Swansons outdoor kitchen

[Paulgswanson]

A few days ago my father made a odd request of me. Odd simply because he doesn't really think very highly of the digital art field. Let alone the fact than I'm learning it solely on my own x.x (This is part of why i was so confused about this.)

My first steps i decided in the initial plan (since I was provided no direction with this lil project of his) I figured I would start with simply modeling the general house to assist with the atmosphere.

Ok, so all I have so far is the House itself an general internal structure, I'm being very careful not over model. Its a bad habit of mine, granted its not bad for practice but something like this a lot of that work will simply go to waste. *rolls eyes* Sorry back on topic..

Internally all I have so far is the wooden parquet floor and the tile. For the windows and door I decided to be lazy and simply use Max's built-AEC objects. I did this to simply posing the camera. I might want doors and windows open, I might not. This way its simply a slider making the adjustments.

Externally I modeled the outdoor screen enclosure via a lattice modifier. And for the pool I simply sliced it up with spline and boolean stamp. Also individually modeled the pavers that you can barely see and then used an array to distribute them evenly across the way.

Theres a lot of work to be done yet but this is my start.

Ok, this is a personal Project.
It is based of an actual house located in Jacksonville FL

Ok, heres the software I'm using this time.
3DS MAX 2009 Design
Photoshop CS5
Vray

I shall provide more info as this proceeds.

[Paulgswanson]

A quick update, I decided to scrap the individualy modeled paver's in Lew of a more polygon friendly approach. Instead of 16,000 bricks I decided to simply apply a simple texture map (aww darn *snaps fingers* {I know thats how it shoulda been in the first place but I didnt wanna dabble with displacment yet}) until I can setup the Vray Displacement.

Feel feel to use my Texture map below. Granted I know it is low quality but I thought I would give back a little since I received so much useful info from observing everyone during the last competition. I haven't changed to map to delineation yet but use it as you want.

Also I finished modeling the pool. I sketched the general pool shape out with splines last night and simply cut it out via the boolean stamp method. Its lazy and wrong but, I admit I'm not the best modeler out there, but I'm doing what I can to improve a tad at a time.

I did however discover why booleans suck major league money. I didn't realize until I tried a test render that My normal's got jacked up bad. I spent the good part of the day trying to select the afflicted polygons and just fix it using the "Flip Normals" option. In the end it never worked and I just separated the jacuzzi section into a separate Element and flipped the normals there. I then moved the object back into place using Align and re-attached it. After merging the matching vertexes, viola! o.o;;;

I think I'm way to proud of fixing a mistake that bad technique caused in the first place XD

Ok enough of my blathering here are my current renders:
As always C&C highly welcome.

Ine other note, I'll start my AO light testing once modeling is actually finished, I'm just doing easy and lazy texturing right now via MR to help me visualize, I don't draw it out on paper like I should *holds out hand* Feel free to slap me as you see fit. :P

*last-last thing for now* I didn't realize how large the bevels on the wood appear to be until after i rendered to show you guys/gals x.x I think I shall ultimately remove them. (the bevels I mean) O.o at least I know how to make outdoor planks now. *teehee*

[Paulgswanson]

Quick image update playing with the lighting systems now, all images converted to vray at this point.

[bakbek]

Really nice to see you going on this one... I don't have much to say actually - just wanted you to know I'm following this thread and looking forward for more progress :-)

Just to be sure - all that you modeled so far is a recreation of what exists in real life right? so that you can later add to it new things and check how they look...

Cheers

[Paulgswanson]

Still adding elements to the scene

so far added =
Above Ground Spa
6/12 palm trees of the Pseudophoenix S D Variety
Patio chairs.

I have corrected some of the textures placed on the pool itself as well as lowered the overall Vray suns strength. At this point I'm still uncertain if i will use VraySun or if I'll use HDRI's (reason being is I don't really have a suitable image that can be readily used.).

Added base color texture to most everything in the scene so far just so that i can make out roughly how it appears once rendered. I'll do some AO tomorrow to show everyone thats keeping up with this so far.

Hard parts coming up next after the initial patio modeling. There is a lot of foliage scattered about in mother's garden. I'l be taking this one step at a time though.

