Hi!

Several people asked me about the cave in my latest image, "I can see the sun", so I created this tutorial. It's only my 2nd attempt on tutorial making, so please have some tolerance...  :-)

http://www.screencast.com/t/MtK1Yuj7

Important note: this is posted in a free account of Screencast, where I have limited bandwidth. So, if you see a message saying that the video is no longer available, this means that the bandwidth limit was reached...

I proposed the friendly people at Geekatplay to post this video there. If and when they accept it, I will remove it from Screencast and post a note here.

Another excellent tutorial Artur!  Thanks very much for making and sharing it.  Really great lighting tips.

Great tutorial :thumbupboth: Thank you very much.
I think caves can be nicely done in Vue with metablobs too.

Mazak

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. :-)

Mazak, do you have some tutorial for caves with metablobs? I never saw any, as far as I remember. I also tried that technique but didn't get much realistic results.

 Very good turorial, I learned a lot from it - thank you for posting it :)

Thanks! :-)

I'm afraid the bandwidth is rapidly approaching its limit... Maybe 5 or 6 views more and it's gone... :-(

Thank you !

Just watched this, it's excellent - thanks!

"I am not an expert in Zbrush, not at all.  I know only enough to survive."  Thanks for the honesty.  Sounds like me in most apps.

Mazak

Very good! Thanks for sharing!
Maybe the point light needs some more attenuation at the origin and some less intensity overall.

Mazak

Great tutorial, thank you!

Mazak

Looks better, I think. :-)

It is all in the eye of the viewer :biggrin:

Mazak

thanks a 1000!

That's a brilliant tutorial Artur - Must dig out ZBrush and have a play now :)

hey great tut thanks Artur! :)

"Great minds think alike", been working on a cave pic ;) Though I used a terrain to form the visible part of the cave :)

Yes, fantastic tutorial Artur.  I have only ever used NURBS (Rhino3d) which I love but this is very interesting because of the sculpting capabilities and their implications for Vue scenes.  Thanks so much for taking the time ....

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. Another great tutorial.

And I know less about ZBrush than Artur !!

That looks great!

I am heartbroken - no matter how much I turn my volume control up, I can just barely make out that someone is speaking on Rutra's tutorial.  Am I the only one having problems?  I can hear all other sounds just fine through my speakers, such as the Geek at Play tutorials, for example. 

Mari-Anne, I tried on 3 computers and it works fine in all. Maybe you're listening on mono? When you hear a music, do you hear a good (and slightly different) sound on both speakers?

Gill',
well like Artur I can just about use Zbrush enough to be dangerous, lol, actually, Artur is probably better than me! :p
Horrible HORRIBLE interface in Zbrush, ugh. if they don't improve it I'm gonna switch to Mudbox when I've got the cash :/

Quote - I am heartbroken - no matter how much I turn my volume control up, I can just barely make out that someone is speaking on Rutra's tutorial.  Am I the only one having problems?  I can hear all other sounds just fine through my speakers, such as the Geek at Play tutorials, for example. 

It was quiet but I could hear it with the vol turned up to max

Now, most of the geekatplay tutorials I can hardly hear them.  If there's someone else here moving around the sound is that low I just can't make out what's being said - and that's on Gary's tutorials there too.

Quote - Mari-Anne, I tried on 3 computers and it works fine in all. Maybe you're listening on mono? When you hear a music, do you hear a good (and slightly different) sound on both speakers?

I listened to a Youtube rendition of Whitney Huston singing the National Anthem, and it sounded fantastic.  Granted, my speakers are built into the monitor, and I don't have external speakers. Maybe that's my problem?!  But I think it's strange that I can hear the Geek at Play tutorials.

My speakers are built into the monitor too. 

I'd kept my original external speakers from my first pc and moved them along to every new one I had but this time round I had to bin them as they were pretty much worn out.  Those speakers were great

I used the same microphone that I used before. I used Camtasia and I didn't change the default options, but before I used Jing. So, maybe there's something wrong with Camtasia.. I will review the sound options in Camtasia. I know the people at geekatplay also use Camtasia to record their videos, maybe there's something unusual on the way it records audio.

Question to Mari-Anne and Gill: do you have Windows or Mac?

Quote - I used the same microphone that I used before. I used Camtasia and I didn't change the default options, but before I used Jing. So, maybe there's something wrong with Camtasia.. I will review the sound options in Camtasia. I know the people at geekatplay also use Camtasia to record their videos, maybe there's something unusual on the way it records audio.

Question to Mari-Anne and Gill: do you have Windows or Mac?

