Hey kyle! Good you're still working on this! I think it has come a long way already. I am sorry I can't help with the proportions, I don't know enough about it.

I like the materials youve used, and very subtle reflections on the floor! How did you get the fresnel-like fading? or is that the bumpmap of the wood?

Good job and keep it up! hope to see this finished some day :D

Thanks, I dont think I didnt anyrhing special with floor. Theres no bump map, just one tilable texture I made in photoshop. The the fade is just anim8ors new ray tracer at work, allowing hte reflection to drop off. (Im so glad Steve finally added this, been wanting it for ages).  I made sure to keep it subtle, because it was looking pretty miror like for a while, had to tone it way down.  Im not even sure what settings I used off hand, it was hard to figure out with anim8ors attributes gui.

 Good to see you back Kyle!  I was wondering where you'd disappeared too.

The image looks great as it did before.  I don't see too much I can comment on, though the rug looks slighly off for some reason.  Do you still plan to put the moon cuttout in the bed? 

I agree the GUI is a bit difficult right now, but it's only a beta, I believe Steve plans to impliment a good GUI as soon as he can!

Yeah, the rug I still plan to redo, as it needs more rings, like twice as many.  and yes, I do still intend to put in that moon shaped hole. I'm not expecting too many crits at this point, not until I progress a bit further.  if anyone could help me out that that that would be cool. I have been shown how, but Ive misplaced the example images and whatnot. I need to see the best  arrangement of points to re enforce the shape while not distorting the headboard.

Very nice!  I'm afraid I don't have much of anything constructive to say because your work is way beyond my level.  Although, I do agree with hihosilver; the rug looks kind of like a blow-up raft.

At any rate, all the scene needs now is a thriving toy population .

Thanks. much still needs to be done before I focus on the more minor set dressing. (even if I couldn't resist throwing in some of the smaller easier stuff, like game boxes as soon as I could)

I still need too work on basic things, cutting holes in the walls to make proper windows, doors, etc. make Molly's crib and that pink night stand or whatever its supposed to be.

I hope to one day do some highly accurate Buzz and Woody models, but my previous attempts have been horrible, so who knows if I'll be able to do those. I'm sure I'll do the more simpler toys though.

 OH haha i remember the discussion about the moon shape ;) Here is something i just modeled quickly, its not perfect but that is how i would go about it! (i forget what kindof shape the moon had, so i just made a standerd one.)

Hope it can be of help!

ick, this was a dissaster.

 Haha I dont know what you did there! Maybe you made a shape and filled that? In any case its way too many triangles   Maybe you can try to make the shape for the moon first, then try to expand that with some quads only. then try to connect it to the shape of the board.

I find it hard to give tips without just posting my file on here haha

Oh I like the luxo lamp you made, do you feel as good as pixar now? 

Your referring to the headboard itself right? yeah I think used a spline, filled it, and extruded. I don't really know how else to get the shape I want. should I instead just start from a box?

As for luxo, I'm pretty satisfied with it, though I wish I could animate it. I thought about it, but the bone structure would be far too complex for me to take on. if I did, Then I would feel as good as pixar, heh. at least when they first started out.

 Here's a quick re-topology job for you.  Basically you need quads.  The moon should have an equal number of vertices on each side of the curve.  I also don't think you should end the moon on an actual peak, instead end with two points close together to form the crease.

Hope this helps!

The room looks good Kyle.  About the last bed post, for a smooth subdivision surface you should avoid tris as much as you can.  Hiho's wireframe should help a lot.

thanks for the topology example, big help I think. I still need to work on this, as its not quite the way I want it (you'll notice the edge along the top to the right doesnt remain smooth). Ive been playing with different edge properties to fix it, but I may need to go back to work on the topiolgy some more, I think some of my points are a bit clittered there, causing that akward crease.

its passable though, definetly a step up my last one.

Edit: added a much needed handle to the night stand.

I like what you've done so far! I guess with the amount of time you've spent on it, accuracy does matter ;)

I'd like to see some of the characters/toys done, even the simpler ones :) 

Does anyone have any toys they'd like to see done first? if its simple enough I might go ahead and give it a shot soon. nothing too complex yet though at this stage. I was thinking maybe I'd do the etch-a-sketch, any other suggestions though?

I think I'll be able to do the other end of the bed soon too.

