Cathedral : DONE!!

Finally it's done! There's a polycount in the tens of millions and brought not one but 2 PC's to their knees and me to the edge of insanity over the last 2 weeks of it. I've had dying machines to contend with, epic powercuts, both kids at home for 2 months due to crazy stuff by the local education authority who seem to see a simple move of schools as worthy of international debate...but I digress. The bottom line is its done.

Although modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering out the shots for both the Durham cathedral interior from last year and the exterior this year have been fun, I'd a little glad to be able to move onto something organic for a while. The above shot is a style frame from the actual shot done as part of the MOD302 class that's just wound up after 10 weeks spread over 3 months. Things can and do change before final composite although that could take quite a while before I see it. (The stuff from MOD 301 finished last October has only just came into my hands ..and there are still a few shots not rendered out and composited yet.) I'm sort of hoping I'm not the last dude to have it rendered out as be sort of a bitch if the guy who created it does not get to put it on a reel till after everyone else lol.

EDIT: Here's a quick reel of some of the shots I have got a hold of from MOD301 so far.

So no more Norman architecture for a while for Wayney boy! Its been full on 18 hours minimum a day the last few weeks and for most of this year in fact. So in one way its nice to have some more 'me' time and time for the wife and kids.

Its back to organics for a while and prepping for Anomaly in Vancouver for my lecture and demo at the end of this month. I can promise something special as you do not go to what could be called the 3d sculpting capital of the world unprepared ;) Not only is there the lecture but also 6 hours where I'll be demoing and available for questions and practical stuff as well.

I've not made an antique kids bike before to original specs...groovy.

Also I just did a quick logo for Danny John Jules film 'Bucky'. Very fast turnaround on this pone as a favour to Danny. I'd urge you to donate if you can as I'm probably one of the few people to have even a rough overview of what it's about (Danny has been purposely keeping it very secret). I can say it's going to be damn good.... I normally don't pimp other peoples stuff in my blog, but :

A - I count Danny as a mate

B - Its a very cool idea and story line

C - If I didn't he might get the thumbscrews out again...lol

So here is the LINK

So it's back to organics for me for a while so next week or so I'll be getting back up to speed after a year of mostly environment stuff. Expect monsters, expect creatures as it's been a bloody age since I did any. So no more banging on about the cathedral unless its to show you animated comped shots ;) ...mainly as of right now...my books are empty so back to freelance work searching for me.

Durham Cathedral: Modelling Finished!!

Trust me there is a LOT of detail behind those shadows!

After what feels like 6 life times (in truth less than 1 1/2 weeks) I'm finally calling the modelling stage of the Durham Cathedral complex for my FXPHD class MOD302 done. I feel like I know this cathedral better than the people who bloody built it afer starring at it for a week and a half lol 18 hrs a day.

So many areas are detailed I can't get them all into a single still

Now this was not just a modelling 'challenge' for me (it being without doubt the most complex model I've ever done...especaily if you count the interior I did last year for MOD302), but also a software one. in the end I had to use 3d max 2012 for this for one simple reason...it was the only software with any chance of being able to have the ammount of polygons in the viewport at the sametime without crashing like a bitch all over the place.

Its gives me migraine just thinking about ever doing this again LOL

We're talking tens of thousands of seperate parts and a polycount that technically should 'break' 3d max, its viewport ....as 3d max has a theoretical poly limit of 10 million for a single scene (without proxies etc). This model breaks that by a fair old bit. In fact its between 12-15 million..with no instances or proxies used. There is detail thats not visible even in a 1080p frame lol. (in fact even trhe sanctuary knocker is modelled even though it takes up about 3 pixels.) So every part of the cathedral complex is capable of supporting a close up.

Now I MUST give props to Neil Hazzard and the nitrous team who handle the 3d max viewport progamming. Any other app would have not only crashed but certainly not have such a nice viewport as respresentative of the final render. In fact below at the bottom is the viewport grab of the scene to compare with the 1st image in this post. Not bloody far away I think you'll agree!

The model will stand up to a close up on any tiny part of the entire complex.

So lets remember that when 3d tech works well...god damn its impressive...and this does. So hats off to Neil and his crew. (I promise to buy him several drinks next time I see him.)


But....

Now comes the hard part...texturing the entire cathedral complex ,setting shaders up and getting it ready to create the entire 3d scene it will go in. But 1st I'm taking a damn day off as a week and a half 18 hours a day working on this has me on the verge of running round with an axe.

insane polycount in the viewport of 3d max....

"...If I never model another cathedral it will be too soon!"

This is just the front section of the complex...there is far more behind this!

I've been putting some intense hours into the model of the durham cathedral complex the last day or two. Now that the front and main towers are done (I'll have to leave off the many statues for now as it'll simply take far too long and probably make it nearly impossible to render.) There are still loads of decorative thingies to put on, but those can wait till the last minute.

Durham cathedral as its not been seen (in newly erected condition ) since 170AD

Once this is done then I have to texture the whole damn complex and then create the cgi enviroment that I am going to replace 80% of the final plate with. Although I have been enjoying the challenge in a strange masochistic sort of way, if I never model another cathedral for at least a year I'll be a happy man lol. There are only so many widdly bits of stone the human mind can put up with before it threatens to break and I run round with an axe lol.

So for now its decorative thiniges and lots of windows and doors I have left to do modeling wise , and roof supports and borring shit like that. There can't be many 3d guys who have modelled an entire cathedral complex and its interior.... I dont think most people are insane enough to try unless they have to on pain of death. Seriously though I have been enjoying it, but yes I will be glad once its done.

