Test Driving an Enzo Ferrari

BMW-Z4 (painting with light)

"The Z4 was designed by Chris Bangle and began the controversy over his "flame surfacing" design and aggressive styling choices, which can also be seen on most modern BMW cars, most noticeably the 7 Series and 5 Series. As of 2007, the entire BMW car line, including the BMW 3 Series and X5 SAV, had incorporated Chris Bangle's design theme." (complete wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Z4)

just sharing an example of using HDR image in a 3d/CG scene. the HDR image is not seen here but i used it to simulate light and the reflecting environment. how the HDR looks like is somewhat similar to the background image, only that its a 16-bit floating image format like RAW(background is only 8-bit).


just like shooting/photography, i had to key-in the appropriate f-stop/shutter/iso/wb values in the software's camera parameters to get the right exposure, as well as to set up sunlight with its correct physical value, plus additional lights (as strobes) to enhance the subject, the workflow is virtually painting with light.

HDR? Enter Paul Debevec. In 1997, he presented a paper at SIGGRAPH (PDF), the leading graphics industry expo. He brought forward the idea that a high range of brightness levels could be captured by combining multiple exposures of the same image, much like the pictures shown above. Differences in brightness at the various exposures could then be stored in what is known as a radiance map, which could be added to the picture's color information. For example, most pixels are stored as varying levels of red, green and blue, or RGB. With the generation of a radiance map, a fourth value, A, could be added to each pixel, and the resulting file stored in an RGBA format. (taken from and more here: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/lostcoast.ars/2)


(above) Paul Debevec enjoying prawn mee soup and Tiger Beer in one of the hawkers in Singapore. Who says HDRI imaging should be glamorous?

Polka Interior

I'm back. Here's a revisitation of an old project, tweaked a bit of finishes and decors. Hope you like it!

Fish Eye

New Heroes MTV (on the works)

BF3 is coming soon yay!

That's True - My 1st CG Music Video

coming soon! but it won't be shown here...it's produced for someone else's site so watch out for the link...

Singapore's daring new icon is taking shape!

Yet Another One

Split Rendering Tutorial Part 2 - MOOD SHOTS

Here's to add another dimension to your renderings. Its actually part 2 of my 'split rendering' tutorial and here's one of the applications. I won't be too specific on the parameter settings. This is to basically explain the concept.

Let's do a basic workflow, create split render passes with:

1. No lights, only HDR (sunset) applied to Vray environment (image below):


2. Vray Sun (sunset position) only, HDR is off (image below):

3. Only Living room lights on, Sun and HDR is off (image below):

4. In Autodesk Combustion, composite the images with HDR Pass as the background image, screen merged with Sun Pass. With this (HDR+SUN) as the background, screen blend with the Living room lights pass as the foreground. Applying color correct modifiers will give you flexibility to dim or brighten your scene as desired. Its all about perception so how you control colors and brightness is your call. As a guide for this tutorial, here's a blending flowchart used:

5. Here are the mood shots:

• sunset mood:

• sunset, kitchen lights on:

• with added living room lights:

Since we are working in Combustion workspace, we can animate the dimming or brightening of lights. With rendered animation passes, we can do a lot more :)

Blessed Easter to all!!

Today in ST!

TVC should be out soon!

Update

Here's an update from my previous post.

3D TUTORIAL: SPLIT RENDERING IN VRAY/3DSMAX

I promised someone to send him tutorial links about split rendering. However, I can't dig the links so I made a quick tutorial. Might as well share it here:

1. In your scene, assign a unique 'Object ID' number for each object (ref above image)

2. Set your Vray Frame Buffer parameters as shown above
A. Assign where to save the split channels (ref above image).

3. Set your Render Elements parameters (ref below image):

A. Add the channels you need to split render
AA. select the channels you need (ref above image). For this tutorial I picked VrayObjectID, VrayRawLighting, and VrayShadows
B. (pls. ignore this, assign filenames here if using scanline. we already done so in step 2A)
C. Added channels will be reflected here (ref above image)

4. Render to open up the Vray VFB (above image). You can scroll to preview the channels during rendertime (ref below images).

ObjectID pass:

RawLighting Pass:

Shadow Pass:

5. Split channels are saved after render (image below):

These is a very basic workflow and will need to be adjusted to suit your needs. Some channels may not work for different image formats (tif, jpeg etc). If you are using Autodesk Combustion for post, max can create a combustion workspace with all the split channels already layered within the workspace file.

From Virtual to Reality

I feel priviledged to have worked with colleagues Bong and Quianling and WOHA Architects (the best arch'l firm in SG), on this. Here's just a mock-up model unit, abt 40% in progress:

Now here's my 3d rendition, about a year and a half ago:

Above image was also featured in Autodesk's website,(VMW - pdf, 192kb). Above is just one of the many marketing visuals created for www.alilahotels.com by VMW (Singapore's best Arch'l. Media Firm).

What Happened to the X-mas Tree?

The trees are gone for now, but those decor mirror balls have become a common desktop item in our office recently. Peeps in the 3d industry knows why, its a tool for creating HDRI images.

No tks, I don't need another mirror yet.

Tech Resource: Dig deeper and learn about creating HDRI's here, from the father of HDRI himself, Paul Debevec:

Daniel Libeskind in Singapore

Here's one 2006 project worth cherishing:

Iconic condo development promises to put Singapore waterfront living on world map
4 January to 15 January 2007

The Singapore Art Museum, in association with Keppel Land, will present an exhibition of architectural prints, renderings and drawings of the works of New York-based master architect, Daniel Libeskind.

other article/s here:
Keppel unveils spectacular seafront homes in architect Daniel Libeskind’s first Asian residential show piece