Week 8- Continuing my image for June

To start this week I went back to my last blog for this image and saw that the willow tree needed more work. Therefore I started this by adding some more branches and changing the current arrangement. It took some time to do this as I tried to keep the leaves in the same position in relation to the branch, but eventually I got the branches in a position which I was happy with.

At this point I decided to add the roots to the tree and to do this I used several cones. I made each of these different dimensions but still tried to keep them in proportion. I also applied a bend to several of these shapes, each with a different angle and in a different direction.

Afterwards I went on to create the wildlife as I also listed this as a task for this week. I started on the butterflies and so used the line tool so I could complete the spline technique.

I then converted this to an editable poly, selected the polygon icon and extruded it before capping the edge. However, when I rotated and moved the object I did find that the shape became elongated and so had to use the scale tool to correct the proportions. When I was pleased with the shape I decided to create the butterflies body and to do this I used a capsule. I made the capsule quite long and narrow as butterflies bodies usually are, especially in comparison to the wings. After this I used a cylinder to create an antenna. For this I used a very small radius so it was a lot thinner than the body and made the shape quite long. I then applied a bend as I felt this would help to make it look more like an antenna. When I was happy with the appearance of the body parts separately I placed them together, cloned the wing and antenna and placed them parallel on the other side to make it look symmetrical and placed it in the scene.

I used the exact same process to create the second butterfly. For this one I used a different shape of wing as different species of butterflies are different shapes. I was quite pleased with the outcome of these, even though they did take quite some time to complete.

Next I worked on the dragonfly. To do this I started by creating the body. For the middle section I decided to use a capsule as I felt this shape would suit the dragonfly’s body well. I made the capsule length quite long in comparison to the radius to try to make it in proportion. Then I added a sphere for the head. I changed the radius to 3.829 once I had drawn it as it would then be in proportion to the body. The last stage of the body was to create the tail and for this I used a cone. I made the dimensions of this 26.487 long and the smallest radius 0.33 so the tail went into a smooth point. At this stage I was happy with the appearance of this so I went onto the next part of the dragonfly.

I then started to create the wings of the dragonfly. I decided to use the spline technique to do this as I felt it was the best way to create the shape I wanted. To begin with I drew the outline using the line tool and converted the shape to an editable poly.

I then extruded it slightly to get a third dimension and capped the open side. When I aligned the shape with the body I found the wing was too large and slightly out of proportion and so I used the scale tool to correct this. When I was happy with the proportions I cloned it and placed it underneath the other to create the double wing. I then cloned both of these together and used the rotate and move tools to place them symmetrically on the other side.

Finally I added eyes to the dragonfly. I felt the best shape to use for this would be a sphere as it would be realistic. When I was happy with the dragonfly I placed it at the front of the scene.

Afterwards I went back to the heron as I felt it needed a few additions. Firstly I added cones to the top of the legs to improve the join between the body and leg. I decided to use a cone for this as I felt it would be best to get a gradual decrease in size which would lead the viewers eye from the body to the leg.

I then decided to add the bird’s eyes. To do this I used a sphere as I felt it would be the best shape. I made it quite small as I felt this would be a realistic size and then placed one either side of the head.

The final step on creating the heron was to add the feathers to the head. To do this I used a long, slim cone with a fine point. I created this with one radius of 0.549 and the other of 0 with the length of 13.018. I then applied a bend at an angle of 84. Afterwards I aligned the cone at the back of the head and when I was happy with the shape and size I cloned it several times and arranged them using the rotate and move tool. I was pleased with the appearance of the heron at this point and so decided to go on and work on a different section.

Next I decided to add the surroundings of the lake to the scene. For this I chose to used a plane and place it under the lake. I increased the number of segments to 40 in length and 40 across the width. I then made it into an editable poly and used the soft selection tool and increased the falloff to 100. I then used the soft selection tool to create hills and dips in the land. This took quite a while as I had to make minor alterations to the plane and other objects in the scene to make them all visible and properly aligned with one another. Eventually I got the scene to look how I wanted it to; however from this I have learnt that it would be better to create and edit the plane first.

Afterwards I went on to adding materials to the scene. To start I applied a material to the lake. I chose to use the transparency shader as I felt this would work well. I chose the material to be pale blue and with a specular level of 0 and a gloss level of 10. I then set the opacity level to 66. When I applied this and rendered it I was not happy with the appearance and so will need to work on this further at a later date.

Next I went onto the textures of the bird. I started by creating the eye texture. To do this I used the anisotropic shader in black. I set the specular level to 80, gloss level to 20 and anisotropic level to 50 so there would be a slight shine to the eye as I thought this would look quite effective. For the beak and legs I used the blinn shader as I did not want the finish to have a shine. I set the specular level to 0, gloss level to 10 and softness level to 0.1. I was pleased with how this looked and so decided to continue with the image.

I then applied the material to the trunk of the willow tree. For this I used an image of bark from the internet as I felt this would be the best option as I would not be able to create a realistic bitmap myself and I could not find anything suitable in the material editor.

