Topics

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Off-Topic / What cg-related blogs / websites do you read?

« on: 2023-09-05, 09:45:04 »

As many 3d artists will probably agree, there are times at work where you're simply left waiting for a heavy scene to load or some large files to transfer and have nothing really important to do in-between. The obvious choices become to doom scroll through social media or read some news and stuff.

But I've always had an ambition to dedicate my work day for work. So if I'm waiting for something else to happen, I want to use this time to learn some more about what's happening in the world of CGI. So let's use this thread to share interesting blogs / websites / podcasts (maybe?) that unite us all in one way or another and that is CGI and everything related to it.

I will start. Recently this was posted on this same forum and I found a few stories that were quite interesting: https://composite.substack.com/ . Obviously, Behance is like a second Instagram for artists but one can only absorb so much visual material throughout the day until it all becomes dull and overstimulating.

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[Max] I need help! / River material

« on: 2023-06-30, 14:08:22 »

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to recreate a river material like in attached photos and I just can't create that kind of texture with procedural maps (the river will also have to be animated so needs to be procedural). I've tried Noise, Smoke, ProSimplex maps as well as OceanTex and combining them together, it just doesn't look real enough. Has anyone have any experience with this kind of material?

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[Max] Resolved Bugs / Can't produce a correct CMasking_Cryptomatte element

« on: 2023-01-13, 13:02:10 »

So I've been trying to make use of CMasking_Cryptomatte element with no success. I've followed official tutorial on Corona website, tried using different ID types in the element settings rollout, save the file in all kinds of formats and open it in Photoshop using Exr-IO plugin. Every single time, it opens a file with many layers in it but the actual monochrome masks for different materials or instances are not present.

After doing some digging up here in the forum there doesn't seem to be that many people facing the same issue so I want to believe the issue lies somewhere on my end, however I have no idea what else can be done in order to make this work. Has anyone else had trouble loading cryptomatte file into photoshop or is it just me?

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[Max] I need help! / [solved] Creating perforated brick wall

« on: 2018-05-09, 12:01:49 »

So has anyone ever had to do a perforated brick wall like the one in the example? I am wondering if it's better to just manually cut a texture and create an opacity map or is it better to create geometry and apply bare clay material of some sort to look like a piece of brick. The former method seems to be more flexible in case I need to adjust any settings of the wall. The latter on the other hand could look more realistic imo so I can't make up my mind. What are you experiences?

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Off-Topic / Help me choose a master's degree related to 3D

« on: 2018-02-13, 22:37:31 »

So I'm a working architect with a bachelor's degree from a rather small university in UK and have been dreaming for a couple of years now about continuing my studies and getting a master's degree in architecture. On the other hand, I really admire creating architectural images and thought maybe I should study something more towards 3d/visualization industry.

I'm not really sure what to look for since I in a way want to stay very close to architecture but also explore a bit more visual aspect of it rather than technical. Does anyone know any interesting degrees in a similar field?

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General CG Discussion / Compositing 8-bit into 32-bit images

« on: 2018-01-17, 20:21:43 »

So I'm learning more about linear workflow and working with 32-bit exr's in post work and was wondering what should be the process for compositing people, cutouts and other 8-bit images into 32-bit exr? My work is mainly architectural renders and it requires to have a lot of 2d information added in post. Is it only possible to do so by converting 32-bit file back to 8-bit? Or is there another way of putting things together?

7

Off-Topic / Structurising a texture library

« on: 2017-12-19, 17:41:53 »

So I have been collecting various textures for quite some time now and was never sure what is the best system to keep everything organized and quick to use. My current setup is that I have one folder called '_previews' where I have all the texture categories (brick, metal, wood, grunge, etc.) with their sub-categories and I only keep my diffuse textures here. Then I have the same category-tree in a folder called '_maps' where I put all the other maps (like gloss, bump, displacement, etc.) so if I find the diffuse I like, I change '_previews' to '_maps' in the folder path and get into the same folder except instead of diffuse I see other maps of those textures.

It takes so much time to sort every new collection to their actual folders and to separate each diffuse from other maps. On the other hand, when I'm browsing for textures, I don't need to click 4-5 times just to see another diffuse texture so it really helps.

As of right now, my texture library weights about 300gb and I'm already struggling a bit. But I believe professional freelancers or big offices must have much more and was wondering what system do they use to keep it nice and simple. I know Windows explorer might not be the best way to organize a file library but so far I haven't been able to find a better solution to this problem so I'm sticking to whatever works best.