For the record I did not model the grass in my scene. I merely used a plugin written by Sisyphus "Grass-O-Matic". I was being lazy, I may swap it out with my own objects later though. It depends on how satisfied I am with the overall composition when I near the end.


@Bakbek - You are correct sir, everything that will be seen in the composition actually exists with the exception of the outdoor kitchen chunk (which i haven't even started to work on yet x.x)

[Paulgswanson]

I have done quite a bit of modeling with this scene today (work wasn't as busy as usual, gave me a lot of free time to mess around).

I modeled the fence surrounding the house's yard. Also reworked the vertexes in the yard its self, there is a small dip in the garden section kind of adds a small slope. I needed to add it for the bricks surround the garden sections to look correct.

==
For the Brick I simply started with a Box (Length 89cm x 30 Wide x Height of 6)
Then I added a tessellate modifier to it, set it to quads and set the tension to 0, then applied a noise modifier to create to appearance of rock also to allow for better displacement later.

I then placed the bricks into the form of the gardens border as it currently exists and grouped them together.

==
For the fence I also box modeled them. All I did here was flatten a box to the general thickness and height of a fence board. Applied a edit poly mod to it and chamfered the top edges. and boom fence board. I then instanced the geometry enough to make a decent sized section, about 6 boards. I created to cross boards as well so it looks physically accurate and then grouped it all together.

To place it around the building I simply utilized the array function.
==

Something else I also decided to today in regards to the final composition is that I will stick with the VraySun, I tried a few HDRI's for lighting and it did not come out looking very good. Far too dark.

Also I shall swap out the Grass-o-Matic with grass I modeled myself. The normals on the grass blades are all jacked. Make AO useless for it. I plan on using AO in post so i have no choice, I shall swap out my blades tomorrow with unique blades.

I made a few modifications to my water material, I was having trouble simulating good caustics, it is much better now. I shall reveal them caustics to you when I do a beauty pass. For now tho I shall update the current images.

Well, I might as well get started on the plant pots. Weeeee Lathe practice....*sigh*

[Paulgswanson]

Iv been mostly modeling to replace the placeholders this last few days. As well as some of the little details.

I have already replaced the entire enclosure with a proper modeled one. The last one was simply a lattice box.

It has been redone by propery extruding a box with edit poly.

Also tweaked the garden beds by cutting them into a surface and slightly insetting it. Then I applied a tessellate mod quad 4 iterations to it. (This would be easier for me if I properly understood how VrayDisplacment works but w/e) Once that was done I then applied a noise modifier and checked fractal.

I have also modeled the brackets that hold the enclosure in the ground although they may not even be visible.

I have also added to the kitchen, tis not complete but, it IS a WIP afterall yes? Well thats all for now, I did quite a bit more but im just not really in the mood to illucidate it. Questions , comments, Criticizsms? By alll means be rough but fair :P

I didn't learn this in school after all like several of you.

[Paulgswanson]

Its been a been a while since I added to this. Even so there isnt much to cover, its been mostly enhancement work. I modified the UV's on every single object, also re topologized quite a bit. And re textured everything because my previous NON uv version wasn't so hot. And now my Screen actually *looks* like a screen and lets light in. I was hadnt realized how tiny my opacity map was being utilized, and as such was very dense and ended up blocking tons of light from entering.

To be perfectly honest the time spent since my last update was mostly learning how to
'properly use' UV maps and reapplying said textures with new techniques. I also finally understand how to use individual render passes other than ambient occlusion. Well Here are my updated images. I'll post more angles later but for now Im off for a nap...

As always, questions comments and concerns, have at thee.

[Paulgswanson]

just a new image, I finally figured out why everything was so dark, so sorry. I hadnt turned on my VraySkymap... no wonder there were black reflections.... *sigh*

[Paulgswanson]

So sorry for the uhm...delayed update...I was rather badly injured and had to spend several weeks in a hospital...Anyways, that however gave me ample time away from both work and computers, so I was left with naught but time. And I used it wisely. I decided enough is enough with my crappy understanding of Vray Displacement and the more technical details. Here are the environmental updates that have been modified since my last...well post.