A big update today! I’ve been chugging along on this while doing all the other work that I’ve been showing on this here blog. Basically, it’s a combination of everything I’ve done so far, plus stuff you haven’t seen yet ( :O ), all wrapped up in a pretty render! So, without further ado:
Yay, it's getting done
That darn black outline set me back four days! FOUR. But it works fine now, so yay. There has been a bit of Photoshop post-processing, but the majority of it is just blending render layers together. Plus a photo filter and a slight brightness/contrast adjustment. But that’s it, honest! Oh, and a noise layer, to make it a bit grainy. That’s DEFINITELY it. Learnt a fair bit over the last few days:
TECH TIME, SKIP IF THIS STUFF BORES YOU
- Learnt that the sun and sky simulator effectively doubles the gamma control, making textures all washed out.
- Learnt that to fix that, I had to add gamma_control nodes to every texture
- Learnt that offsetting toon lines in Maya doesn’t make for a good looking black outline
- Learnt that contour rendering in mental ray is a MUCH better solution
- Learnt about the High Pass filter in Photoshop for boosting sharpness
All that combined to make that image. Also, notice there’s two new models in there: the streetlamps and the clouds. IT IS LIKE A BONUS.
Firstly aggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! SO FRICKIN UNBELIEVABLY AWESOMELY COOOOOOOOOOOL!!! and now, why are you creating more work for yourself?? I thought you didn’t want to go with the black outline look?
Surprisingly, this method of black outline is pretty easy to do: it generally looks after itself, so I really don’t have to do much except enable it for each texture.
Is beginning to look VERY awesome, Ant. The black outline and high pass give it great.. oomph. You’re also figuring out the lighting (finally!). ;D
Also, girlfriend :O