These renders are starting to get long. This one took over 15 hours to complete. I imagine it was because of all the reflective surfaces but the result was definitely worth it!
The idea here is that health symbols are falling from the sky and collecting in a health pool on the side of a castle. Admittedly it’s an odd concept but when it popped into my head I decided to just go with it.
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Everything modeled and rendered in Cheetah 3D.
I’m trying to figure out Cheetah’s implementation of skeletal animation because that will allow me to do more advanced renderings in the future. Once I master this, I’ll be able to pose models in scenes, output animations instead of just stills, etc.
And surprisingly, it’s not that tough to do! Cheetah handles it in a pretty simple way. For a test case, I decided to do a Quake3 style undulating tube thingy. Here it is in motion:
And here’s a look at the bones in the Cheetah viewport:
Each of the red diamonds above is a bone and the red dots between them are joints. Once I set this up I just had to set keyframes on the various joints and make them move, rotate and scale the way I wanted them to.
So far, so good!
This render came about through experimenting with Cheetah and playing with the UV mapping tools and my playing with ways of putting shapes together. After an hour or so, I liked what was appearing on my screen so I arranged it into a pretty interesting scene.
Enjoy!
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Everything modeled and rendered in Cheetah 3D.
I’m going to call this one done. I don’t want to texture map it until I get more practice in on actual polygon modeling. This model was based on a reference sketch that I saw posted on the Cheetah forums:
Taking that reference I started building an interpretation of it. Below is the final render of the model. I added some logs and some abstract hills behind it to give it some context.
Changes from the WIP version shown yesterday are a little work on the pillbox at the top to add a door opening in the back and a hanging sign. I also tweaked the base of the tower a little. I changed the name as well. Just look at it, will you?
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Everything modeled and rendered in Cheetah 3D.
OK, so I started messing around with a concept sketch that I found on modeling forum. The guy was asking for a control tower type structure with solar panels attached to the front of it. I’m trying to keep it looking cartoony and funny looking while at the same time appearing solid and feasible.
This isn’t finished by a long shot and the texturing is just basic color splashes at the moment. I’ll work on this a little further in the coming days and maybe throw some real textures on it if I like how it turns out.
And here are the stats as they currently stand. The majority of the polygons are eaten up by the solar panels but that can easily be optimized away through quality texture work.
But I’m learning! I’m trying to teach myself how to model decently in Cheetah 3D but it’s going slowly. I’m going to try and model out a small control tower. I’m doing it in a stylized way, a little cartoonish, so I think I can have some fun with it while I learn.
Will post pics soon!
I have my first short story completed and my wife assures me that it is a wonderful piece of writing. I believe her to be biased, so you’ll have to judge for yourself. Or ask someone else to make up your mind for you. Perhaps in a poll format.
At any rate, here it is! Enjoy and leave comments on how you would improve the story or the writing. I’m striving to improve my writing skills but the only the way to do that is to write, write and write.
Enjoy!
OK, I think I’m done with my first render. This is the first render I’ve ever done so I’m sure it’s flawed in many ways - but I like it!
I was going for a cartoon type look rather than ultra realism. I think the depth of field and radiosity lighting lend a certain quality to the image that puts it somewhere between cartoons and reality.
When looking at this, imagine that you’ve stumbled across a small cave where someone has stashed a crate of gold coins.
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Everything modeled and rendered in Cheetah 3D.
Let’s get this party started.
