Hello,

Somehow I was able to find a way to fit some bullets into the scene I've been
working on. What luck! They'll need to be linked together since they're machine
gun bullets. This photo shows the type of link I copied. I think I can only
attach one picture per posting so I'll have to attach the rendered images as
replies.

I hope nobody minds multiple pictures...

Regards,
Dave Blandston

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Attachments:
Download 'm13_1.jpg' (82 KB)

Preview of image 'm13_1.jpg'

By the way, "M13" seems to be the military designation for these links.

This thing is all CSG. It was difficult for me because the diagonal pieces of
metal that connect the rings are curved in one direction on one end and curved
in the opposite direction on the other end. I couldn't get everything perfect,
but the problems are only visible when the camera is zoomed in really close.

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Attachments:
Download 'm13_2.jpg' (31 KB)

Preview of image 'm13_2.jpg'

These are 7.62 x 51 mm rounds, which are what the M13 links are made for. The
textures are from metals.inc. Now that the objects are finished I'll start
working on better textures to match the rest of the actual scene.

As always, comments and criticisms are welcome.

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Attachments:
Download 'm13_3.jpg' (144 KB)

Preview of image 'm13_3.jpg'

Dave Blandston schrieb:
> These are 7.62 x 51 mm rounds, which are what the M13 links are made for. The
> textures are from metals.inc. Now that the objects are finished I'll start
> working on better textures to match the rest of the actual scene.
> 
> As always, comments and criticisms are welcome.

Excellent job with the links' CSG; I know how difficult things can get 
with such curvatures. In such a close-up view, the links need beveling 
though (yeah, I know that'd be a PITA to do ;-)).

I think the casing looks more convincing now that you went for brass. 
For a better effect, I recomment trying some blurred reflection though. 
For the bullets a polished look seems ok to me, but not so for the 
casing. (Then again, if you plan to show the bullets at way smaller 
size, it probably doesn't matter much.)

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> Hello,
>
> Somehow I was able to find a way to fit some bullets into the scene I've been
> working on. What luck! They'll need to be linked together since they're machine
> gun bullets. This photo shows the type of link I copied. I think I can only
> attach one picture per posting so I'll have to attach the rendered images as
> replies.
>
> I hope nobody minds multiple pictures...
>
> Regards,
> Dave Blandston

 From the web interface, you can only attach one picture per post. If 
you use any real news reader or the news capacity of most email clients, 
you can have several images per posts.

Alain

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Excellent job with the links' CSG; I know how difficult things can get
> with such curvatures. In such a close-up view, the links need beveling
> though (yeah, I know that'd be a PITA to do ;-)).
>
> I think the casing looks more convincing now that you went for brass.
> For a better effect, I recomment trying some blurred reflection though.
> For the bullets a polished look seems ok to me, but not so for the
> casing. (Then again, if you plan to show the bullets at way smaller
> size, it probably doesn't matter much.)

Thank you for the compliments and suggestions. I'm planning to "dirty-up" the
casings quite a bit, and probably the bullets a little as well. I'm really glad
you mentioned the blurred reflection. Something seemed "not quite right" that
was haunting me, and that's it. Great suggestion.

Bevelling was the one suggestion I feared most. I did consider it but decided
the cost/benefit ratio was too high, and hoped nobody would notice. Darn!!! The
bullets will be much smaller in the actual scene, but I'm planning to render the
final at 8400 x 6300 pixels for printing, so even small objects will need good
detail. Hopefully the dark, dull texture will help hide my limitations.

This pretty much wraps up the final elements of my military Metallica image. And
by the way, I noticed that version 3.7 allows objects with no_image to still
have a radiosity effect on the rest of the scene, which is a feature I can
really use in this particular image. Thanks for adding that feature!

Regards,
Dave Blandston

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> clipka<ano### [at] anonymousorg>  wrote:
>> Excellent job with the links' CSG; I know how difficult things can get
>> with such curvatures. In such a close-up view, the links need beveling
>> though (yeah, I know that'd be a PITA to do ;-)).
>>
>> I think the casing looks more convincing now that you went for brass.
>> For a better effect, I recomment trying some blurred reflection though.
>> For the bullets a polished look seems ok to me, but not so for the
>> casing. (Then again, if you plan to show the bullets at way smaller
>> size, it probably doesn't matter much.)
>
> Thank you for the compliments and suggestions. I'm planning to "dirty-up" the
> casings quite a bit, and probably the bullets a little as well. I'm really glad
> you mentioned the blurred reflection. Something seemed "not quite right" that
> was haunting me, and that's it. Great suggestion.
>
> Bevelling was the one suggestion I feared most. I did consider it but decided
> the cost/benefit ratio was too high, and hoped nobody would notice. Darn!!! The
> bullets will be much smaller in the actual scene, but I'm planning to render the
> final at 8400 x 6300 pixels for printing, so even small objects will need good
> detail. Hopefully the dark, dull texture will help hide my limitations.
>
> This pretty much wraps up the final elements of my military Metallica image. And
> by the way, I noticed that version 3.7 allows objects with no_image to still
> have a radiosity effect on the rest of the scene, which is a feature I can
> really use in this particular image. Thanks for adding that feature!
>
> Regards,
> Dave Blandston
>

If you use blured reflection, there will be interreflection between 
objects that both have blured reflection. It will greatly increase the 
rendering time.
If you have a 50 samples blured reflection, after 2 surfaces, you'll 
have 2500 rays, 125000 after 3 surfaces, 31250000 after 4,.... Some 
pixels can take for ever and tomorow to render.

What you can do:
Have the objects with blured reflection in two instances.
The first one have the blured reflection and the no_reflection flag.
The second will only have normal reflection and the no_image flag.

That way, the object that you see directly will have blured reflection, 
but the one that you see in (blured) reflection will have normal 
reflection preventing the exponential increase in the number of rays.



Alain

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Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:
> If you use blured reflection, there will be interreflection between
> objects that both have blured reflection. It will greatly increase the
> rendering time.
> If you have a 50 samples blured reflection, after 2 surfaces, you'll
> have 2500 rays, 125000 after 3 surfaces, 31250000 after 4,.... Some
> pixels can take for ever and tomorow to render.
>
> What you can do:
> Have the objects with blured reflection in two instances.
> The first one have the blured reflection and the no_reflection flag.
> The second will only have normal reflection and the no_image flag.
>
> That way, the object that you see directly will have blured reflection,
> but the one that you see in (blured) reflection will have normal
> reflection preventing the exponential increase in the number of rays.
>
>
>
> Alain

Thank you so much! That's a very smart idea. With radiosity and anti-aliasing,
the complete image already takes several days to render at full resolution, and
I haven't even added the bullets yet.

I've never used blurred reflection before so I'll try the method described in
the POV-Wiki Knowledgebase:Language Questions and Tips Topic 13. Those casings
definitely need blurred reflection.

Regards,
Dave Blandston

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