 That binocular toy seems like it'd be easy enough. The piggy bank toy might not be too hard either.

How about the toy soldiers, I'd figure that they will small enough were you don't need to put much detail in them. You can make the bucket for them too.

Lenny and Ham, those look easy, but I have a feeling I'll have some trouble with them.  I know Lenny will require a lot of beveled edges to get right. will try him soon though.

As for the army men, gah, very hard. we're talking full human models complete with rifels and whatnot. I attemped do do one years ago and it looked horrible, even from far away.  I want to be able to do it right next time I try. and I dont want it to just look good from afar, just like in the movies I want to be able get up nice and close.

Heres the etch a sketch I started. still debading if I want to do the logos using real polygonal letters, or just use a texture.

I just thought of something super easy: the Magic Eight Ball. heh

Hey, Kyle. That looks very nice! I like the etch-a-sketch (or however you spell it) but I do think that at the edge with the indentation, you could do some more edge reinforcement. It looks kind of odd right now, and I think that it'll look a bit more clean with that. As for the logos on it, I think that texturing it would probably be your easiest bet. Anim8or has a nice texturing tool, and you should be able to get it done no problem.

Keep going on this, it's looking really good so far!! :)

I did re enforce them, but then it looked too sharp. Still trying workin on it though.

Heres my 8 ball. (the focal blur in the first one was done in photoshop, if you havnt guessed already)

you need to do RC. that little car has some of the best animated personalities that I have seen. oh, and do bullseye... and buzz... and woody, and ham, and rex, and slinkydog..... but dont forget the russian dolls.... and the soldiers......

(god, why the hell do I know all of this???)

bye,

Rocknroll93.

lol, why be ashamed?

I'm not sure who the russian dolls are though...I know I'd recognize them, but they must not be a character whos name was said on screen.

As I said, I'd like to get around to the main cast eventually, but they might even warrant a new topic entirely. (though I'll probably use this one just because)

but keep in mind, this is from the first film, Bullseye doesn't come in just yet. I have done a pretty decent (or so I thought so at the time) slinkydog, I just didn't know how to do the slinky part of it right. now I do though, so hopefully I'll get it right this time. (and if I haven't already mentioned this in this thread, I lost all my old stuff when my hard drive died on me)

Speaking of which I should really start backing this stuff up, I'd die if I had to re do all this. *shudders*

Really nice work kyle, are you planning on animating this, or are it going to be stills? Can't wait to see some of the toy story characters living up this scene.

About the slinky of the dog: can't you use the spring script? I think that would do the job, maybe add a modifier to bend it a little. 

Animating? I would love to, but as slow as anim8ors renderer is I dont see it hapening without butchering it by not allowing it to have any AA. even if I did, I would have to tone down the sampling so it would be grainy. Its just not practical. I may be able to do it like they do the real movies though by rendering the background and characters (if I make them) on seperate layers to composite together later. but I couldnt have much camera movemnt.  of course, if Steve can manage to optimise the renderer to be faster it could be more of a possibility.

As for the slinky, well when I made my last one scripts werent implemented. but I kinda have a thing against scripts. I know their just a tool like any other, but I feel like Im steeling when I do it. Im weird like that. I would however use it if it could how let me animate such as complex model realisticly. the thing it, it needs more than just a bend, it needs to be tight near the ends, and loose in the middle, which I think would be pretty hard to do manually. and if I were to ever animate it it would have to flucuate like a real one.  

I know where you talking about, anim8or's render is really slow imo. I sometimes have to wait 6 hours you to see how a material turned out and then i'm turning everything (res/AA) down! Blending the background in could an option but stays a hell of a job to animate/render it, i agree.

About the script i feel the same way, it's doesn't really feel like your own when using them. But still sometimes i find them almost  indispensable. I think you could get the slinky to bend right as long your not thinking about animating it.

Well if you change your mind the script can be found here: http://raxx.cg-nation.com/Com/ASLTopic/spring.zip 

6 hours for a material? crazy.  I guess if its ones of the intense attribute using materials that needs to reflect a lot of things, but I cant recall it taking that long test a material on my end. That large render at the end of my first post though, that took over 24 hours! never have I waited that long. and that just a single frame, I cant imagine doing hundreds of those.  it would be a year before I got anywhere. heh

By the way, heres another render I did for the heck of it, I just learned how to do focal blur and Im having some fun with it.  Although theres something to the far left that Im not sure what its from.  That band on the chair (and the reflection on the desk) any idea on what that is? I want to say its a glitch but Im not sure.

