the grooves on the plug are actual geometry. and all the edges are chamfered. although it is barely visible, almost every edge has a bevel or radius in this scene. i believe (i hope, since i spent so much time doing it) that this ads subtle realism to the scene.

another major reason for doing this was to allow myself the freedom to get as close to my models as i wanted, without worrying about fidelity breakdown. i also just like modeling.

did i say i liked modeling?

i modeled it by converting the torus to the vertex modeler, and using the magnet to deform it (after i cleaned up all of the bad welding that the conversion caused)

some of the objects arent textured yet. and the lighting set-up is really basic.

i like to model, texture, and experiment with lighting all at the same time. the following sequence will show the evolution of the scene.

i used a string of 40 bulb lights set at 2.5 intensity with a fall off of 6ft (the scene is built to scale, with ft as the unit of measurement)

some of the test renders use the 40 light string, others just use one bulb light. you can tell the difference by how soft the shadow is by the toaster plug.

thanks for all of the helpful replies. hopefully i can get some stuff together soon. -scott

definately a dandelion. so exactly how many petals are we looking at? that is some painstaking work.

Power Macintosh 266 Mhz G3 384 MB RAM, 16 MB V-RAM driving a 20" monitor 2 MB V-RAM driving a 16" monitor

hmm, stuffit deluxe costs money, right? i suffer from cheap-bastard syndrome. looks like i might have to suck up and deal on this one. thanks for the info. i'm still interested in knowing about tips and tricks pertaining to the actual file and object coming out of carrara... -scott

hi kix, what magazine? -scott

that all sounds great. has anyone heard what the targeted minimum system requirements are? unfortunately i may have to buy a new computer before i can upgrade. my poor beige g3. may it rest in peace...

bust out the money for quicktime? quicktime pro only costs 30 beans, and it lets you do simple cut copy paste as well as minor compositing. you can then export to a variety of file formats. it's not a major investment. and think how happy you would make all of us mac users. here's hoping...

wow, kermit is really coming along. keep up the good work kix! -scott

hello fabien,

i'm a judge for the city-scene contest. i think the
discussion you and kix are having is important. here
is my interpretation on the rules and my judging
criteria. this may be useful to anyone considering
entering the competition.

as kix said, the true spirit of the contest is to
push the limits both in modeling and texturing/
rendering in carrara. however, he is correct that
amapi was included version 1.1 of carrara released by
eovia. to me this is good enough to be considered the
same technology.

in general, it is less important to me which software
you model objects in, than it is you model the
objects yourself. while the contest permits the use
of borrowed models, i think it comes down to a matter
of integrity. if you use models others have created,
you avoid 1/3 of the process and really miss out on
the thrill of creating your own scene. however, this
is a matter of personal feeling. i will not base
judgments on this.

one of the reasons i suggested a cityscape was that
it allowed for people of all levels of modeling skill
to make a competitive entry from a modeling perspective.
one can create a spline-modeled building or a vertex-
modeled building and they will look fairly similar. so
modeling skill shouldn't be the basis of a win or loss.

to sum up a long-winded posting, the criteria that i
will base my decision on are: (in order of importance)

lighting
texturing
modeling
composition
color scheme
depth of field
interpretation of theme

i hope this has been helpful to all potential entrants.
if there are further questions pertaining to my criteria,
please feel free to ask.

regards,
-scott