Best ever Rendering Techniques, or How to Burn out your Brain in One Lesson

How likely is it that you will render a file in the next week?


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Gandolf50

Researcher of obscure between war vehicles...
Staff member
Moderator

Gandolf50

Researcher of obscure between war vehicles...
Staff member
Moderator
and to answer a burning question.."What can I do with Unreal 4?"
https://80.lv/articles/star-wars-scene-production-in-ue4/

and this was back in 2016 things are way better NOW!!

Warning Will Robinson... " Sorry was reading the Lost in Space Netflix Thread" but if you want to download the demo..it is a HEFTY 7.2 GIG ..just FYI! But walking into the bay and seeing the Falcon in all its Glory..Priceless!
 

Gandolf50

Researcher of obscure between war vehicles...
Staff member
Moderator
Ok.. well then to continue .. the dash panels need some work..very low rez and unreadable in a render, so let's fix that.. dam..pix upload is on the friz again.. well I'm going to place the text, you will just have to wait for the pix..

First off// I isolated the dash area, all the gages etc. ( this required me to explode the mesh) and then set them on their own layer and switched off the other layer so we can only see the dash ( you Rhino guys know all this stuff!)

Isolated Dash and gages.
changes.png

Several things.. there are two layers to the gages// the outer layer which should be glass, and an inner layer that is the gage texture. The main problem you will run into when dealing with a single image texture and different mesh objects in rhino, you will have to make duplicates of the material! If you don't..guess what.. you change it.. you change EVERYTHING! So first off.. select the outer mesh (glass) and dup the material, remove the link to main image, and set it as transparent, and then a little reflective and gloss. and then you will see the under mesh with the scrambled image of the maintexture on it. ( This goes for each of the dash gages, on this model, and possibly for any model like this you find or model yourself)

Gage layers , in this case center gage has gage texture layer and left has glass selected.
changes2.png
Note: I also went in and selected the lamps for the switches and added an Emissive color to each bulb, which gives the GLOW effect.

We then have to change the back image of our gage to something that is readable, and looks better.. so I went off and just found a web image of a set of aviation gages..
With the gage mesh selected we then go to texture mapping under the properties tab/ and then select on the bottom far right UV EDITING.. use the TOP VIEW in an open area.. I use 3 Point.

Upper right. is TOP view with the center texture mesh wire frame showing on the found gage pix.
It is echoed on the actual gage in the rendered view on the Right pane. Far Right, is the selections for applying the new texture to the gage.
changes4.png

( Note: if you check the dimensions of your image first you can just click in an open space and type them in your command bar, then it won't be all stretched or messed up when you import the image!)
If the UV Edit icon is greyed out.. then the mesh is more than likely still either part of another mesh and not joined or in a group and not joined.. it has to be a single mesh object. UNGROUP/DISJOINT or EXPLODE whatever you need to do to get a single mesh.. on the other hand.. you can also take and JOIN several meshes..and still be able to open UVEDIT.. go figure!

So now you got a segmented circle... use Highlight selected if you wish, SHOW WIRE FRAME is a must, and up top.. turn off texture transparency.. ( it helps only to show your wireframe, when you have a intricate image and you need to adjust, which is what we are going to do) select use texture and by default you will get the checkers..select the folder and import the new gage file you found on the net! You can move the wire frame over the new gage and use SCALE 2d or your grab handles+shift key and shape the wire frame to your new gage size and shape. When it looks good in your perspective (and rendered view ( turn off neon if your using it!!!) Hit apply! And Voila..you got nothing!

..One more step.. Go back to the MATERIAL TAB and under TEXTURES in the middle under color.. hit the ... 3 dots to go and get the new gage texture and assign it as your color for the copied material! Now you got your new gage! and also you may find it is upside down.. backwards.. or any other number of things like that or it just sits a little crooked..no problem.. Under Surface tools..Check Direction..sometimes the direction is to the back..but that will place the texture facing away from you and black towards you.. if the texture is there but reads backwards.. the easiest fix is to go back into UVEDIT.. go through the first steps up to typing in the UV size..and you will get the mesh wires and your texture showing.. drop down to side view..and rotate the mesh 180. That should fix that..same for just crooked.. turn the mesh wire with your revolve pointers till you get it where you want it...Once you have the texture assigned to the mesh.. it is fairly simple to get it right with some tweaking!

New Gages texture on the rendered view.. You can see them now!
changes4b.png

Next.. I'll show how to add a new element to the speeder in this case a holographic display, in an unused area...
 
Last edited:

Gandolf50

Researcher of obscure between war vehicles...
Staff member
Moderator
On to the next.. adding a new feature.. The air foil under the windshield was a perfect place to add a little detail ( I'll tell you right now, I did not spend a lot of time on this, so results could and should be ALOT better!)
First off, like most meshes that are created..they are for renders/ games whatever and bit and pieces ..whole wing sections etc. end up inside the main body meshes.. those that design for Paper don't model like this! The rest of use..DO! Bad habit learned from YEARS of deadlines and shortcuts! But there it is. In this case it needed to be fixed, else the new texture would be stretched, or expanded into the interior, and we don't want that! So.. mesh trim time!

Air dam, with mesh into interior.. flat half-dish area is what I wish to use for new display!
changes5.png

Mesh-trim and delete all interior part of air-dam..
changes5b.png
Which is for all those out there wanting to know, is what you would have to do to make this into a card model!

Now we need to add some stuff..if we add anything to the existing flat spot on the air-dam it will show through on the front, so that is a NO-NO.. so..lets extract that part and dup it.. TWO TIMES.. one for the new graphics.. and one for a new glass face!
We take the first..and pull out a tad, dup it and pull it out a tad.. as this last one was the glass, I took and expanded it to cover the opening and the layers underneath. Then it is the same process..as the one for the gages!

Image texture mesh selected and wireframe moved to a suitable location on our image for the new texture.. ( Note: I used a warp function on the image to give it a flickering type effect instead of a sharp image.. still could use a bit of work..)
changes5-1a.png
Close up of texture selection settings..that would be on the right of above image.
changes5-1c.png
and a grab from our render view..showing the new display!
changes5c.png
( I just realized..I reloaded the model..so it doesn't have the new gages!) My bad!
What next? any questions...???
 
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