I just finished the belfry on my 19th century schoolhouse model.  I've added
quite a bit of detail in the last couple weeks.  Currently, I'm working on
the back door, which is still lacking in this model, although it's not
visible from this angle anyway.

The snow is there just so that the ground isn't simply a plane.  I will
probably do a winter scene, at some point.  My plan is to have multiple
scenes, possibly inside and out, and possibly for various seasons.

If you want, you can continue to follow my progress on my Web page at
www.beantoad.com/WIPs.htm.  I normally post any significant changes.  You
can also view the reference photos for this model.  However, I'm trying to
make a model that closely represents the school when it was new, or at least
newer, rather than making it dilapidated.

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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Jeremy M. Praay wrote:

> I just finished the belfry on my 19th century schoolhouse model.   

Pleasing job on the belfry.  The whole picture has a nicely crafted 
feel.  Like if loops under control instead of out of control.

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Jeremy M. Praay wrote:
> I just finished the belfry on my 19th century schoolhouse model.  I've added
> quite a bit of detail in the last couple weeks.  Currently, I'm working on
> the back door, which is still lacking in this model, although it's not
> visible from this angle anyway.
> 
> The snow is there just so that the ground isn't simply a plane.  I will
> probably do a winter scene, at some point.  My plan is to have multiple
> scenes, possibly inside and out, and possibly for various seasons.

Looks alright so far.. my main problem is with the sky (perhaps a bit 
too purplish?) and the weird tint of the shadow on the snow, which seems 
to be not only more saturated than the sky, but a different color as 
well! I have a funny suspicion that this is just the effect of radiosity 
and not really your fault, except inasmuch as you created the sky and 
lighting, but it still bugs me. ^^;;

-Xplo

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message
news:4004961d$1@news.povray.org...
> Jeremy M. Praay wrote:
>
> > I just finished the belfry on my 19th century schoolhouse model.
>
> Pleasing job on the belfry.  The whole picture has a nicely crafted
> feel.  Like if loops under control instead of out of control.
>

Yes, loops, loops, and more loops.  But my code is turning into a mess.  As
a programmer, it's like writing a program by starting with a simple piece of
code, and then writing an entire system around it.  Had I planned out the
code better, I'd be much farther along, and things wouldn't be so messy.
But that's all internal and doesn't affect the resulting picture, so in that
sense, who cares?

The problem, in POV-Ray, is that it's far easier to create "perfect" things,
than "imperfect" things.  Hopefully, I'll be adding more imperfectiosn to
things as time progresses.  I still have a long way to go, and I seem to
keep re-texturing the bricks, over and over, so who knows where this will
end up.  Also, the finish on the shingles needs work, but it's generally not
noticeable.  I'm planning on overlaying some textures on some things later
on.  But overall, I'm trying to concentrate more on the model rather than
the textures and finishes, otherwise I'll never get anywhere.  I'm the type
of person that could spend 2 weeks just trying to get the right
brick-texture and iso-surface function, so I've tried not to get bogged down
in the details until the end.

Something I've learned: If you can avoid doing "difference" CSG operations
on things like the bricks and shingles (in effect, differencing-out multiple
objects), you should avoid it, or render times will suffer incredibly.  For
that reason, I had to adjust some macros, which added much more complexity.
The bricks going from the top of the wall to the center of the roof had to
have a fairly complex loop written, to avoid using my standard wall macro.
Even so, some bricks are stacked directly above others.  But from looking at
my reference photos, it appears that the builders did that in a few places,
as well.  I guess they didn't have building codes in 1873.  Even so, I've
fixed that problem in a few places. Notice the "stack" between the window
sills of the first and second windows? I fixed that last night.

Overall, this project seems to be going well, but I'm still not sure if it's
all going to come together in the end.  Maybe I'll just try throwing my
Radio Graves background, just to see how it looks, since the scenes may
likely have many similarities.  Having spent so much time on it, I suppose
I'll have to "make it work" one way or another...  ;-)

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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"Xplo Eristotle" <xpl### [at] infomagicnet> wrote in message
news:4005347b@news.povray.org...