Im really impressed with the level of work so far Kyle.  I'd also like to see a nice animation from this, frankly its my opinion that if the ART renderer is too slow to allow something like that, look for other solutions.

Keep up the good work!

Is there a faster renderer that can easily read an anim8or file without needing to redo all the texturing and whatnot? probably not but just thought I'd ask.

 I did the bottom of the bed. might still need to mess with the proportians. (it may be too tall)

by the russian dolls, i mean the hollow ones that have smaller versions insind, now that I made myself clearer, i think youll know what ones im talking about..

Ahh, gotcha. those should be easy. just gotta recreate the textures.

Started on Ham.

Something that has always bothered me was his neck. His head animates as if its a separate object, yet its often completly seamless. How on earth is that possible? and shoud I model them as separate pieces, or just connect them as one solid piece?

 I was just checking out a video on youtube and it seems they simply use a bone and have his neck attached.  I don't see exactly what you mean by his head being a seperate object.  I'm sure they simply placed the bone in the correct place so that when the head moves, it creates as little neck distortion as possible.

I guess I just don't understand how they can rig  head to rotate tilt etc.  on such a stubby neck without distortion. I considered maybe they found a cleaver way to hide the seam.

maybe!

ham looks awsome!i love where this is going, i cant wait to see more!

 Actually, it seemed to me in the movie that there wasn't much of a seam to the head at all.  In fact, if you look at it they sort of meld the head into the body, which would be my guess at how they keep the distortion down.

That was my point though, there is no seam. yet the head is seen rotating into as many angles imaginable. I attached my head to the body just now just to see how it would pose (just by moving the points around) and made sure the axis was dead center of his noggin,  and I cant move the head too much before points start to intersect, creating awkward seams. I know it doesn't really matter if I don't plan on animating, but I could want to animate him later on. with a proper rig and some morphing he could be pretty animatable.

Anyway, I tried to attach the ears to the head but it didn't go so well. I'm not quite sure how to go about it. I have so little points to work with, I'm not quite sure what I need to do make them fit on right. I'll run into the same problem with the legs.  should I extrude? doubtful.

 Well for your first point, that has to do with the skinning of the model.  First, I hope you're using painted weights.  Next, you need to slowly ease off the influence.  If you have each vertice fully influenced by one bone, you will have sharp seams.  But, if you have a gradient of paint, there will be a smooth change between them when you rotate the bone.

As for the ears and legs:  The legs could go with an extrusion, that is definitely a method that could work.  As for the ears, you simply need to find or create some geometry to match up.  If you show a wireframe perhaps we could be of some help!

Long time since Ive updated. the roadblock has been that Ive been wanting to redo the siding because I noticed it sticks out too far from the wall. and because of how tedious it is, I just havnt touched the project in a while. but  Here's a fresh render.

Not sure whats up with that unatural looking shadow in the corner there, but anywho...

Decided to work on Molly's things. That means the...I think its a baby diaper holder thing? dont know what its called, but that pinkish thing to the right of the desk, it was just a recangle, and now I'm actually modeling it. its almost done, when it is I think the crib will be next.

oh, and the lamp of course. still need to give it a proper texture. and Im not too pleased with the diaper thing's texture, it was just a quickie I did in photoshop using a pattern. its not too accurate so I'll probably end up redoing that one.

still putting off the windows, but I have made the placeholders look nicer.

Also, with the new "Toy Story Collection" toy line I think once I buy these I'll have a great source of reference to actually tackle modeling the main cast, which I wasnt really planning to do before. So that should be cool. but a real challange to do right, no doubt.
 

Started on Molly's crib. I'll be redoing the end pieces, their inaccurate.

And painted a background (sid's house) for one of the windows, which I'll post here.

By the way, it seems theres no way to make certain objects not cast shadows with ART is there? I normally would take the take the glass from the windows and make them separate objects in scene mode, and not allow them to cast shadows to light the scene properly. but now I cant do that, everything casts shadows weather you want them to or not, and animator doesnt know how to allow light to pass through transparant objects.

