2023 Collab: Week 20 “Library” - VOTE CLOSED

[FedPete]

This is the Blender Collaboration 2023, week 20 challenge. Don’t be afraid to join, a lot of us are beginners. This is all to practice, have fun, learn, and get together.

This week’s subject is “Library”.

• Library - From single books or scrolls, through a great library of Alexandria or medieval fantasy magic library up to modern bookstore or even digital library. So one can go very sci-fi/cyberpunk with this) or personal library?
• Subject selected by the previous Week 18 “Games” winners Medial and visionary5

The rules are simple. 1 subject, 1 entry, 1 week.
You create whatever object or scene or whatever you can think of that has something to do with the subject. It can be as simple or complicated as you want, all entries are welcome!
Post your picture here in this thread. And at the end of the week, we start to vote. And if you are the winner, you may choose the next subject and win a unique badge.

Deadline: 2023-05-20T21:55:00Z

• Last week’s collab: Blender Collab: Week 19“ 1950s ”
• Next week: 21 - Crime Scene.
• See all previous challenges in Hall of Fame 2023
• Halls of fame 2022, 2021, 2020

If you want to stay informed of the @ BlenderCollab ?
Subscribe or unsubscribe to this “BlenderCollab” group.

[3DE_Study]

This is an image I had made some months ago. However, this is not a submission. I spent way more than a week making everything in the scene and even longer trying to study light. I saw in the description “personal library” so I thought I’d post this to help others with ideas.

[FedPete]

Really well performed scene. Great lighting and color range.

[VVruba]

Ok, I think I’ll have to settle for this. There is a lot of empty space I wanted to fill and there is a big lack of details but I’m too tired to continue and the scene is getting really sluggish making it hard to work on it. I’ll probably revisit it and finish my “vision” sometime later but for this collab, this will have to do.

Progress GIF

[NP5]

Did you use a book generator?

[VVruba]

I made a model in a book-like shape, then used a simple geometry nodes setup with some randomness added to the geometry thickness and height to distribute them. I also used a colour ramp in the book material to give each instance a “random” colour.

Summary

Book:

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Geometry Nodes:

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Material Nodes:

If I can I’d like to expand this system a bit to add some texture to the books, some random ornamentation and text on the book spine. I want to get the overall feel of the scene right before that though and add the elements I’ve planned since I know from experience that going for those little details can take longer than anticipated.

[FedPete]

My book solution was (before geo nodes), using shape keys.

[Kzanna]

@VVruba A real library, the feeling of the kingdom of books is 100% conveyed
Thanks for the explanations. I manually arranged the books, now I’ll try to figure out how to do it smartly

My version of the library. Do not ask who burns candles next to books. Obviously, this secret person is up to something.

[VVruba]

Haha thanks, but I think manual arrangement works better for your scene since it’s much smaller and we’re closer to the books. It is the smart way to do it in this scenario.
In my case, I wanted to make a “grand library” and the book count in the scene is probably in trillions at this point, so manual arrangement just wasn’t an option for most of it.

Summary

I still hope to add some manually placed elements though. Don’t really have much time left but hey, FedPete doesn’t usually start the poll until the next day morning so I may work on it through the night lol.

[ShadowFireSage]

heres mine didn’t get to finish it but still looks good i think

[ShadowFireSage]

gotta correct the uv coodinates and haven’t done any real lighting yet … still tho for the limited time i spend on it , it coming along rather well

[visionary5]

This one was harder than I thought. I changed my idea several times only to come back to this original scene. Lighting was a bit difficult. But in the end, I feel it tells the story I’m trying to tell.

[NP5]

Well I played with a downloaded book generator, geo nodes, it is not very good really. A different one as an add on would not install, mystified about that. That did book covers etc. Simplistic last min entry.
Could not scale the hdri. Must look into that, wanted the wall elements smaller, perhaps it is not possible?

Cycles, render time 24 seconds.

[FedPete]

We @BlenderCollab have a few days to vote. You can vote fast but also think slowly about design, colors, technique, difficulty, subject, realism, etc. Choose consciously and not on your own entry.

And the new subject week 21 “Crime scene” has already started. The winner of this week’s “Library” challenge may select a subject for next week 22 and wins a badge.

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Library

• VVruba
  

  

• Kzanna
  

  

• ShadowFireSage
  

  

• visionary5
  

  

• NP5
  

  

[Kzanna]

@VVruba I didn’t go for “grand library” because I didn’t know how to arrange lots and lots of books automatically
In such a round hall, something round suggests itself. For example a globe. Many libraries have globes.

I think I will also share how I made books.

Summary

my books

For the covers, I used a printable for mini-books covers to which I added an image of the side of the book.

The initial 18 copies differ in cover, I just moved UV map, the rest of the books are linked copies (Alt+D) with variable height and thickness.

@ShadowFireSage Everything is like in a real library. An open path to the librarian and the feeling that if you turn aside, you will get lost in the realm of knowledge.

@visionary5 A robot reading a paper book. Some things are eternal.
Lighting still needs some work. There are not enough contrasts to see the figure of the robot well. And the fire in the fireplace is too bright, it attracts the eye in the first place, distracting from the rest of the room.

@NP5 Somehow it reminds me of my school library (although it was much smaller and cramped)
Using the mapping node, you can change one of the scale values, the ndri seems to be stretched, and one side goes into the distance. but then the world is noticeably distorted on the sides of the distant side. (sorry for the clumsy explanation)
What is the name of this book generator? The spines of books are somehow strangely made, the shadows lie, as if they are tapering to the bottom like a cone

[NP5]

Blend Swap | Generated Books (Geometry Nodes) is the one I used. There is something wrong with the shading and I could not fix it. It is in the supplied set up. It is all geo nodes and not me friendly to fiddle with to try and fix.

https://ko-fi.com/s/9879a091a9 Is the one that just did not install, perhaps it needs an update to latest Blender versions?

[VVruba]

The shading problem in the first one is most likely due to full smooth shading being applied as opposed to partial one, without properly segmenting the mesh. I’m too lazy to make an account and look into how the add-on works or fix it but that’s what it looks like to me.

The second one wouldn’t install because it’s not a plug-in, it’s a zipped blend file with a geometry node tree. You have to extract it and either use that file as a base or append the geometry nodes and related textures to another file.

Summary

[NP5]

AH so simple! Thank You; It was worded as an add on so I treated it as one.

Just tried selecting the generated books and flat shading but nothing happened, I guess it is smooth shaded somewhere in the geo node spaghetti. It is generally not very good, scaling them in the provided way just makes them cut into each other or have gaps.

[VVruba]

Yes if it’s generated geometry then setting smooth/flat shading to the object holding it will do nothing since geometry nodes override it, you’d have to use the shade smooth node and check/uncheck the boolean:

That said geometry node objects still adhere to AutoSmooth when using the smooth node so if you use the Auto Smooth option and make sure the angle is not something like 180 degrees in Data Properties, it should work, I think: