Anim8or Community

Haha thankxz headwax! quite an honor!

I would like to start with thanking my mother for all her support.. my lovely girlfriend of course.. And all the fans out there that have always supported me!

- being able to bridge edges, not just faces.. I use this option SO much in 3ds max while modeling, it greatly improves the speed.
- the bevel tool now bevels according to the size of the attached poly.. whereas in Most of the occasions you want to bevel an edge evenly on both sides.. so it would be nice if beveling would make a angle half the angle of the original polies, instead of the way it is now.

Not really sure where I would post this.. just wanted to say that it appears to me that the 'radius' settings for a spotlight in the advanced settings, dont seem to make any difference. I would expect that if i set this to a low figure, the light would only travel so far, but no matter what i fill out the results are always the same. Maybe its supposed to be like that? But it seems to me that what goes for a local light would also go for a spotlight..

I dont think there is another way to limit the distance in which a spotlight lights a surface eh?

Just thought I would point it out, as it might be an error.

I'll give some advice here on how I would go about making a studio render like that in anim8or.

It seems like that render you are trying to recreate was made with a studio setup, which means a cubemap as a surrounding would have reflections that are too distracting. The white reflections you are seeing in the metal are studio lights (http://northcoastcamera.com/images/rs-sbsb2028.jpg), which can be recreated in anim8or by adding big square boxes behind/above the camera and have them with a white emissive of about 2.

As Floyd said, to get a good render you will want to start using some Art materials. For the black leather, I would advise using a Very slight glossy reflection (maybe a value of 0,05), with just a black material.
For metal, Of course you will have to use a specular>reflection attribute, with an almost full value of reflection (about 0,8)

Something you cannot recreate in anim8or are the shadows in the reference image you showed. They were made with large area lights, whereas anim8or only works with point lights. To get a soft feel like that though, you might want to try adding a few very soft lights in different positions above the object, to keep the shadows this soft.

Ok, last tip haha; the floor, as you can see in your image, no matter how big you make your floor, it will always give a horizon. The trick they used in the reference picture you have up is they created a sortof 'bowl' in which the models were placed, so the floor actually gradually goes up in the back, all the way to a horizontal wall. This gives a smooth gradient in the back, try it out!

Of course these are just tips, try them out to see the different effects! I like the models youve made, it could become a very nice render! Good luck!


Floyd, I saw that the materials in your file all had a emissive value, I would advise to anyone not to use this option on anything else than materials that glow. the emissive value actually causes a lack of shadow & works more as a 'color overlay' in anim8or.

Thanks Rudy, maxie and lynn! I guess it's to each his own which one you prefer.. so ill just keep them all in the thread
Lynn, the painting actually does have  a little 'sheen', i guess its not too noticable sorry.

Hiho; Heh, I'm not skilled enough in zbrush to produce anything good I dont like it asmuch as regular modeling anyway..
Youre right about the reflection pass; i placed two blocks behind the camera with a white emissive of '2', so they show up white when there are no light sources. The other objects have materials with an ambient of 1, the rest on 0, so they show up black in a render without lights. Only the frame had a 0.4 specular/reflection setting, so that is the only thing that is visible when rendered.

Hey thanks floyd, yea I saw those aspects too.. I changed the white border for you it was actually a reflection from the wall on the wood, but i got rid of it.

I agree that it looks a bit flat, which is probably because the actual model is a bit flat, i worked more on getting the shapes right than having the right relief, so it might be a bit flatter than it shouldve been in real life. Also it is only one poly thick, couldnt be bothered to make it go 'around the corner', if you catch my drift.

And yea it was a hell of a job haha but fun

Hey lynn, that looks a lot better already! I personally would rotate the light backwards a bit farther even, so that the left side really is all in the shadow, which would give a good contrast to the scene, with the fountain as the center piece.

As for the shadows, in the advanced light parameters you can put the 'size' to 10 and it will give a slight area light effect (watch out to put the samples a bit lower, like 3,4 or youll get longer render times)