Yep, sadly ART doesn't yet differentiate for different transparencies, and since he's trying to keep it accurate as a raytracer, Steve didn't impliment the ability to turn on or off shadows for different objects.  So one way you could do it is render different passes (meaning render the scene without the window so the shadows are accurate, then render a scene with only the window and perhaps an alpha pass, then combine the renders to make the full scene in something like photoshop!)

Good work so far, it's good to see you back and working on this again! 

Hey, a reply!  this place seems kinda dead these days doesnt it? at least I dont fee like Im talking to myself. heh

I cant render just the window can I? not if I want it to reflect the room inside, right?

But yeah, combining 2 renders is a good idea.  not quite sure how an alpha render would help, but it would be pretty easy to simply cut the window from one and insert it into another.

I hope Steve loosens his grip on the idea of a perfectly realistic ray tracer, because we need the ability to do work arounds for its other shortcomings like this. but until then I can make do the 2 render thing when I get further along in the project.

Anyway, update.

Ive noticed the ray tracer acting strangly some times, this is a good example of it. I cant figure out why the side panneling just fades away like this. is there a logical reason for it to do this? somehow I dont think this could ever happen in real life, but maybe Im wrong.  

It looks very wierd though when it happens, it gives parts of the render an unintended flat look to it.

 Well I have to say I love your work, and that you are doing an awesome job. I don't have any crits really. I can't give any tips cause I don't know bout anim8er. But keep up the good work. 

Ah that's a good point, I forgot about reflections, so no you'd have to simply do a render without shadows.  An alpha map would just be more exact, I'm sure you could cut it out fine yourself, it's just my preference.

I do agree though, I hope Steve does.  The ability to use it for realism is wonderful, but the flexibility to experiment and try different things would be even better!  We'll see what happens I guess.

Is the side-paneling a bumpmap or actually modeled?  That is a strange effect, and it's very odd that it's happening...

The paneling is individually modeled.  Its not just the paneling though, you can also see this effect in other renders, such as the low angle view of the night stand.

I love all this, it looks just like it does in the movies, I really want to see this done kyle.

 Hm... well my guess then (if there's not an issue with the ART renderer) is that it has to do with your materials.  What are your ambient settings on your materials?  If they're not set to 0 (for instance, set to 0.3), then the darkest they will go is some shade such as you have shown and will stop there making it seem as if it's all merging together.  That's probably my last guess, and if that's not the case, then I'd advise doing an ambient occlusion render that you can add to your image in photoshop to help with shadows/shading (though you could still do that anyways to aid the image)

0.2 ambient and 0.7 or 8 are my go to values for most materials unless I want my scene to be extra contrasty, which in this case I dont.

as for ambient occlusion, I would love to do it, but I dont quite understand it yet. the few tests I did didnt work out too well, steve's description for it is pretty vague. like, he tells us how to make it the equvellent of no lights, but I need to retain some of my original light set up. it also adds quite a bit to the final render time doesnt it? its already quite long.

A.d.d kicked in and I moved on from my unfinished crib to Buzz, but Im failing misrably.

some wires

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/gmcube/wirebuzz.jpg

and my ref.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/gmcube/frontbackbuzz.jpg

the main thing is keeping the pieces perfectly rounded where they need to be. theres a lot of boolean esk shapes with the joints. and the pelvis has these two pretty rounded holes that I cant seem to get right. and his butt isnt round enough, when I try to make it rounder it just looks like he has a tumor on it.

The only part I think Ive done alright with is the waist lathe, heh.

I'll be getting a new screen accurate Buzz hopefully within the week, untill then Ive also been using my older less accurate buzz to help with some of the geometry, but so far it only makes it seem more complicated.

 My advice would be to more or less start out with the hole shapes.  For example, the holes for his legs in the hips need a loop around them to make them look good.  So start with this hole, and give it an extra loop of faces around it, then fill in the rest of the pelvis from there.  You should get a more perfect hole then and hopefully it will look better.

For his butt it just looks like it needs to have more of a curve, not necessarily jut out more, just have a smoother rounder curve to it.

Yeah, I'll give that a shot. any suggestions for how to start on the torso? I dont see me sculpting anything good from what I have at this point.

It looks to me like you can have the different parts of the torso be entirely seperate objects that simply intersect with one another.   So, the purple straps don't have to be built into the mesh, they can be their own mesh and simply placed correctly.  The torso looks pretty simple if you were to use that method.