Durham Cathedral Exterior WIP PT2

The front two towers raw poly model

OK the two front towers I'm calling about done modelling wise (given the extreme crunch on this one)...starting to add the side windows and deco now.... the biggest pain in the backside will be the main tower as there's more polys needed for that than the rest of the complex combined.

Now in an ideal world (when is it ever that??) I'd sculpt every part and render through renderman...but alas time will not allow this...it also occured to me that apart from a few design tweaks this is the first time durham cathedral has been seen in its orginal state since 1100AD!

Still loads to do!

FXPHD Interview & doc on my time as an escape artist

FXPHD / FXguide were nice enough to ask me for an interview a while back that they have just made live and you can watch it here:

http://www.fxphd.com/blog/professor-profile-wayne-robson/

...also for this I made a 22min documentary on my time as an escapologist. Until a couple of weeks back most people in 3D didn't have a clue about this and its safe to say there was a fair bit of interest in knowing more. So here is the full 'directors cut' of my short doc on my time as an escape artist. In some cases the footage is 27 years old and are the only copies that survive anywhere so this isn't the HD footage you may be used to.

I warn you it is a frank and often brutally honest look back at what I achieved and allows me for the very 1st time to put the record straight on something from over 23 years back thats been eating away at me all that time. So while to many of you in 3D thats not really important...to those who knew me before 3D this allows me to right a wrong and put my side of the story for the 1st time.

I realise that as a result I may well get the piss taken out of me now every time I appear at a 3d or art event to lecture or demo, but you know what... I'm still proud of everything I did back then. This isn't the character I use to present the 3d videos I release, or the crazy version of me from my youtube videos, but rather the real me.... this is as personal as it's ever going to get.
Enjoy

Wayne

Waterfalls Scene Final

About as final as you'll get until its in shot

This is about as final as this will get here on my blog now until its used in the Joan of arc short FXPHD are making that these shots are meant for. Not one but two animated waterfalls and neither use water sims, both are old school practical effects. ;)

It may seem very little has changed since the last update but I can assure you it has... drastically... so that everything works in the actual shot and isn't going to take 6 million years to render. In fact it should be less than the average frame time for a TV series shot.

Now for my MOD302 class this is the final result you'll see in the next video covered from top to bottom, There is of course always a chance we'll change or add things slightly for the shot that's actually used..but nothing drastic. Its going to look nice once rendered out and properly graded (as its ungraded at the moment).

There's a combo of Nuke, Vue, Mudbox, Photoshop and Maya in this (maybe one or two other app's I can't remember as its been a busy 48 hours lol).

So for those of you taking my MOD302 course....get a notepad ready as this class is going to up the ante on the complexity front several notches or so. This leaves 2 shots left to do before the end of the course, the desert scene and the cathedral exterior matchmoved very complex shot that will give you nightmares..... as there is not just the cathedral to add.... ;) lets just say I have had an idea I want to run past mike 1st.

Tree's and Waterfalls

Waterfalls and all elements added...still a work in progress though ;)

Update to the 3d scene from the MOD302 '3D Digital Environments' course I'm giving at FXPHD this term, this is from week 5 (next week) and sort of a teaser. Unfortunately I can't show the animation I've ran a test render on, but I have to say that it looks very nice with those waterfalls added. Although it was sort of a cheat render as using a still for the scene elements so I can test the waterfall integration.

10 min cheats can be fun

Also as I had the elements lying around as a result of the above I knocked out in 10 mins the following crazy trees render....for shits and giggles. There is a rather obvious problem with the above shot if you can spot it and no its not the girls scale...any smaller and you'd not see her and think she was a branch lol

More Mattes

No waterfalls yet....(there will be two)

A couple of mattes, the 1st is a late work in progress for my next couple of FXPHD classes. Its been nightmare to do as I'm seriously pushing Vue way beyond what it is designed for. Although people in the class won't need to, as I'm the only bugger who has to be able to load it all into one scene so you guys know what your aiming for lol. The final scene will be split across 3-4 scene files and composite.

This is just begging for a caption lol

and the other a mess around..... its a full 3D matte thats got my old mate Joep Van der Steen in it comped from a photo from EUE lol. See now its either begging for a caption or something added on the left on that sand bank lol.

Levelling up

For those of you that may be interested there's an article in the new issue of 3D artist magazine I wrote (there's another next month as well). This month covers 'easy texturing in Mudbox' of a tree stump. You can buy it from www.3dartistonline.com or 'all good book stores' as they always say on the adverts.

A test frame from MY version of the cathedral animation

I'm also at the moment sorting out a couple of full 3d mattes / scenes for the Joan of Arc short being made by FXPHD as part of my MOD302 course. One of these is an absolute doozy of a shot, that will mix both practical effects and digital 3d mattes. In fact I have a timing shot with low res geo rendering out as I type this.

Also the lads over at Breitbild VFX in Germany are kindly letting me use their ender farm in between using it themselves to render out a load of stuff. So as well as some stuff you've not seen, there will also be my own personal version of the cathedral shots (with a few of my own added), some photoreal full 3 external environments and a bit of character stuff as well.

I've also been giving the cathedral a few tweaks as it was finished back at the end of September last year and so wanted to give everything a once over before adding it to a reel as even though the animation hasn't been seen yet, it's an old model ironically. So there are changes I've made to my own personal version that are different to the one covered in MOD301.

In case you hadn't guessed this is for a new reel, mainly as my non environment reel is seriously showing its age now after a year. It also gives me an excuse to show clients some more impressive stuff in actual shots. Now there is no way in hell I would be able to render this stuff out without a render farm...and even then some are having to be seriously optimised to not blow up the Breitbild VFX farm lol. So big thanks to the lads.

Also I'm amazed at the reaction to the free videos... I hope you found them useful and I'll up more once things calm down in a week or two.