Self Evaluation

I'm semi-pleased with my project, although there were some large problems that'll niggle at me now that I've submitted it.

Firstly, my roof line needed more detail - The British Museum didn't have all that detailed a roof edge (not counting the original glass dome), but mine is verging on simplistic, if not there already.

Secondly, I felt my textures were lacking - Many of them were obvious tiles.

Thirdly, my lighting is amateurish at best - I need to do some tutorials and learn more about lighting to better myself.

I think what I've learnt most from this is that I should learn to manage my time better, and try to spread out the work load so that, should I hit these bumps in the road, I can ask for assistance from the faculty and my peers.

Final Video

Have uploaded the video to Youtube. Here's the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIprCQVQWgg

Render Test

Technically rendered this last night, but my net's been silly so I'm only just uploading it.
This is a 320 x 180 render, straight to avi I made.
Realised for some reason that if I had the whole scene in a inverted sphere like I wanted, my shadows lifted off of the ground like in this video.



Instead, I just decided the black of 3DS Max Space works fine as a background.

Background Settings

OK, I'm not great with lighting, but this is probably as best an I'm going to get.

I also added some background objects, generic buildings, etc.

Going to animate it and render it off next.

Finished Diffuse Textures

Got lots of textures from www.cgtextures.com. Other than that, I used a few Arch & Design Textures, and a few additional textures I made in photoshop from photos I took while at the British Museum.
I've also added a road, expanded the ground, etc, to make the framing look more correct.



I still have to add some better lighting to the scene, as currently all I have is a skylight set with a red tinge which I need to change to it seems less...."salmon", along with a basic spotlight and omni setup.
I also need to add additional maps, such as bump and specular, on areas where it'll be noticable and effective.
That shouldn't take too long. Once that's done, I should be able to start on the actual animation.

Started Texturing.

Started texturing the model.
Added a few lights and turned on the MentalRay Renderer and set it upto HD vid-size.



I'm using a Multi/Sub-Object for the main building. I'll texture the others once the main one is done.

Still need to render it out, then run it through Fusion to get the right look.

OK - Final model. Don't have enough time to model it any better really. Need to texture and light it, then render it out.

I know it's not amazing, but I'm hoping it'll do.



I'm going to go for a dark industrial look, Black Iron, Chrome and stone textures for the most.

Last details

OK, I'm running a bit close to my deadline now, so I think I'll have to stop adding more detail.
Haven't been handling my time amazingly because it took so much effort to get accurate scale plans.







Here's the last few details I added - Put the fence around the building, and added windows to areas.

Fencing

Modelled a piece of fencing - make it uneven on one end so it's easy to repeat as instances in a row.

Most of My Model

Here's my model with more or less everything that's in the original picture I drew.



The image is a bit dark in this render, although that may just be my screen.
I realised after I'd gotten this far that there are still many parts of the model missing.
I need to model fencing, additional stone blocks, windows and ground.

The rest, I think I can get by with Textures.

Finer Details

Went in trying to do higher detail and more greatly match my original image.
Here's a few zoom-ins.

Cogs

Modeled the cog that I'll be using in my building - I'll largely make copies of it to use in my project.

The topology isn't all that great, but it looks good enough in the render.

Have started Modeling my Industrial version of The British Museum. Got the general shape in. Still working on it. Thought I'd post it now though before I continue.

Getting worried because, with the object scaled upto real sizes, 3D Studio Max is getting sluggish on my system...Items keep disappearing...

I've imported the images into 3DS Max on planes and have scaled them, thanks to their scale markers, upto the correct size - My stage is now the same size as the building in Metres, etc.

I've now also drawn out a few plans for how I imagine the Building.


Abstract Style - Based on the Sydney Opera House


Industrial Style - Lots of moving parts


Energy Conservative - Solar Tower and Panels, etc.

I think I like the industrial one the most.

Got some reliable Plans

Ok, Went to The British Museum over the weekend and accessed their archives.
I found plans from 1807 of the building, with a scale, on Microfilm.
Printed off some copies of 25 or so useful seeming pages. (There was over 150 pages...a surprising amount of which were basement images...)
Anywho, re-scanned the images onto a pc, but for some reason they exported from the scanner as a multi-image tif file... Got preoccupied with other things, and only just got around to converting them to jpegs. These are a few of them.