Sunshine August

The purpose of creating this image is improving my skill using the lighting, and the goal I would to see is the sunshine on the sea, because August is a very hot season, the sun is very strong and harsh to the eye, and maybe there is some steam arising on the sea level.

The lighting
I use two omni lights in this image, and I plan to use one of them as the big strong sun, other one as the normal light, to shine the whole scene.

1. Sun
Go to lights, and drag a omni to the top view and adjust its position, to make it just show on the top of scene,

Set the Attenuation value for this light: this value will be set depend on how high the sun is in this image. The value for my image is Near Attenuation 0,180, Far Attenuation is 180,880.

Add a lens effect to create the sun effect, setup the lens effect, and add Glow, Ray, Auto secondary, Star and Steak in the lens effect parameters, and then setup the value for them by clicking them on the right panel.
Lens effects globals
Ray
Star
Steak

2. Now drag other omni light on the top view as normal light, but it should be high enough to shine the entire scene,
Set the Attenuation value for this light,

Fog
Choose the Helpers button on the right panel, and Atmospheric Apparatus, and choose the SphereGizmo, and drag it to the front view to create a fog area
I just need the top area of SphereGizmo, so click hemisphere to cut the bottom part.

Click the button setup to set the values for the fog, and modify all the value in the new panel.






Rendering

I use a sky picture as the background, and a camera to pick the good angle picture.

Objects-August

After practicing on those two images, I have got a lot of skills to create different objects, and a lot of them I can create with the same method.

Dolphin
The way how to create a dolphin is almost same like creating the wild goose in October image in last blog.
Firstly, drag a box and covert it to Editable Poly, and go to polygon level to choose a polygon on the left view bevel it about 5 times, it depend on the shape, more times you bevel it, more easier to modify it, and the tail part I use Extrude to pull it, because I will build a tail on it. Choose other polygon on the right view, with the same method to create the head part, but it is shorter than the tail, so I just bevel twice, extrude it twice to create the mouth part.

Secondly, build the fins, go to choose the last part can be changed to the tail, and choose the one polygon on the front view and bevel it small and same to the other side.

Choose the right and left edges on the first box on front view, and connect them with 2 segments, and extrude the new polygon in the middle, and repeat the same thing on the other side.

Repeat the way also on the top view to create the top fin.

Last step, go to vertex level and adjust the shape,

Go to MeshSmooth path to make a smooth shape.

Copy other same 3 dolphins and create different swimming jumping shapes with Bend tool.

Sailboat
This sailboat is sailing in the farther scene, so it is bot necessary to create every detail on this boat, and the body of the boat is created by the method how to create the roof of that pavilion in the first image.

Firstly, drag a star in splines path, and scale it like a boat on the top view.
Covert it to Editable Poly, select the border and choose the boarder on the top view, and copy 4 boarders by push the shift key, each time scale it smaller than last one, so I have built the basic boat body right now.
Go to vertex level and adjust the point to create the head of the boat and the tail of the boat.

Secondly, create the sail parts, drag 3 cones and give different height as three masts, the tallest in the middle, and drag a box (200mm*500mm*2mm)as a piece of sail on the left view.
Go to Bend path and bend it about angle: 128 and move it onto one of the mast, and copy rest of them, and select all the sail and masts and right click the Rotate type a value 30 on y-axle.

I then create three sails on the boat head: drag a box, covert it to Editable Poly and cut it half by quickslice, go to polygon delete one half box, and go to noise path and give it a noise value, seed 100, scale 150,and strong 50 on z axle. Copy 2 of it and scale them smaller. Adjust their positions.

I also copy three of it as the flags on the top of masts.

At last, render the boat, and I used 5 Blinn slots for different parts of the boat.

The island
Drag a plane and set the length value 88, and width value 88.
Go to displace path, and set a Bitmap for this island and the shape can create from the bitmap, I create my bitmap by Photoshop, click the Bitmap and upload the image, and then set a noise map. Set the strength value, and modify a convent value, I got value about 54.

Rendering it with a grass land image.

Second final image-October

There is a big problem when I merge all the objests together, because the wheat file is too big to create a tract of wheat farmland, I just create the first line of it,and Iwill render other wheat by photoshop.

lighting

I use two target spot lights one right and one left and two omni lights,

one colour of the omni light is yellow as the moonlight.

The final pictures

This one is took by camera.

October

Background

This image is consist of a tract of wheat farmland, the bird (wild goose) flying away from northern to southern of China, a scarecrow who is standing there for protecting the wheat, and a big windmill which already stops there in that time.

The time of this image is a night of October, the scarecrow stands there alone, he has no friend, he feels fear and unhappy, the only thing can company with him is that big windmill but now it has stopped working. Suddenly, he sees some wild gooses are flying over his head, how he want to talk to them and make friend with them, he is looking and looking and he want to say: come down let’s be friends, but they won’t stay.

So I would like to make the feeling of scarecrow, the whole environment is silence, dark, and a little bit desolate, and the moonlight is on his sad dismal face, behind of him is that big tract of wheat, but who will remember him after the harvest.

