This question came to us from Mick Jackson via Facebook. He asked if we could replicate an image featuring a cluster of reflective glowing orbs in modo, and we couldn’t resist! Eight minutes from start to finish, baby!
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Adam O'Hern is an industrial design consultant specializing in visual brand languages, and has designed products ranging from laptops to power tools, classroom toys to bathroom fixtures, and robots to lint rollers. He has published with 3DWorld Magazine, CGTuts+, and Luxology, and works with Josh Mings of SolidSmack.com on EngineerVsDesigner.com. |
Great tutorial Adam. Learned a lot. thanks.
Glad to hear it, Farzan! :)
Nice and quick tutorial, now I’ve done my first modo rendering. but it took me longer than 8-minutes…
[img]http://cadjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Untitled.JPG[/img]
[img]http://cadjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Untitled 2 .JPG[/img]
Great work, Raymond! :)
Thanks for that!
I was only expecting a quick tip, not a full tut! I will try this when I get home from work later. Thanks again!
Thanks Adam, as usual you explain everything clearly and show every step in a way that in, not only easy to follow but, a way that gives a more thorough understanding of the ‘why’.
I have my first attempt but there is some problem with the gradient changing the colours of the spheres. For some reason whatever I do I cannot get the colours to change. Anyhoo, here is my first attempt… Coupled with your technique for DOF from the Coffee shop tut, excellent time saver btw :D.
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z267/mick666jackson/ModoBalls_01.png
Great work! I’d have to see the file to know why the spheres won’t change color. Since you can attach files to comments now, try responding to this comment with an attached .lxo file and I’ll take a look!
Adam
Will do, thanks. To be honest it was my first attempt at using the gradient in modo, so it will probably be some basic error.
[file]http://cadjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ModoBalls.lxo[/file]
I have, thought of a way around it by creating a few poly planes which have been linked to a few spheres… But that is a cowards way out :P
As I suspected: the ParticleID for each replica instance is actually a decimal value between zero and one, so all of your random color variations need to be between zero and one on the graph (see attached).
Adam
[file]http://cadjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ModoBalls-ao.lxo[/file]
[img]http://cadjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Capture.PNG[/img]
Wow! Well, that has made one hell of a difference! A few minor gamma and white level tweaks, within modo pre-save, and using the DOF trick and I am well pleased… Thanks for your help!
[img]http://cadjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ModoBalls_04.png[/img]
Killer! BTW being able to attach files to comments kicks some serious arse!
Great tut Adam!
Could you defeat the bug by changing the original sphere’s axis down to it’s bottom?
Good thought, but unfortunately that mucks up the random rotation, since rotation happens about the object center. :(
The only thing I did different, apart from guffing the Gradient, was to keep the Sphere at the origin, then creating the ‘Surface’ plane, keeping both centred about the origin. Then I created the floor plane and then moved that, -500mm on the Y-Axis, to align with the bottom of the sphere.
Not exactly a ground-breaking revelation but cuts out a few move operations but seemed to be more logical having watched through the whole tut.
Yeah, if I’d anticipated the bug before recording I would have done things in a different order! :)
I know what you mean. I have had to teach myself Autodesk Inventor, which I have been using for about 2 1/2 years, and I have been repeatedly horrified at the way I have created assemblies or even standard or sheet metal parts. I have had to completely redo some components because it was quicker.
Ah, the joy of hindsight!
*Quicker than fighting through the corrections and complete FUBAR I have made of some parts because I knew no better at the time.