[Bubbaloo]

But if I wanted to learn the process of making my own tires, it wouldn't help me to go buy a set...
If I find myself short on smarts, I make up for it with hard work...

[ivox3]

If hard work was worth anything, ... then a ditch digger would be the richest man on the planet. And by the way, ...companies everyday. ...buy other company products, .. just to take them apart and learn. ...and you know that.

[ivox3]

Here's another thought Bubba ......

Because a Lego piece is a fairy simple model, ... its gonna lack areas for detail. So when rendering, .. you end up trying to recapture that detail with other things, ... the ground plane, lighting, reflections etc... I actually think that in order to capture serious realism, .. going back to the modeling phase and introducing insane micro details is really the only way.

Now this isn't a great pic, but short of having some legos around ... its all I could find.

So I ask, ... what makes it different from yours? Not much if you ask me, .. but that's the point as you've gotten to the point where your only concerned with that thin margin of difference between the two.

Isolating that margin is the key and I think its in the only place it can be ----the fine fine details, ...cause you've left nothing else !

[Bubbaloo]

There may be ditch diggers out there who are the richest men in the world, not financially of course. But we're getting into the philosophical area here...

I agree with these pointers you have given. Thank you!

[ivox3]

yeah, .. I was speaking in a strict financial sense ...


No problem w/the pointers ...... Just remember, ... when we think a render isn't as good as we'd like it to be, .. I've noticed that most won't look at the part that actually needs the work, ..because it usually represents the most difficult part of the work so we just block it out. Me included. hehehe

[Bubbaloo]

A new render:
I let this cook over the weekend on my home computer (dual core AMD).
4000 px
60+/- hours
S.L. 14.47

Plan to model more soon!!

[misterasset]

I can't wait to see this thing finally constructed

[hyltom]

I'm not a lego specialist, as i didn't have the luck to get some during my chilhood , but most of the material looks wrong to me. I have this felling that some of them look metallic (red, yellow, blue...). And look at you red, how can you have so strong reflection at 0 degree? Check a real piece and try to look the reflection at 0 and 90 degree...it should differ a lot.

[cali3d]

Only thing I would say about this, is that the materials can use some tuning. You should lower the refelectivity on them considerably.

Also add some blurryness to the reflection would help. - remember that legos are not perfectly flat or equal, cause the plastic is a "living" material that has gotten scratches, dust, changes in the surface during the time the plastic cools after mold and in general not as perfect as the computer makes it ..

[Bubbaloo]

Back from the dead...
Remodeled this piece with more to come.
My legos started selling a little bit on TurboSquid so I thought I'd make more. And I'm still working towards putting the model together at the end.

[Bubbaloo]

A new render after a long break. I've learned a little about modelling since then (no booleans / sub-d ready), so I have decided to start over. Here's today's work:



Wire:

[d7mcfc]

Brian, do you ever sleep?

[Bubbaloo]

I will when I'm dead...

[-Adrian]

That's some clean modeling right there.

[caryjames]

Very cool Brian... you mentioned this before and now you made me ask .

Why is no booleans better? I am assuming it has something to do with isoparms...