(eole)

[eole]

Before my post gets buried in page 12, let me show you what I've been working on : poufes and pottery.


I also added a accessories to the hammock I'll have on the top floor.

[eole]

After that, I wanted to add a chaise lounge on the deck, but I realized I may not like to rest behing this wrought iron railing.
So I played a little bit with a concept of a glass railing with the Eye of Horus as a watermark in the glass.
The large one below is the the one I prefer, but I'll have to change these poles.



Let me know what you think ...
Eole.

[Viztecture]

really wacky scheme, i like your accessories alot.
For the building however i'd start by taking a look at it again, could you not have a sort of modernised egyptian themed box shooting out of a huge whole in a pyramid? or look at the stuff they did for the film stargate..(quality film..one of king kurts best). I think currently your concept makes little sense..no obvious access to these apartments, i dont think they need to be little pyramids and if they do it needs to be a pure pyramid without the strange change of angle mid-way up. Obviously glass is a no no in egypt, what about placing them in a massive cavernous space within the pyramid, lots of blue hues and rocky stone blocks. Judging by your snakes you've got skills tho, your idea just needs a little work!

[antidrew]

I think a frosted glass version of the eye mark on the railing would look best...

And it's nice to see some crazy fun designs, not just the same old same old... Keep it up, can't wait to see the final shots..!

[eole]

Thank you both for your comments. I also like the frosted glass version better.
Don't worry, I'm going to stick with my glass pyramid concept. Once I translated into French what "hover" meant, I immediately visualized the Louvre glass pyramid hovering on Kheops pyramid.

The reason my pyramid is a two slope pyramid (bent pyramid, see Bent Pyramid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) is that when I started with a single slope, the base was very large and took all the space I wanted for the deck.
I'm going to look at that again, and might get rid of the deck in favor of more space inside. Thanks for your advice Viztecture.

I will definitely stay with the glass, even if I understand it's no no in Egypt. We're talking about a fictional world (I hope), where a hotel chain can afford to build on Kheops : air conditioning and polarized glass might not be an issue either.
Besides there's so much sand around, it would be a shame to waste it

Good luck to you guys.
Eole.

[eole]

I followed Wiztecture's advice, and re-explored the straight pyramid concept. I managed to include the door in the room, and I decided to get rid of the railing and the deck.
Here's what it looks like :



I also started to explore other point of views, but I find none of them really appealing :



Finally, I continued building accessories :



Eole.

[eole]

Now that the rush is over, and my final image in the hands of the juges I can take the time to show you what I’ve been doing this past month.

I quickly realized that my computer was not going to be able to handle everything I wanted to show In my picture : the large pyramids and the swimming pool in the background, and all the little details in the glass pyramid room.
So I split my project in two files, and decided to go for a single render.

Working on the background, I spent a lot of time trying different methods to get as much details into Khephren pyramid without crashing Max with too much polygons. I had a hard time tuning the bump and displace settings until I got a render that I liked :



In parallel, I started texturing my room objects. I created normal maps, using the render to texture with limestone pictures I got from CGTextures.





Last but not least, I used my limestone pics to create 10 different stone textures that I assigned randomly to the polygons of my foreground pyramid. I used a little script for that. The first results were ugly and looked like a Playmobil toy.
I tried to play with subdivisions, noise, and dirt, until I had no more time left and had to do the final render ...



There was not much time left to add sophisticated light effects. The deadline was approaching, and I quickly adjusted my final image with Paintshop before submitting it to the jury.

(high resolution image here)


This challenge was the opportunity to learn a lot of things.
Sometimes when I was looking at the WIP renders that the others were showing, I thought I was not playing in the same league.
However, I did not give up, and my final picture resembles what I had in mind, and it’s by far the best render I’ve made so far.

I do this only for fun, and I sure had a lot of fun participating to this challenge.
Eole.