Lord of the Rings - ish

Well not actually Lord of the rings, but the original concept start from an image from LOTR, I just went off in another direction . . . .

This is a wip I started almost a year ago, I picked it up again last week while I am taking a break from the Galactica build . . . .

I want to finish this scene because it is my second attempt at image compositing.
The background image here is a desaturated image, the original has much more color and texture to it. I figured I would use the B/W image for test renders and drop the full color image in for the final.

This scene is being built in to parts, the first is to texture it full, then de-construct the scene aging it about 200 years, breaking the dome apart, cracking the court-yard floor, smashing the steps the destroying the building . . .
give it that Osgiliath look . . . .

S

[skyhawk223]

Nice scene, but way to clean. Add grime and other wear and tear textures and it will look great.

Hi skyhawk223, glad you like the scene . . .
You didn't read the post tho did you . . . ? D'oh !
I know, . . . I tend to ramble sometimes. Don't know where that comes from, I guess I get it from my mother . . . . . or I take after my wife . . always talking.

don't worry, much more surfacing to come . . . the only thing that is surfaced in that scene is the dome . . .
S

[skyhawk223]

Oops, sorry. I went back and read it in it's entirety. I await updates on this after you do all that aging.
Where did you get the background from? Did you use Terragen or Vue?

Originally Posted by skyhawk223

I await updates on this after you do all that aging.

I can't wait either . . . I have all these ideas swarming around in the brain, like most of that Castle in the background will be gone . . just part of the doorway and some of the wall will be left. "lots o' rubble" stroon about. The dome is going to be broken at the arches, and the very top of the dome will be lying bottom up in the middle of the court yard. .. .
All of the Statues will be broken and decayed . . . yes . . there will be leaves and vines everywhere . . .

a year ago when I started this project it seemed like my skills weren't par for the art concept that I had, but now 12 months later and a tremendously upgraded skill set, I actually think I can pull this off . . . .

Originally Posted by skyhawk223

Did you use Terragen or Vue?

yes Sir Terragen . . . .
This is about the only thing I will use Terragen for "Background compositing". . .
It is a good program in the right hands, but over the past few years it has been miss-used a lot.

If you were to go onto DA right now, you would see Terragen art everywhere, It permiates the 3d section like a virus.
To tell you the truth, it makes me sick . . . . It'a All too easy to press a button render the scene and say"I'm a 3d artist" . . . .
I left DA because of it . . . there use to be a lot of talented 3d artists there but with the ease of Terragen, a lot of people have vanished and or given up trying to build an actual 3d scene.
Now don't get me wrong, some people are doing awesome stuff with Terragen . .
They are combining it with PhotoShop and or like me, using it as a backdrop in composited images . . this is awesome . . . but to just launch the program, load a terrain, hit the render button and call it 3d . . . . sucks

S

here is a picture of that dome . . . .
Cool little place, I wouldn't mind kicking back and having a picnick with my wife on the steps of that place . . .
Once I get to surfacing the rest of the objects in the scene I will start to break the meshes into ruins.
S

[skyhawk223]

I agree with what you are saying regarding Terragen and some of it's users. It cheapens the work of those who put a lot of time into scene creation.
Nice weathering job on the structure. How do you plan on breaking it into pieces and eroding other parts of the scene? This is not something I can do in trueSpace.

glad you asked . . .
All of the surfaces are geometry, I didn't use any bump maps at all, every single stone and brick you see is separate.
What I will do is decide how much of the structures I want to keep then remove all un-nessasary bricks, The stones and brick that are left behind I will boolean the smoothness away making the edges jagged and random thus giving it a natural decay. The Booleaning process will give me new surfaces that I can texture accordingly to weather that part as it should look.

The vines will be added by rail extrusion . . this will be the teadious part . . .
as I have to map the path the vines will take . . . or I can select an outside path of points along the brick structure copy paste then make spline out of the points . . this would make the vines easier to build, however that last concept is just theory I will have to see if it can be useful . . . .

The Blown leaves in the scene will just be particl effects with some wind and collision . . .
S

[skyhawk223]

Fairly complicated process but I guess that is what it takes to get a great looking scene. I await with baited breath.
You must be slightly crazy to model every single brick...

Hello . . . .
Well I started back on this project in ernest (?) today . . I just jumped roght in and started texturing the statues in front of the dome area.

The texturing isn't complete yet, in fact I just laid on a basic concrete/stone layer to everything, now I am going over the usrfaces again and adding the age to them. So far I just started aging the skin, which still needs a bit of tweaking but you can see where I am going with it in these shots.

Anyway hope you like . . .

gp

[Darrell Lawrence]

Looking sweet!

[Moonglow]

Great WIP. Looks great so far, will watch progress.

Very nice, I like the rusted look on the swords...

They're simply - COOL