Mud Hut

[mufty]

After a long break from LightWave I attempted a little scene this afternoon. Admittedly it's very simple, but I was experimenting so that I could brush-up on modelling and texturing. Most of the textures are procedurals (colour and bump-map), except for the thatch-style roof, which is a UV created in PhotoPaint. The lighting is from 3 area lights and HDRI/radiosity (background only). I was attempting a semi-realistic style, but I'm not sure if that was successful.

Any comments/suggestions/criticisms you may have will be very welcome. Thanks for your time.

[Hurben]

So you enjoyed the Myst series of games hey?

How long did it take to render.. I find 3 area lights with radiosity usually takes too long and I get impatient.. are you using a skydome? because you have some pretty harsh shadows there..

I love the body of the huts and the way the window sits in, but the edge of the thatched roofing needs to be broken up.. maybe using a clip-map, or you could sharpen it in modeler.

Then add some reeds and a bubbling muddy bog.. cool!
:p

[mufty]

It took about 7 - 8 minutes to render (on a P4 2.53 GHz) and I used a skytracer2 light probe image. I'm not sure about the harsh shadows. I auto-adjusted the levels in Corel PhotoPaint, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Thanks for the tip about using a clip-map. I tried to do a similar thing with an alpha map, and then a transparency gradient, but it didn't work too well.

[Cyclo]

looks great - just 1 little thingy: theres a wooden peg at the centre of all the huts apart from the one with the door in it?

[mufty]

They're chimney pots, or supposed to be...I think the proportions are a little off. Each sphere section of the hut represents one room (kitchen, living room, bedroom, etc) and I decided that there'd be some sort of fire/stove in each room, except for the hallway/entrance room.

[Cyclo]

ah ;) just noticed the smoke

[Hurben]

Can I see a different angle?

I'd like to see a shot coming from ground level looking up towards the huts.. btw I didn't notice the smoke either.

[Rory_L]

Sweet!

I don`t know the Myst games at all, so this might not be usefull: with real mud brick structures you get protruding pegs on the walls and also rows of holes for inserting pegs, all for and from the construction process. I think the pegs are used to stand on, to lay the upper bricks.

Also, you could do with trackways: not paved, necesarily, but more a change to the ground texture where it`s been frequently trodden.

The smoke might benefit from having a vertical density gradient.

Cheers.

R

[Hiraghm]

These look like they've been stuccoed over, so such pegs/holes might not show.

The chimney pots look like wooden pegs because they're such a different color from the rest. Khaki clay walls, greenish clay ground... hard to imagine they imported the clay for the chimney pots. You might want to look for a color in-between the khaki and green for the chimney pots (though I do like the color they are.)

If it were up to me, I'd make the ground a bit darker and reddish.

But I love it. It has an isometric Myst look :p

[mufty]

Thanks for all of your replies and I'll keep your suggestions in mind as I work on the scene.

As Hurben suggested I have put a clip map on the thatch roof. It's a little hard to distinguish, but I'll work on it. I also had a go at using an image map for the walls. I'm learning the art of texturing as I go, but I attempted an ancient Aztec/Mayan/African style. I couldn't figure out how to wrap the image across the joining sections, so I left those as the original texture (UV's tend to confuse me).

Anyway, here's the slightly updated scene:

[Hiraghm]

Cool Effect!