Playground, chapter 8 - second version

children, before/after

Nine months after completing the Playground, Anna and I agreed to have another go at this rendering, to create a more interesting version and solve all the problems we have with its quality.

First, we created new hair textures and a new skin shader for all the children, which makes them look less like plastic. I'm using overcast lighting this time, primarily so the children's faces are easier to distinguish.

details from design sketch

Here are some of the other changes we're planning:

• add more foreground items: animals, clothing accessories, plants
• articulate the children's fingers, so their hands can be more expressive
• renovate the barn so it contributes more to the composition
• model new distant hills with details like buildings, vehicles, and animals
• create a larger variety of trees
• paint a new cloudy sky to match the new lighting

Playground, chapter 7 - final rendering

playground

This is where all the elements come together. Thanks to Anna for her great designs.
My goals were to create a somewhat plausible cartoon world, and an interesting composition that a viewer could become lost in for a few seconds: something more personable than the typical product shot that I usually do.

influences

Design influences for this project include illustrator Mary Blair, Dr. Seuss drawings, Matisse compositions, and existing playground sculpture.

composite, before & after adjustments

To reduce rendering time and provide greater control over adjustments, the scene was divided into 4 layers of depth which were each rendered separately. To merge the layers back together, I picked up some new compositing tricks, including spill control and light wraps.

details

equipment design, children's clothing and hair, modeling by Anna
landscape design, children's faces and poses, modeling, and rendering by Greg

Playground, chapter 2 - landscaping

landscape development

Here's the latest stage of an illustration by Anna and me. (The design process can be seen in the previous chapter.) The landscape is modeled prior to the people and props, because it will require the most time for finessing.

The colorful surfaces near the center of the composition are special child-safe "poured-in-place" rubber floors, commonly made from recycled tires.

detail

With displacement tessellation and all the vegetation, the rendering engine has a hard time handling several million triangles. To keep from hitting my RAM ceiling, I distributed the scene objects into multiple render layers. Background and foreground objects are rendered separately, and recombined in a compositing program. Doing so has cut rendertime RAM requirements and total rendering duration in half.

part of the composite graph

next: slide

Playground, chapter 1 - design

design stages

The next project of the Anna-Greg team will culminate in a storybook-style rendering of a playground. On the way there, I'll post renderings of the components.

design

The first step was to choose a design. This involved sketching all our ideas, then picking the favorites.

3D previz

The second step was a 3D pre-visualization process, which was necessary due to the complexity of the scene. With this step, we block out the scene with primitive objects to determine the volumes and how the landscape will we constructed around the fixtures. This is the 3D version of sketching. All the objects in this scene are proxies which will eventually be replaced with more developed designs and models.

next: modeling

fun with blog design

The concept behind the header is, if all else fails, there will always be a nice image at the top of the page.

early Gs,
production (left) & rendering (right)

Here are details from 2 previous headers. I wanted something that a viewer can get lost in for a few seconds, hence the new one.

design

This was the color design of the new header, which doubled as a modeling guide within Maya. (This design had vegetation roots poking out underneath, which were later abandoned.) Below are some of the production stages.

Hotel Righi video, part 6 - landscaping

(The Hotel Righi [ree-gee] project was a set of renderings I collaborated on back in 2007. Now that I have some free time, I'm turning it into a short fly-through video.)

Glion + trees

By using a scatter system, I was able to paint trees across the terrain in an afternoon. Without the scatter system, it would have taken many days to place these thousands of trees, and the file size and memory requirement would have become unwieldy.

one low-poly tree

For distances between a few hundred feet and a mile, I scattered 14,500 low-poly trees. Each tree consists of 2000 triangles, which might seem like a lot, but a typical close-proximity tree model can have 200,000+ triangles.

I abandoned the goal of creating a level-of-detail system - which swaps high and low meshes depending on camera distance - as it didn't seem necessary.

frame 685, model
(click to enlarge)

frame 685, render
(click to enlarge)

All the vast, faraway components are in place and 90% finalized. The remaining stages take place within the newly-modeled, ridge-top village of Glion.

next: details, details

Hotel Righi video, part 3 - local terrain

(The Hotel Righi [ree-gee] project was a set of renderings I collaborated on back in 2007. Now that I have some free time, I'm turning it into a short fly-through video.)

