I may never take further, BUT, for those who are sailors, and conversant with the origianal tute, you may see a lot of "work method" variations to the design.

I am having fun!

Brian

looking good so far, brian !

Arrr there matey, fine lookin vessel.

Hi Brian,

It is looking very good. I do hope you find time to finish it. I would like to see that in a render.

- Steve

I found a bit of time. However, some very frustrating workings--I hope they are covered in the V2 version.(I ALLMOST wanted to go back to Hexagon!!!!!)----well!

Not a boat I would like to own but maybe, the ideas I am incorporating would make it easier to sail a bit?

Just some quick rendering tests in Carrara.
The MoI file was saved as an .obj with the number of polyies bumped up a bit.
There are a few not nice surfaces which I may have to take into the Carrara Vertex Room and fiddle with, smooth, do some UV stuff maybe.

This exercise was to help group the millions of bits--drives me crazy, and then, roughly group those into potential shader groups.
Very difficulty to stop parts moving out of place---you will see some that still need to be returned to correct locations.

All the shaders are only preliminary.

Brian

> All the shaders are only preliminary.

Actually they're looking really good already! The first thought was nice job on the materials.

- Michael

Thanks Michael but a lot of finnessing to go yet. Need to get the shaders "balanced" as well as fixing the problems.
For interest.
The MoI 3dm file 8.8MB
The Obj file from that 58.3MB
The .car Carrara file with the shaders 10.5MB

Brian

Nice work, Brian!

The materials as they are look really good - the only thing I was thinking about is the "wood planks" that make up the side hull of the boat are (or would be) curved, but material makes the planks look straight? (This is on the bottom one, towards the front)

That's the only thing that stuck out in my mind.

Nice to see a full render from you!

-Will

Hi Brian,

Starting to look good.


>>>The Obj file from that 58.3MB

You would be better to change settings or format used.
When I was outputting the bot model, I did play around with the settings/ format.

Examples.
I used a default of 3 deg for mesh output. That gave an obj output filesize of 203mb
I then changed setting to "avoid smaller than 0.5. That then made the obj filesize 14.66mb
I changed format to LWO, that (with avoid smaller than .5) gave LWO filesize of 8.266mb
I then output via 3DS (with avoid smaller than .5) that gave output 3DS filesize of 2.764mb

For Carrara, it did handle each file well, and the render did not suffer.


- Steve

Hi Brian,

>>>This exercise was to help group the millions of bits--drives me crazy,

The lack of layers/ groups within MoI can be a complete pain/nightmare, certainly when attempting models with many parts. I have nearly given up a few times with some of the models.

What I have been doing, is to export various groups of objects from the model into their own file, this then allows me to import each group into Carrara (or other renderer) and assign a master material to each group on import. It can still be a pain in MoI when attempting to select the various objects, but once a group is made within an export file (I also export the group as a 3dm file) I can delete the objects from scene (and can always import them back if needed. Certainly not the best, but the options are very limited on this.


- Steve

Will.
Planking a hull in 3d is a bit of a problem. It took me a while to get this far. Welcome any easy solutions to get "real" effects.

Steve.
I have had serious problems bringing Iges,3dm and 3ds from MoI into Carrara and, after much testing, had decided to stick with obj. I will try out your adjustment settings to see if that works/helps
With the settings I had I still had to take the deck into the Vertex room and give it a smoothing setting of 3! Though I am still a learner in this complex modelling stuff. More research/testing.

Thanks both..

I think I need a big rest, mental recuperation, before I start on the masts,sails and rigging.

Steves idea of saving/exporting parts as you go sound good to me. Similar thoughts should apply to other modelling apps probably.
Brian

>>I think I need a big rest, mental recuperation,
>>before I start on the masts,sails and rigging.

Don't drop your bundle Brian! :) Fantastic!

Petr

Hi Brian,

>>>I have had serious problems bringing Iges,3dm and 3ds from MoI into Carrara

I have seen problem importing 3dm into carrara, I still have to see if older 3dm file versions import better. But I have (up to now) had no problems with 3ds.

Anyway, your model is looking great, keep up the good work. I am looking forward to seeing your model on water.


- Steve

Thanks Steve.
Creating a watery landscape and puting the boat in it and having foam around the edges of the hull, waves etc is easy (more or less) in Carrara6.
Have done that a few times.

Here is a 4 part view of how easy it is to create a formed sail in MoI. Just too easy!

Brian

ps Just a quick close at hand example of the foam effects using one of the DCG plugins for Carrara

"Will.
Planking a hull in 3d is a bit of a problem. It took me a while to get this far. Welcome any easy solutions to get "real" effects."

Hi, well I'm not sure about "easy" - if you're using procedural textures, perhaps switching to image based textures and UV'ing your model may give you more control over how the plank seams arch over the hull of the boat.

Perhaps dicing the hull into the actual planks and applying the plank textures individually should follow the curvature as required.

I was using procedural textures (Darktrees) initially (see below) on an old house I was working on a few years ago in Lightwave - it was sorta cool cause of the detail and resolution independence but I opted for imagemaps in the end for easier control...

I must say the renders are looking very nice however and by time your scene is done, it'll most likely not even stick out like before. :-)







-Will

Hi Brian,

>>>Planking a hull in 3d is a bit of a problem.

I do agree with Will that using a texture image would be easier, you could also consider creating shader domains on the hull (depending on the poly output). An even easier option would be to use a different material for the hull (fiberglass?)

- manz

The attached is the jpeg image I used on the hull. I use images a lot in my rendering as there are so many high quality free ones about.
Also select the Projection Mapping Function a lot, to suit individual objects needs.
I wonder if, really, the shader domains would get the desired effect? (Have to fiddle around with that but it's time consuming.)

I also have to double check if the 3ds retains the individual items separated like Iges and 3dm and obj.
As a ps, if you have used the hide function in MoI both the Iges and 3dm files in Carrara are likely to have lost surfaces.--very strange--Michael says it is a Carrara fault.

Brian

Hi Brian,

> As a ps, if you have used the hide function in MoI both the
> Iges and 3dm files in Carrara are likely to have lost
> surfaces.--very strange--Michael says it is a Carrara fault.

I remember you mentioning this before - these are likely to be tessellation errors in Carrara where it is having a hard time creating a polygon mesh object from some of the NURBS surfaces in the Iges or .3dm files.

If it cannot calculate the mesh (which is a pretty difficult task, it is not a surprising area to have difficulties in), then in the shaded mode in Carrara, it will appear as though the object is hidden because meshes are needed to display shaded objects.

Hiding an object in MoI at some earlier point, does not have anything to do with it, unless you still have it hidden at the time of export?

- Michael