Wheat

Firstly, build the body, drag a box and covert it into Editable poly, choose polygon, and bevel the top face bigger, and bevel it several time, build the basic shape of the seed. Last step is with the same method to create a long tail of the seed. I use 4 times bevel to do that, and then go to vertex level and adjust it to get a better shape.
Secondly, create the full wheat body, rotate the seed about 30, go to Tools-Array, choose 3d dimension and give account number 10 and a value for the Z,because I have tried a lot of time to get a convenient value, I can say which value I have to set ,it depends you size of you object, and I got the value 89,and then go to incremental and rotate the whole object I just bulit. I got 35 as its value

so by now I created one wheat,and then I will drag a cone as a stem for it,clone several wheats and bend those stems for creating different shape of wheat.

Bird

My home town is on northeast of China, so when the autumn (October) comes there are a lot of birds fly to southern China, the main kind of birds we call them wild goose, but I am not going to create every detail of it, because the wild goose are flying in the sky, we can not see the very clearly.

Firstly, drag a box as the body of the wild goose and covert it into Editable poly, create the tail and head parts from the left and right polygon. The main method is bevel. Go to polygon level and choose left polygon, bevel it smaller, and then extrude it, and extrude the left and right polygon to make the width of the tail.
Go back to the body box and bevel the right polygon, bevel once for the part connecting neck and body, and then extrude the long neck, and bevel several to create the shape of head.

Go to the vertex level to adjust the whole shape of body, especially the shape of the tail, I follow the shape from the real picture, and I pull all the head a little bit higher, like flying.

Create the wing, go to the body box, choose the front and back polygon to create the both wings, go to the edge level and connect the left and right edge on the front and back polygon, and extrude both sides of the top new polygon twice. Go to vertex level adjust the shape of the wing.

Choose the meshmooth to make the whole bird smooth.

Clone more wild gooses, and adjust the shape of wing to create the different faying wild gooses.

Windmill

The windmill is a simple but a big part in this image
Firstly, the main body of the windmill, drag a cone and covert it to Editable poly, delete the top and bottom polygon and choose the border level, select the top border, press shift button on the keyboard and scale it bigger, select the bigger border and pull it up by press the shift key again, repeat once, and close the last opening with cap.

Secondly, the base of the fan I made from a box, covert it to Editable poly and cut a line on the top view and pull this line up.
I made the axle by the same way, just this time I will cut two cross line on the front view, and go to the vertex level to choose this cross point and move it to the left on the lift view.
Hide all the object I have done, the fan is consist of the small box, clone them and put them at the right place.

Rendering
The body of windmill is rendered by Multi\Sub-object, there are two parts, roof and the body, and go to polygon level to give a number 1 to body and 2 to body.

Gloves
Drag a box, length segs: 4 width segs: 3, because I am going to bevel 4 fingers on the left view and one thumb on the front view.
Covert it to Editable poly, choose polygon level, select one polygon on the left view, I going to use bevel to create the finger, especially the joints. And all the finders are not same long, for create it easier I took my hand photo, so I can create the glove fallow my hand.

After finishing those 4 fingers, choose the right polygon on the front view and extrude it, then choose the new polygon on the left view and bevel it like last 4 fingers.



Last, go to vertex level and adjust all the points.
Go to Meshsmooth path to get the smooth shape, and clone other hand.

Scarecrow
The idea of creating the scarecrow is rebuild from the real human body, the basic method I use to build the scarecrow is from the box to create the shape of head and body.

The body:

Drag a box, I set the lenth segs: 5, width seg: 10, height segs: 9, but those values depend on how detailed the scarecrow is. I just want to make a simple body.

Covert it to editable poly, and here I am going to use a method called symmetry. With this method I just need to create half part of body, so it easier to make a balance body.
Firstly, go to polygon level and delete the right part of the box. Go to tool bar choose Modifiers – Mesh editing—symmetry, and select flip in the right panel.

Now go back editable poly and choose vertex level, first thing I would like to create the arm part with the bevel method, select 9 polygons on top of the left view, bevel it, here I create a joint in the middle, and cut twice with the Quick Slice as a cuff part, and go to polygon and scale it bigger.

Go to vertex level to adjust the body, the chest part, choose 9 points and move them a little bit right on the left view, and modify the point on the wrist part, and the neck on the top view.

The leg is the same like the arm.
Go to Meshsmooth path to get the smooth shape.

It is rendered by Mul/Sub object, two parts, coat and pants.

Straw
There are some straws out from the scarecrow’s body, one of straw is created by line and give it a thickness value, after that just clone several of them and group them, and copy 6 groups like this and put them to two arms, two legs and two as hair.

The hat

drag a cone,and covert it to the Eidtable poly, and go to polygon level and delete the top polygon on the top view.

go to border and choose the top border,and scale it smaller by click the shift key.

and push the shift key and pull the new border up on the front view,and scale it smaler.

repeat twcie, and close the last opening by clicking the cap.

go to vertex and adjust the points to make a old hat.

The final scarecrow

merge all the objects together