I know. it's a long title. But I'm looking for three things: good models of two submarines- The SeaView and the SeaQuest- if they exist. I'm also looking for any tutorials centering on Caustic lighting in Poser.

Any help would be appreicated.

mee too

Attached Link: This link is down at the moment

Real rendered caustics aren't possible in Poser, unfortunately. That requires photon mapping which FireFly can't do. If you're happy editing POV-Ray source files, you could use PoseRay to convert your scene, add the photon mapping statements by hand and render in POV-Ray. On the other hand, if what I just said made no sense at all, it may be best to do it some other way. ;) I do remember seeing a free caustics generator on the web somewhere, which you could use to make "fake" caustics textures - even animated ones if needed. Hopefully someone will pop into this thread who remembers where it is. - P.S. - I found the caustics generator, but the link is down. Not a good day. :(

I know someone who's working on the "Flying Sub" but I've never seen a Sea View or the SeaQuest unfortunately!

For an underwater scene, real caustics aren't necessary. Because the source of the caustics (the surface waves) are so far from the objects underneath, nobody is going to notice if they aren't exactly correlated. So it's enough to just make the light *look* like caustics.

Here is a screen shot of what I did. I used a cellular node attached to my main sun light. This is attached to an infinite light, pointing close to straight down. I also used an IBL - will post that next.

Here was my IBL setup. I used Olivier's IBL masks to make it, but you could just as well paint something like it directly in a paint program.

Here's my render. I'm using a freebie sub from Anthony Appleyard, found here at Rendo free stuff.

Whoo. That's impressive. :thumbupboth: Making a copy of those setups for next time I do a watery scene. Thanks bb!

"For an underwater scene, real caustics aren't necessary. Because the source of the caustics (the surface waves) are so far from the objects underneath, nobody is going to notice if they aren't exactly correlated. So it's enough to just make the light look like caustics."

I totally agree. In fact I'd go further than that - even if you're looking at a scene from above the waterline and seeing caustics through the water to a close-to-surface bottom, still nobody except a very diligent (and probably nnlly-retentive) scientific optics specialist would notice any anomaly..
As long as the caustics seem in scale, that is.

Cheers,
Diolma

(Long bookmark, but I tend to do that)..

Oh, and thx. bagginsbill, for posting that!

Thank you! I'm copying those postings right now!

Just got a reply from e-frontier on this. According to Colin Gerbode, there's never been a tutorial written on using Caustics in Poser. He says that the firefly render engine should be able to handle it- refraction and ray tracing- so he's going to talk to the guy that knows all about firefly and see about some kind of tutorial.

I may be lining myself up for a hat eating session here :scared: but I believe you need more than ray tracing to do proper rendered caustics, whether refracted or reflected. A raytracing renderer works by tracing the path of light rays backwards in the scene, from the camera to the light, because that's more efficient in computing power required. In a real scene, most of the light rays don't go anywhere near the camera, and if you had to calculate them all my first ever 3D scene would still be rendering. :unsure: On top of that, FireFly isn't even a pure raytracer, but a hybrid. I admit I have no idea how that affects its ability in this area, but I'm sure one of the 3D gurus will enlighten me if I'm wrong. To trace "proper" caustics, you need to trace forward from the light through the refractive / reflective medium, and that's what photon mapping does. The clever bit I don't understand is how it limits the sphere of influence so you don't spend forever rendering the result. For an underwater scene, I agree that faking it is probably the best way to go. Even if you could render it, you'd spend a lot of render time for little perceptible improvement. However some scenes, like the photon mapper's favourite sunlight through a jug of water (soon to replace the shiny sphere over a chequerboard, if it hasn't already ) need real caustics. Keep us posted, anyway. I've laid in plenty of sauce, just in case. :biggrin:

BTW, bagginsbill, I'm discovering your Matmatic downloaded at RDNA. Thanks, it's amazing!!!!

Just got a reply from e-frontier. I'm going to paste it in verbatim:

Good news and bad news. My Firefly guru tells me that Firefly can't do caustics as we don't have photon mapping- Shade does have this, even the low-end designer LE version, but Poser doesn't. The good news is, you should be able to fake it with a combination of shaders on lights and perhaps atmosphere effects. I'll try to work up a tutorial next week to show how to do decent-looking underwater lighting effects. (My guy mentions by the way that the caustics in Finding Nemo were faked rather than being simulated; I guess if Pixar does it that makes it OK...)

