Things on the Road - Collab 2021W03 Diary

bOBaN · January 19, 2021, 8:49am

So finally I decided on something for this week’s

This time I decided to document my progress (and hopefully get some input on the direction I’m taking it).

I have some vision in my head, but lack drawing skills to convey it clearly (I sketched it, but am too ashamed to show it ), so I’ll just describe it. The scene is “simple” - night time, foggy road, very little light. Policy barricade. Car speeding towards it.

Here’s my initial reference board:

Area capturing general mood I’m aiming for
Some references on barricades I can put
Some references for street lights
References for a road surface
General layout of road blockade references
Very good impression of what I have in mind, but in daylight
The closest image I found to what I have in my mind (but lacking barricades)

My overall learning goals for this week are:

Learning texture painting with substance.
Practicing lighting / perspective and scene composition (that is area I love to work on ). What I hope to convey is really cool light interaction (police red/blue lights vs some barely working street lamps vs moonlight).

The project might be too ambitious for just couple of evenings. So my plan is:

focus on modeling/texturing of street, barricades and street lamps
focus on lighting/composition
if time permits: model police car and running car (not need to be very detailed due to low lighting in the scene), but most probably find some assets for using in the scene
most probably (if I find anything good) policeman will be from blender swap or makehuman (or I’ll not put any policeman)

As I’m totally new to substance I might fail in making cool-looking models. So backup plan is: make a low poly scene . After 1 Month of Low Poly Practice Challenge - Finished! I feel quite confident that I could pull it off in 1 day.

@Marc_Carlyon @FedPete I put this topic in general #blender:showcase category as I didn’t want to “pollute” #blender:blender-collab, but if you think it fits better there I’ll move it

FedPete · January 19, 2021, 8:23am

The idea is not to overflow the “Show” category, where students, following these courses will show their related work. That is why Marc created a new category to give the us more attention value. But also to let “Show” to be more related to the course. Less clutter.

With that thought it is better to move non course related projects to the collab part. And keep the “Show” category relatively clean.

bOBaN · January 19, 2021, 8:27am

Thanks for clearing this up and moving the topic here

bOBaN · January 20, 2021, 9:28pm

Tuesday progress: n/a (due to weather conditions spent to much time in the traffic so was too tired after work for Blender)
Today’s progress: -1 (I finished the blockout, but by my own stupidity messed up the file; not too much of a work done, so not a big deal, but annoying).

So… not a great start, but I’m not giving up. Hoping to re-do at least the blockout still today

Here’s my “project plan” btw.

Edit: yeah, slim chances that I’ll do modelling part of today’s plan but I will at least try

bOBaN · January 20, 2021, 10:37pm

Basic blockout done:

With some colors:

I didn’t bother with rocks, and foliage in the blockout as I plan to use particles to scatter them around… (if I’ll have enough time to add it )

bOBaN · January 20, 2021, 11:32pm

State for end of today:

So in summary, I’m behind the schedule

FedPete · January 21, 2021, 8:41am

What is the story you want to tell the viewer?

bOBaN · January 21, 2021, 9:14am

The story is quite simple. A criminal (orange car in the blockout) is escaping from a late night casino robbery (maybe in a place like Las Vegas, hence the desert environment) and police figured out which road he will take so set up a blockade there .

Edit: in general I want to catch a dramatic moment just before arriving at the blockade. Will the criminal stop? Will he crash at the blockade? Maybe he has a chance to escape?

FedPete · January 21, 2021, 9:24am

I understood and try not to make you confused …
But has the police time to add big, heavy road blocks on time?
The imagery give more an idea of a long term blockade, as in forrest fire etc. because nobody can pass the checkpoint …

It would be more police cars in front and the back of the thief.
Where lies the centre point of attention in this story…

bOBaN · January 21, 2021, 9:49am

Good questions! Thanks!

That’s very good point and I actually was thinking about it, as early as collecting the reference material :D. I want to make a concrete barricade to learn how to make good concrete texturing with substance . Though I’m not fixated on that (I specifically named the task “roadblock” to be less specific and added a note to the task about it). Your comment might be the tipping point for non-concrete barricade

Good point! More cars in the blockade and some more chasing him!

I don’t know yet . I was jumping between the criminal, the blockade, the police… I don’t have clear vision of it in my mind. I tried a different camera positions and angles with this simple blockout, but noting did “jump at me” (each was kind of a ‘meh’). I hope that with each iteration on it I will find better and better approximation for it…

Now that you gave me the hint about ‘more police’ I will also try another take - the criminal as a center point, but the observer is in a helicopter chasing him as well…

FedPete · January 21, 2021, 9:58am

Decisions, decisions … I have the same; “It start with an idea, I want to …”.
Then you forget the real point.

