Thankyou for the responses guys! I'm really happy you like my work so much.
Time to answer all those questions! I'll add a few of my transmaps in this post... that would clear a few things up about my rain and lightsabers
I made the rain effect using this transparency map:
I used the above transparency map for the trans image and the specular image, so that way only the raindrops would shine and not the whole surface.
I left all the other settings as default, but changed specular to 2 and made the ambient/diffuse color:
R- 120 G- 193 B- 221, which results in a nice blue.
The sunset was made by using this backround image:
Which was behind this:
Which is a glowing transparency map effect (like my lightsabers) with an orange lightsource facing outwards.
And for all my water I just used a basic bumpmap.
The lightsabers... aren't entirely as good as they look. They weren't actually intended to be lightsabers, which explains the interesting blade development. They are just heaps of little planes, one infront of the other, with a glowing transparency map.
From side on, it vanishes totally but it is still looks really cool from an angle!
I used this transparency map:
To obtain the glow effect, I set emissive to 1 and the ambient/diffuse to whatever I color I want it to glow. The transmap does the rest. And specular should be on 0, so it doesn't shine... it just glows.
Now I appear to be gaining curiosity as to how I obtained my textures...
Most of my bumpmaps are made in paint, and then smoothed over in a more advanced imaging program. Same with the transmaps.
My actual textures though are just photographs of things outside. For example, the decking around the pool is a photo of the wooden table in my back yard
The concrete textures etc is just me playing with high-res photographs of mine.
The tree is just a few tree photos merged into one (that way it doesn't have a distinct look of what type of tree it is) with the same texture used as the bumpmap (i'm lazy like that
).
My lighting and rotation of objects hides the fact that textures aren't actually that good.
Lynn22, I work on a desktop. Its not the best machine... its very old, has a 900mhz processor and an integrated graphics card.
I work on it late at night with all the lights off, that way I get a better picture of what is on the screen at the time due to absolutely no light pollution.
Thanks for answering some of Spicy's questions Kubajzz.
And thanks everyone for the feedback!
And Eco, funny you should say that... I modeled the pool scene because I wanted to model somewhere that I'd like to go. I'll meet you there!
Hope I answered everything.