And thanks for providing an interesting question! I love getting this kind of thing 'cause it makes me think creatively.

Regards, Colin Gerbode
Technical Support

So, an answer of sorts is in the works. It's just a matter of time.

Hmmm,

I hope that e-Frontier adds the photon mapping thing and particles from Shade to Poser 7.  I really like that underwater submarine render.  -Starkdog

The flying sub is coming along swimmingly. I decided to fully uv map all of it, and it's complete interior and exterior.

I has morph so it doesn;t look like JUST the FS1, but turn them off, remove a smart prop or two, and there ya go. ;)

 

I just started rigging it today, and reassembling it. (I had to disassemble all the componants for uv mapping.. I think I have about 20 or so uv templates for it!

 

I actually have modeled the seaview a number of times in the past, but that was like 8 years ago, before Sub d modelling, and all the really good uv mapping tools we now have.

I'd like to do a Seaview as well, and if the FS1 does well, I might do it as a cheap upgrade or expansion fo rthe FS1.

Normally stuff like this I'd do as freebies, but the FS1 has taken me almost 2 full months so far, and I haven't even begun painting the textures yet.

I'll most likely release it with poser mat settings, and then release an expansion texture set for it a few weeks later.

 

Great. Looking forward to it.

Here's a WIP I posted a month or so ago. There is a lot more modeled detail now.

It's been a challenge, because tecnically, the interior does not fit inside the exterior model. I've had to make some modifications to get a "fit".

Basic plans are to have a complete version (poly heavy because of everything in it), a loadable "Hull" (there's a fake interior window mesh, so you can just apply a render of the interior to it, for lower memory requirement exterior only shots), and then just an interior set, if you just want to use the interior for scenes.

Rather then have everything load as one figure, the majority of interior props and set pieces will be smartprops. That way they can be loaded into other sci-fi scenes, plus it'll be eaiser to select the various material zones.

Plus in many cases, they added or move set props around in the series, so you can add additional non control chairs for passengers if you like.

 

Incrediable work! looking forward to using this when you release it! You're right about fitting the interior sets inside the vehicles. Allen was bad about that. Look at the Jupiter 2. It doesn't look big enough to hold - what? three decks: flight deck, living quarters and the engine level- plus the cargo areas where the lander and their rover were kept.

Again, though, incrediable work!

Thanks. Been working on it alot today trying to resolve the issues again. The landing gear doesn't fit inside the ship, without poking into the interior living space. >sigh<.

Since the landing gear are separate body parts, I think users will just need to turn them invisible.

Here's a month newer WIP, with some base P6 texturing. I'll be baking occlusion on th etexture maps for it, so it will look more" real" when I get to that stage.

 

Again, incrediable- I'm out of words. People thought my train was something- wait till they see this!

I'll certainly be watching for a release date.

BTW bagginsbill, where oh where can I find those Olivier's IBL masks?  O_O

Attached Link: IBL Ins and Outs by Olivier

Hi Casette. I myself forgot where they were. The search engine on RDNA is very limited so it took me a couple minutes, even though I knew what I was looking for. I'm glad you asked because you very likely would not have found it on your own.

Here ya go.

 

Attached Link: http://www.runtimedna.com/news.php?viewStory=864

Hmm - they reformatted it nicely. Try this link too.

Hey, thanks a lot :D

wow..I made a stab at the Land of the Giants spaceship, which bears more than a few similarities to the shuttle..couldn't wrap be head around the complex curves on it.. great model..keep it up

Yeah modeling the base ship was a REAL pita!

(I actually have 4 or 5 original "base" starts, but th egeometry flow just wasn't working that way I needed it to on them.)

 

I'm thinking of regrouping the interior set, so walls can be turned off, to make camera use a little easier.

The addon interior will remain the same, but the separate interior will be grouped like this.

I've also added anout morphs now and extra addon "stuff" to make it look very different, and be released as a commercial product without issues.

I had thought about doing a addon or morph for the LOTG ship, but they are just too different to really allow that kind of change without major reworking.

I'd also made all the electronic panels separate figures now, so you can load them where they belong, or scale them, and add MANY of them, fo much more detailing looking electronic set decorations.

They all have a lot of material zones as well, for various button or light colors.

 

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!! The underwater lighting tutorial is now available at e- frontier. Here's the link:

 

http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/1902/1/329/

If your printer is like mine, you'll have to set it for Landscape prints or adjust the margins as wide as possiable because mine kept chopping the left side of the text off.

 Last one to use it's a rotten egg!