Why not create a road block, with an emergency situation. Far behind the roadblock, a forest fire or a nuclear plant (with smoke). All the moodboard aspects are there. roads, landscapes, buildings, blocks, police … just an idea. NOT TO CONFUSE YOU!

bOBaN · January 21, 2021, 10:08am

confusion is good . Especially at the early stages. And actually you are providing what I asked for at the beginning - valuable input.

I’m not fixated on anything for the final output. The goal as usual is to learn something new (substance for baking and texturing in this case). If I only make cool looking traffic cone or a street lamp for the submission, I’ll be fine with it too . Especially, that I didn’t do anything realistic for quite a long time…

The nuclear plant has it’s merrits too! Like the fact that’s a thing made with a loads of concrete on the outside . Plus it’s even more dramatic situation then a police chase… and it’s not as cliche as police chase . Let’s put it that way: I will be thinking hard about it

Edit: plus with some free models I probably can experiment with multiple scenes before committing to anything

bOBaN · January 21, 2021, 11:04am

… so during a coffee break I did search for some more reference images about police blockades (and similar). And concrete barriers are seldom found in this context . Mostly in game images. Maybe that’s why I had this image in my mind. The most frequent images are just police cars blocking the road, sometimes with a traffic cones (on the other side of the blockade, so at least that part I had correct), sometimes with wooden or plastic barricades.

Also I did look up some text-based materials about barricades, barriers and it’s uses etc. I even skimmed through a manual for one . That’s also fascinating topic in itself. Though stopping escaping criminals is not an intended use case for them .

So the idea of using concrete barricades for car chase is out of picture. Now need to decide between more permanent disaster situation with them, or sticking with car chase with other barricades or non at all . Decisions, decisions, decisions

bOBaN · January 21, 2021, 7:48pm

Ok, so after a long, long thinking about it… I am going with more dramatic setup - meltdown in the reactor.

Here’s new blockout and an angle for camera I like:

The cars are by MAC2001 (CC-BY) from blenderswap: https://blendswap.com/blend/20961 and https://blendswap.com/blend/22404.

Placeholders for traffic cones and barricade also from blenderswap: https://blendswap.com/blend/21865 (by jeandiz, CC-0) and https://blendswap.com/blend/25811 (by colkaih, CC-0).

I will not have enough time to model cars, so most probably they will stay. Redoing barricades and traffic cones are a learning priority.

Now it’s time to do preliminary lighting and then focus on modeling and texturing. I need to figure out also how to do fire and smoke in Blender…

FedPete · January 21, 2021, 7:57pm

Much better visual story, don’t you think.

bOBaN · January 21, 2021, 8:14pm

For sure! Thanks for the tips

… and I get to model and texture the concrete barrier (I really don’t know why I am fixated on this one )

bOBaN · January 21, 2021, 9:22pm

First lighting pass:

now off to figure out how to start a fire

bOBaN · January 21, 2021, 10:54pm

Ok, it’s not perfect but I think I got mantaflow to work in a way that makes a sense for this scene. I’ve played around with compositor a bit as well.

Now what is left is to remodel and texture the barricade, lamps and traffic cones. And add some things on the ground as it is a bit empty (maybe texture, some rocks and some kind of foliage). What else could be improved?

But overall, aside from the lamp post I wouldn’t be ashamed to submit it as it is now…

Jaco_Pretorius · January 22, 2021, 8:13am

It’s looking good.
Remember the 80/20 rule: 20% of the work takes 80% of the time… so be careful about what you spend time on.
I think the cones and barricades should be left till last as efforts spent on them would give the least back to the scene. Find the things that stand out and fill the scene and focus on those…

The lamp-posts take up a lot of space so you can have a quick win making those better… the cones, not so much.

Maybe even more motion-blur on the moving car? Maybe motion-blur on the camera matching the car? With that you can probably forgo any additional clutter (folliage, rocks, etc) and just texture the sand and road a bit and that would be enough…

FedPete · January 22, 2021, 8:22am

I do not want to nitpick, but those three towers are by function cooling towers. They are empty inside. Nothing to burn. But I don’t think many will notice.
I like how your story unfolds. Where there is fire, there is the fire brigade. So maybe tiny red/blue lights around the towers. To give an impression of being present.

And how about your chopter, flying toward the buildings. Just a silhouette in the sky and a searchlight …

Add here then there some tiny details, road signs, bushes … tiny barricade lights … so much to do for then next four weeks … Just kidding.