit it in when there were other effects to complete. So an overall lesson is to plan well and save wasted time.
Overall I am still quite pleased with the result. I believe it tells a story and makes a reasonable attempt at oceans using a 3D package that has none of these techniques built in. I will finish all the shots and the rest of the story for a short that I hope to enter into the Blender Conference Competition later this year. In anticipation here is a HERO render of the Buoy with toon shading that my final short will have.
and especially for the Elyiun readers.
Cog