Seriously, Artur, I would rather tend to believe there is something wrong with my setup since I seem to be the only one with such a severe "hearing loss."  I have Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit , a Hewlett Packard w1907 flat panel LCD monitor, and Realtek High Definition Audio.

I googled for that monitor now and I found some not so positive reviews about the sound system. In this review, one of the cons is the speaker system:
http://www.epinions.com/reviews/Hewlett_Packard_w1907_Black_Silver_Monitor

In this other review, it's written:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/30783/review/w1907.html

"This 19-inch wide-screen has built-in speakers, located in the back of the monitor. They are adequate for operating system warnings and other beeps and pops from software applications. But for multimedia sounds, results are mixed. Audio in movies is sufficiently audible, but whispered dialogue is barely discernible to the ear. MP3 playback, on the other hand, is loud enough to hear."

I did speak in a low volume, so maybe there's indeed an incompatibility between the way I speak and your sound system. :-(
I have to speak louder next time. :-)

Aha, very interesting!  I am in the midst of hooking up my external speakers as we speak, so to speak - will report back as soon as I am up and running.....

Wouldn't you know it, Artur.  I'm up and louder than ever - and this is what I get when I click on your tutorial link:

"This content is currently unavailable. Please contact the content owner for more information."

So, apparently your bandwidth has been exceeded, and the material is unavailable for now.  As you indicated earlier, I will just wait until Geekatplay has your tutorial, so please let us know when it's up.

Quote - I used the same microphone that I used before. I used Camtasia and I didn't change the default options, but before I used Jing. So, maybe there's something wrong with Camtasia.. I will review the sound options in Camtasia. I know the people at geekatplay also use Camtasia to record their videos, maybe there's something unusual on the way it records audio.

Question to Mari-Anne and Gill: do you have Windows or Mac?

Windows Vista.  Wouldn't know where to start with a Mac

PS - Artur - I really owe you a huge Thank You, though.  You forced me to hook up my apparently much better external speakers, 'cause I had to turn the sound way down as soon as I hooked them up.

Gill, me neither. :-)

Mari-Anne, I'm glad there was a "collateral benefit". :-) Most of the times we only hear about "collateral damage". :-)

Yes, my bandwidth is now gone, after 71 views. Let's hope the video is accepted at geekatplay.

Maybe I should look for some new externals.  When I stopped needing decent ones for doing sound clips for one of my extinct hobbies I didn't bother too much about getting any more.

My old ones were almost hifi quality but they took up a lot of space which has now been claimed by other things. 

Artur's tutorials now available at geekatplay.com

Artur, I am happy to report I can hear you loud and clear this morning with my new external speakers.  Ahh, music to my ears...

I'm glad this ended well!

Hi Artur,
first of all thank you for this excellent tutorial!
You are my personal Hero in creating vue arts ;-)
I am a very beginner, but with the help in this forum it look like... i will survive :-)
I tried to make a cave with zbrush and it looks very good i think, but i used to much polygons for it. When i imported this to vue it colect to much resources.
This is my old problem... i do to much details in to much quality with to high resolution ;-)
But i try and try...
I have read your hints for render settings (also Peggy Walters' render tutorial) and my render times cut down dramatic... thanks for that!!

I hope you have some time for more tutorials!

best regards
floyd

Hi Floyd!

Thanks for your kind words. :-)

Yes, zbrush objects may be a problem. I try to keep them under 300,000 or 400,000 polygons. Don't forget that zbrush uses quads and Vue converts all quads to tris, so that doubles the number of polygons on import. In zbrush, if you want details in a specific area, you can mask everything else and divide further just that area. You only have to be careful because in the border between the two areas (divided and non-divided) a strange polygon formation appears, which becomes very notorious if you sculpt on it.

Have fun! :-)

That was a great tutorial! I do have one question, though. When you adjusted the light settings, rather than turn down the power, you modified the filter. Does that have a different result than just lowering the power?

Quote - "When you adjusted the light settings, rather than turn down the power, you modified the filter. Does that have a different result than just lowering the power?"

Yes, completely different. The light was too bright near the source and was washing out the details. However, it was fine further away. So, when I changed the filter, I decreased the light intensity near the light source while maintaining the same intensity further away from the source. The light became more evenly spread, like you'd see in a real situation.

Awesome! I seem to have that problem frequently, especially with spotlights. In the past, I set up a light for close objects, then maybe a few more for further objects and adjusted the influence accordingly. Obviously this is not the most realistic, or resource friendly method.
 Your method is much better.
Thanks a million, that's a great tip!
 Gary

You're welcome, Gary, I'm glad you found it useful.