Looking great, especially the shadows of the trees across the picture. One comment: the grass seems to be very large in scale. Might look more realistic if it were scaled down about 50%.
Update 32: Weekend tinkering only…
Painterly, soft, whatever you want to call it
Pure-ish render
Only time for weekend tinkering for foreseeable future (stinking real life work and deadlines) but its mainly going to be things that aren’t noticeable from now on I imagine - just touches to make it as accurate as possible but probably not very arty - just doing it to satisfy my ‘finickiness’. Still got to sort smoke on train though - needs to be flowing behind train more!
The changes from last version - tracks now reach the end of the scene, going round the convenient bend, sorted out the materials on the shelter (although not keen on the red wood - may need to change) and platform, tweaked the glass shader too (there is some subtle muck), added more lamps along platform 1, made the woodland more dense (still not dense enough but close), sorted out the jagged track that went to the goods shed, made grass a bit smaller (it was the amount of variation set which made some too big perhaps), closed the hole where there was no wall, added another barrier at end of track next to signal box, added more track points and junctions near the signal box as there would have been.
Tinker, tinker, tinker. I think I need a new project for a bit
Dang, I don’t have much time to work with blender, but I need to start a long term project, but I lack the patience and dedication, any tips?
Update 33: Train getting closer…
Not sure if there was any point uploading these really - as usual its mainly because it took ages to render and so needs a purpose. Been having another break, but decided to try and make my train smoke better - which I think it is (marginally). Also added some guttering to the shelter as that was bugging me. But otherwise… meh. As usual, there is a pure render and a messedaroundwithinphotoshop render.
Mini-update 34: A little tweak
This is a bump, that I apologise for - but have made a little tweak by adding a signal semaphore pole. My old OS maps suggest there was one there. My old very poor quality photos are inconclusive. Sort of thing you might expect though so why not? Tweaked my train material too - made the loco a bit more beat up. Also tried a bit of a vintage photo treatment to it. Again, why not?
Update 35: More little tweaks and fixing things that are bugging me!
As natural as possible render.
Time for another “spot the difference” post! (I’ll tell you - I’ve changed the windows in the shelter. The originals were from Archimesh - which is good, but they too clean and modern. They just didn’t look proper). So going back to photos, the windows were actually a lot narrower and had a thicker central bar. Much happier with these. The wood texture has had an overhaul to and I’m much happier with that too. Bit of muck and wear.
Mainly been working on the tracks at the front of station, which may never be seen - but still on a mission to make it sort of accurate. Still learning about geonodes (this project has become a bit of testbed for that) and have been doing curve offsets and stuff. Top fun!
it’s looking really great, but I’d consider doing some work in the compositor to make the colours and levels look a bit less cartoonish. Definitely add some lens effects too.
I love lens flares, but I quite enjoy that this image hasn’t any.
I hate lens flares personally. I just meant a pinch of chromatic aberration, distortion, and colour correction/grading.
I hate that even more
(Sorry, have just seen too many SpiderVerse fan images… i think I’m burned out on CA)
Looking good as ever, when are you going to do an animation?
Thanks - very much appreciated! I think an animation is a bit beyond my skills at the moment (and my PC’s limits!!)
I am trusting that you will do one at some point
Update 36: When you’ve got to go…
Reference - this was the urinal at the station on platform 2. Also used other references of MacFarlane’s cast iron urinals and other assorted street furniture. If you get a chance, have a look at the catalogue from the late 1800s. Amazing detail (https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A"Walter+MacFarlane+%26+Co.")
This needs some work, obviously. But I’m pretty pleased with it as a first stab. Probably only see this in the distance anyway, so detail not massively important. The more detailed pattern at the top and bottom should have a lot of tiny perforations in it but I can’t see me doing that; far too much effort for too little reward. As a background prop I think this is OK.
Now to work more on materials, make the panels look a bit better, add the gent’s sign (and possibly a lamp) and place it in the station model correctly (and show it off).
Little edit: This is obviously a scene with my shiny new (but old and battered) object in it, but not making it a post on its own yet as there’s quite a lot wrong with it… like I forgot to add sleepers to some of the tracks, like the tracks just cross each other instead of being proper points, weirdly part of my wall is effectively black and part isn’t (no idea why - time to investigate) and a few other things. I do like the urinals though - think it looks quite good (if I say so myself… and please remember when I say that, I know everything is relative! Quite good - for me, is what I should say! )
looking good!!
Update 37: When you’ve got to go - 2…
Render (with cartoon colours?)
More experiments in painterly-ness.
Urinals talking pride of place and think they look good (relatively as always). Slightly improved version, albeit I still don’t know what is turning that wall quite black. Doesn’t look like it in the viewport so must be something interfering with the render. I shall find the culprit I’m sure. Turned the noise threshold down on this significantly to get something like a decent render time but think it has resulted in lower quality. As you can see, I’ve added a person. Bought some very low poly characters which might add a bit of life - but only at extreme distance! Not sure if they will stay, but we’ll see. Some of the grass still looks massive but when you see the photos it is that long; think I may have used wrong type though… there’s always something!
No bump - mini update 38…
Found the issue making the wall black. I have an alpha image of trees that casts some shadow over the track (not sure I need it for this angle - mainly needed it for looking the other way when not rendering trees out of shot). Have it turned off in the viewport and had forgotten about it. Anyway, the shadows were intersecting the wall. Mystery solved. Also played with grass length - subtle but better. Also altered the crane’s materials as these were always just temporary. Haven’t cracked those yet. Onwards and upwards.
Looking great, I quite like the person actually! But, in your reference photo the urinal seems more round, as opposed to the one you made, looking rectangular, small difference, but that might need fixing.
I was imagining the stains on the ground at the bottom of it…ahhhhhhh.
Well it looks like the roundness of the back corner bulges out a bit in the photo.
Something like this (not the proportions)
@DNorman Yes, I’m not really sure how the plumbing worked on this - probably not worth thinking about!! I thought about having some ‘leakage’ around the entrance, but thought that might not go down too well
@JWC Thanks for the comments and for taking an interest in what I’m doing. Really appreciate it. Have to say that trying to work out the shape from the photo flummoxed me for quite some time and made a few prototypes which had various amounts of curve (the photo makes it look very curved). Then doing some searches on finding the catalogue helped. Assuming its roughly the same design, there is a curve at the back and its rectangular at the front.
This is a similar one at a museum - albeit a bit bigger and with two entrances. I also have this plan view from the catalogue, which I traced:
So, there is some curve at the back on mine, but suspect the lighting and angle don’t show it off very well.
It may be that the ‘real’ one was a different design of course! Thanks again for your comments!
Yes I could be wrong, I was looking at the top profile and the way the light hits the curved bits.
Oh, in your earlier reference, I was just seeing the curve, not the straight side, that makes more sense.
Yeah, no problem, it’s coming along great, keep it up, it is going great!