> Looks alright so far.. my main problem is with the sky (perhaps a bit
> too purplish?) and the weird tint of the shadow on the snow, which seems
> to be not only more saturated than the sky, but a different color as
> well! I have a funny suspicion that this is just the effect of radiosity
> and not really your fault, except inasmuch as you created the sky and
> lighting, but it still bugs me. ^^;;

Yes, Sky, Lighting, and Snow.  Right now they only exist because "something"
needs to be there.  I spent some time working on the snow, but I'm not happy
with it.  Part of the problem may have to do with the sky_sphere.
Straight-up, the sky is too blue, which then makes the snow too blue as
well.  I had to do some strange things to the finish of the snow, in order
to keep it from being washed-out, and I may have over-compensated.

My main focus is on the model of the school itself, at this point, and I'm
thinking it could still be months before I finally get an actual complete
"scene" that I'm happy with.

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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"Jeremy M. Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecom> wrote in message
news:400571cc$1@news.povray.org...
|
| Hopefully, I'll be adding more imperfectiosn to things as time
| progresses.

That won't help without doing something to make up for atmospheric haze.
Focal blur, media, or some type of post-process. I think that the model
is fine, but at this size, a person just doesn't expect to see every
brick clearly.

Nice model, and I really like the way you are building it piece by
piece.

 -Shay

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"Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> wrote in message
news:400c13be@news.povray.org...
>
> "Jeremy M. Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecom> wrote in message
> news:400571cc$1@news.povray.org...
> |
> | Hopefully, I'll be adding more imperfectiosn to things as time
> | progresses.

"imperfetiosn"?  It's ironic that I misspelled that word.  ;-)

>
> That won't help without doing something to make up for atmospheric haze.
> Focal blur, media, or some type of post-process. I think that the model
> is fine, but at this size, a person just doesn't expect to see every
> brick clearly.

Good point.  I'm still a newbie in several aspects, and often, I'm not sure
"why" things don't look right, I just no that they don't look right.  I have
a new computer upgrade coming soon, which I'll probably need to make use of,
after having radiosity + focal blur + area lights + grass.  The grass +
radiosity really kills.  Even if my new computer is twice as fast, it won't
be fast enough.  I need 200GHz, right now...  ;-)  I'm planning on adding
some trees to cast shadows onto the school (and ground), plus some
background farm models, maybe corn and/or beans.  Maybe a distant woods.
I'm hoping all of that will liven it up a bit.  I figure I'm still months
away from having it done to my liking.  I hope it retains my interest.

> Nice model, and I really like the way you are building it piece by
> piece.

Thanks! =)  Doing "piece by piece" made the most sense to me initially, but
given the long parse times, I've had to create a few switches to turn things
on/off so that I don't have to wait thru a 5-minute parse for each test
render.

One of the unintended side-effects is that I'm learning quite a bit about
architecture and history.  I doubt that anyone else is as interested in this
stuff as I am (now), but here's a good site that I came across which briefly
discusses one-room schools in Michigan
http://www.lib.cmich.edu/clarke/schoolsintro.htm

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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"Jeremy M. Praay" <sla### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:400c8c98$1@news.povray.org...
| often, I'm not sure "why" things don't look right,

Just checking. Are you using:

global_settings { assumed_gamma 1 }
default { finish { ambient 0 } }

If not, this will help a lot with the shaded areas of bricks.

 -Shay

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"Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> wrote in message
news:400d40c5@news.povray.org...
>
> Just checking. Are you using:
>
> global_settings { assumed_gamma 1 }
> default { finish { ambient 0 } }
>
> If not, this will help a lot with the shaded areas of bricks.


When radiosity is turned on, yes.  I generally remove "ambient" from every
piece of code that I link into my projects, unless I want something to
actually emit light of some sort.  I have a Radiosity=on/off setting that I
use, and when it's off, I set ambient default to 0.1 (or whatever I feel
like), just so I can see shadowed areas when running test renders.

I also messed around quite a bit with "brightness" and "diffuse" for the
bricks, trying to get them to look something more like my reference photos.
But I'm still never quite sure how to use them properly.  I just experiment
a lot.

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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"Jeremy M. Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecom> wrote in message
news:400d5ee0@news.povray.org...
>
> I also messed around quite a bit with "brightness" and "diffuse"...


I meant to say "brilliance", not "brightness".  :-/

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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