Montreux terrain, frame 580

(click to enlarge)

The title of this post, "local terrain," refers to parts of the landscape that are within a few thousand feet of the camera, typically a mile or less. Montreux is the lakeside city below the village of Glion. It's never seen up close in this video, so I think I can get away with this simple level of terrain detail, once buildings and trees are scattered on top.

details of bump, displace, & diffuse maps

The mapping of Glion's terrain has required 13 image files so far, including textures and masks. Above are a few of them. The entire terrain (over 1000 sq.miles) has needed about 40 bitmap textures and 10 procedural textures.

photo courtesy of Google car
(click to enlarge)

Accuracy was improved by running up and down the streets of Glion via Google Street View. However, photorealism is impossible for a scene of this scope without thousands of manhours, more advanced software, and a modest render farm.

Glion terrain, frame 840
(click to enlarge)

Most of this plastic, Fisher-Price look will become obscured by buildings and trees in subsequent stages.

next: FX

Hotel Righi video, part 2 - distant terrain

(The Hotel Righi [ree-gee] project was a set of renderings I collaborated on back in 2007. Now that I have some free time, I'm turning it into a short fly-through video.)

wireframe & rendering

The title of this post, "distant terrain," refers to parts of the landscape that are at least a few thousand feet from the camera, typically a mile or more. It's created using digital elevation models (DEMs) from the public domain. These models are combined, divided, and either simplified or refined depending on camera distance.

sample tree & building masks
(click to enlarge)

The distant terrain currently uses 190 megapixels of greyscale masks to determine where water, trees, and buildings are placed. Lighter areas specify deep water, tall trees, or tall buildings. Darker areas specify shallow water, short trees, or short buildings. The above masks represent the Swiss town of Vuarennes.

progress rendering, frame 208
(click to enlarge)

Here's a sample result. In this frame, the camera is flying northward through les Portes du Soleil and has just crossed the French-Swiss border. In the bottom-right corner are the Swiss towns of Torgon and Vouvry. Ahead is Lake Geneva, or Léman to the French.

next: neighboring terrain

Astana enhanced, part 13 - site F

(Astana was a hurried video project where a camera flies through 1300 acres of property. Now, to answer my question, "what if we'd been given more time," I'm enhancing the entire neighborhood.)

new version

old version

animation detail

Astana enhanced, part 11 - site D

(Astana was a hurried video project where a camera flies through 1300 acres of property. Now, to answer my question, "what if we'd been given more time," I'm enhancing the entire neighborhood.)

new version, detail

new version, wind test

new version

old version

Astana enhanced, part 10 - site C

(Astana was a hurried video project where a camera flies through 1300 acres of property. Now, to answer my question, "what if we'd been given more time," I'm enhancing the entire neighborhood.)

new version, detail

new version

old version

... More birds, pigeons this time. This time, the flock was generated with a particle system. It's a powerful time-saver.
Enhancements to site C include people, birds, bike, car, tall grass, flowers.

pigeon rig

flock test

Astana enhanced, part 8 - site A

(Astana was a hurried video project where a camera flies through 1300 acres of property. Now, to answer my question, "what if we'd been given more time," I'm enhancing the entire neighborhood.)

Most of the broad strokes have been made, so it's time to give attention to the architectural close-ups.

new version, detail

Just as we modelers didn't have the time to create highly-polished renderings for this project, the architects didn't have time to complete the landscape design. I'm not a landscape architect, but I'm trying my best to fill in those gaps.
Enhancements to site A include reflective windows, flowers, and animated people.

new version

old version

Astana enhanced, part 7 - island

(Astana was a hurried video project where a camera flies through 1300 acres of property. Now, to answer my question, "what if we'd been given more time," I'm enhancing the entire neighborhood.)

new version, detail

The island is the climactic shot. I'm starting it early so I'll have plenty of time to review and fine-tune. Improvements for this area include a remodeled and remapped island surface, bridges and promenade, modeled wetland grass, boats, foot traffic (specks at this distance), and car traffic.

new version (click to enlarge)

old version

Astana enhanced, part 3 - terrain and roads

(Astana was a hurried video project where a camera flies through 1300 acres of property. Now, to answer my question, "what if we'd been given more time," I'm enhancing the entire neighborhood.)

version 1 - no texture mapping

version 2 - minimal texture mapping

version 3 - detailed texture mapping
(lingering issues: faint tiling in grass,
road texture is scaled too large)


version 3 - horizon detail