I used this image as the diffuse map and bump map as I felt this would be the best way to get the texture I wanted. I reduced the size of both the maps and selected the bump amount of 200. When I rendered the image I was very pleased with the appearance of the trunk.

After this I tried to add a bitmap to the trees in the background. For this I used a bitmap image I drew of a leaf pattern.

I used this bitmap as a diffuse and bump map to try to get the colour and texture. When I applied it to some of the trees and rendered the image I was unhappy with the appearance of this as I felt it was quite unrealistic. I made alterations to the coordinates to change the bitmaps size and changed the bump amount, but despite this I could not get the look I wanted. Due to this I went onto another part of the image and plan to come back to this later.

I then wanted to create the texture for the top of the reeds in the lake. For this I once again used a bitmap image, but this time only as a bump map.

I had to reduce the size of the bitmap as the spheres were too large and made the objects look unrealistic. I used the blinn shader for this as I did not need to add any specular level to these objects. I chose quite a pale brown as this is the colour I always imagine reeds to be. I set the bump output value to 150 to get quite a depth and allow the shadows to show the uneven surface well.

The last step for the reeds was to create the material for the stem. I used a similar shade of brown as I did for the top of the reeds so the two sections linked to each other. Also, I used the blinn shader again with the same settings as the other part of the reeds for the same reason. I was pleased with this part of the image and so decided to continue.

For the butterflies I decided to draw out my own material bitmaps to be used for the diffuse map on the wings for two reason; firstly I would be able to get the exact wing pattern I wanted and also I could create it to fit onto the shapes I drew for the wings. However, I did look on the internet at images of butterflies and tried to create the ones I chose quite realistically. I tried to pick patterns which would contrast the background to help them stand out as they were quite small.

When I applied these bitmaps to the wings they did not align as I had planned, despite spending a lot of time changing the coordinates. In the end I did get them in reasonably suitable position, but I will come back and change this if I have time.

I then went on to create the texture for the butterfly’s bodies. For this I used one of the preset materials as I felt I would easily be able to create the texture I wanted and therefore did not need to create my own. I used the dent preset for the bump map and applied a slight bump of 40. I applied this on the blinn shader as I felt that the butterfly’s body would suit the matt finish and used the specular value of 0, gloss level of 10 and softness level of 0.1. I am very pleased with the appearance of the butterflies and so will move on.

After this I created the textures for the dragonfly. To start with I drew a bitmap for the wing.

I added this to the diffuse map, but like with the wings of the butterflies I could not get it to align properly. When I applied the transparency shader and set the opacity to 80 I was pleased with the affect it created and so decided not to make any other alterations.

I then went onto the dragonfly’s body. On the tail I created a striped bitmap as when I looked at images on the internet they had these patterns. I decided to use a bold blue and black for these stripes as I felt this would make it stand out from the rest of the scene.

I used this as a diffuse and bump map. I changed the coordinates of these maps carefully so that it was in the exact position I wanted to make the tail look realistic. I then set the material to a blinn shader with the specular value of 40, gloss level of 10 and softness level of 0.1 so I could add a slight shine to the surface. I then used another material sphere to apply the exact same settings apart from the bitmaps for the rest of the body. Lastly, I applied a material to the eye. For this I used the same material as I did for the bird’s eye.

I then went on to apply the colours to the body of the heron. For the main part of the bird I applied the blinn shader with white as the colour. I used the settings to get a dull surface by applying a specular level of 0, gloss level of 5 and softness level of 0.1. I then went onto the head feathers where I used the same settings for the body, but set the colour to black instead. For the wing I used 3Ds max preset of the gradient bitmap for the wing as I felt this would look quite effective. I did make some changes to the bitmap settings to get it how I wanted it. I am please with the appearance of the heron as a whole and will now go onto another part of the image.

At this point I decided to go back to the material on the lake as I was not completely happy with its appearance. I did some research and found that the raytrace material may be effective here. I selected this from the material list and left the preset of the phong shader in place. I set the ambience to black, the diffuse colour to blue, the reflect colour to white and the luminous and transparency colour to black. I used the specular level to 50, gloss level to 40 and softness level to 0.1. I made the reflect value 500.

At this point I felt that the lake looked quite good, but a bit to flat for a lake. Due to this I added the wave bitmap as a bump map. I then reduced the bitmap settings wave length and wave radius. At this point I did find that not all the grass blades and reeds met the water and so I corrected this. When I was happy with the ripple appearance I decided to go onto the next part of the image.

Afterwards I went onto lighting the scene. I decided to use and omni light as I felt this would recreate sunlight well. I placed one in the scene, but when I rendered it the front was in shadow. I did add another at the front to highlight the reeds and grass, but I am still not happy with the appearance and so I decided to go on and come back to this later.

Lastly this week I went back to work on the background trees. I removed the diffuse map and increased the bump values to try to improve how they looked. I felt this did look better as it no longer stands out too much and so applied this to all the background trees, but just in a different colour and the second had a lower bump value.

I am not completely happy with this image at the moment and still plan to make some changes. Mainly I feel the lighting needs to be improved as the front of the scene is too dark.